Results for 'William Fitzpatrick'

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  1. Derrida's Territorial Knowledge of Justice.William Conklin - 2012 - In Ruth Buchanan, Stewart Motha & Sunday Pahuja (eds.), Reading Modern Law: Critical Methodologies and Sovereign Formations. London: Rutledge. pp. 102-129.
    Peter Fitzpatrick’s writings prove once and for all that it is possible for a law professor to write in beautiful English. His work also proves once and for all that the dominating tradition of Anglo-American legal philosophy and of law teaching has been barking up the wrong tree: namely, that the philosopher and professional law teachers can understand justice as nested in empty forms, better known as rules, doctrines, principles, policies, and other standards. The more rigorous our analysis or (...)
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  2. Consequences of Calibration.Robert Williams & Richard Pettigrew - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:14.
    Drawing on a passage from Ramsey's Truth and Probability, we formulate a simple, plausible constraint on evaluating the accuracy of credences: the Calibration Test. We show that any additive, continuous accuracy measure that passes the Calibration Test will be strictly proper. Strictly proper accuracy measures are known to support the touchstone results of accuracy-first epistemology, for example vindications of probabilism and conditionalization. We show that our use of Calibration is an improvement on previous such appeals by showing how it answers (...)
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  3. Publicity and Common Commitment to Believe.J. R. G. Williams - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (3):1059-1080.
    Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...)
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  4. Re-framing the debate over animal morality.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2020 - EurSafe Newsletter 22 (1):3-6.
    Is morality uniquely human or does morality exist in at least some non-human animals? Are animals full-fledged moral creatures or do they merely exhibit proto-morality—evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article? Such questions, prompted by remarkable advances in empirical research into the social and emotional lives of non-human animals, have aroused much recent interest amongst scientists, philosophers, and in the popular media, not least for their apparent bearing on questions of human uniqueness, evolution, and (...)
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  5.  85
    Equality, ambition and insurance.Andrew Williams - 2004 - Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 78 (1):131-150.
    It is difficult for prioritarians to explain the degree to which justice requires redress for misfortune in a way that avoids imposing unreasonably high costs on more advantaged individuals whilst also economising on intuitionist appeals to judgment. An appeal to hypothetical insurance may be able to solve the problems of cost and judgment more successfully, and can also be defended from critics who claim that resource egalitarianism is best understood to favour the ex post elimination of envy over individual endowments.u.
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  6. Intersections between Neorealism, Neoliberalism, and Constructivism in IR Theory.Damian Williams - manuscript
    Albert and Cederman couch the neorealist perspective in terms of ‘systems’ theorizing, Ferguson and Mansbach rhetorically discuss issues and non-issues which are readily addressed within the neoliberal perspective, and of course, Onuf is unabashedly a constructivist. Below, I discuss each theoretical perspective relative to the articles assigned, and, thereafter conclude with some observations on the three articles and theoretical frameworks.
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  7. Affect, desire and interpretation.Robert Williams - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.
    Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded, that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on which correct (...)
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  8.  65
    Justified Exception to the Prohibition on Use of Force.Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    After nearly 76 years following the UN Charter, the dominant feature of the multilateral international order has shifted from a focus on states’ sovereignty to the rights of the individual. It is now widely accepted that human rights are not the province of any one state’s domestic affairs, but of importance to the entire international community. The UN Security Council sits atop the supra-state order, and holds the ultimate authority to initiate consensus-based, collective action so as to limit or prevent (...)
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  9.  58
    Do Ambiguities in International Humanitarian Law make Cyberattacks more Advantageous?Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    Does it seem that with each reported state cyberattack, there comes an announcement of discovery, an attribution to one of a handful of usual suspects, some threatening language suggesting imminent retribution, and then nothing more? Increased incidence of cyberattack makes its occurrence seem simultaneously rampant in terms of publicity and minimal in terms of threat of war. If rampant, how can repeated deployment by the same actors carry no punitive consequences? How is such audaciousness tolerated? For some, a cyberattack by (...)
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  10.  52
    EQUIANO's MODERNITY: The Context in which Freedom from Slavery was Achieved.Damian Williams - manuscript
    For the purposes of this enquiry—an account of what Equiano’sa modernity was, and which particular historical ‘demarcations’ of modernity provided for an enslaved man to achieve freedom through great fortune and great cunning, I will assume a definition of ‘modernity’ as defined by Kathleen Wilson: “. . . not one moment or age, but a set of relations that are constantly being made and unmade, contested and reconfigured, that nonetheless produce among their contemporaneous witnesses the conviction of historical difference.” By (...)
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  11.  52
    Rousseau and Humankind’s Decadency.Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    For Rousseau, humankind is in a perpetual state of decay—decadency from an earlier, natural, primitive, and perfect state. For Rousseau, the natural man, or man in the state of beast, was of an era where humankind was unencumbered by that which is now entirely associated with society—that is, “. . . establishment of laws and of the right of property . . . the institution of magistracy . . . and the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power.” For Kant, humankind (...)
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  12.  51
    Kant's Universal Law and Humanity Formulae.Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    Kant's formulae ought to effectively produce the same result when applied to the moral validity of any particular maxim; further, no valid maxim produces contradictory results when applied against Kant's Universal Law and Humanity formulae. Where one uses all formulae in the assessment of a maxim, one gains a more complete understanding of the moral law, thereby bridging principles of reason with intuition within the agent who has undertaken to evaluate the morality of a particular action. These formulae command without (...)
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  13.  51
    US Erosion of the Right to Asylum.Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    Under the UDHR, all persons have the right to "seek and to enjoy . . . asylum from persecution." From this designation as fundamental followed codification of the right in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating (collectively 'the Convention'), the "centrepiece" of treaties and customary norms that make up international refugee law. It defines and regulates the status and rights of refugees; its purpose is to safeguard the basic rights of persons "outside (...)
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  14. The "No Interest" Argument Against the Rights of Nature.Neil W. Williams - forthcoming - Philosophers' Imprint.
    Awarding rights to rivers, forests, and other environmental entities (EEs) is a new and increasingly popular approach to environmental protection. The distinctive feature of such rights of nature (RoN) legislation is that direct duties are owed to the EEs. This paper presents a novel rebuttal of the strongest argument against RoN: the no interest argument. The crux of this argument is that because EEs are not sentient, they cannot possess the kinds of interests necessary to ground direct duties. Therefore, they (...)
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  15.  49
    What is Justiciability?Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    Justiciability sets the boundaries of judicial review and the rule of law. A justiciable issue is that which is appropriate within a judicial forum. That is, where an "independent and impartial body" can remedy rights violations of identifiable claimants, the issue before it is justiciable. If it falls beyond what is judicially determinable, it is 'non-justiciable'. The principle is not fixed, as it does not permanently set the boundaries of that which is appropriate for judicial determination. Rather, it evolves "from (...)
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  16.  40
    Reactions to Positivist Hegemony in the Social Sciences.Damian Williams - forthcoming - Forthcoming.
    The local opposes the global or the macro opposes the micro and vice versa, respectively. This dialectical relationship further exposes that scales are socially and politically constructed, representative of a phenomena that is relational, and is thus of important consideration in analysis beyond simple labeling. That is, scale represents more than ‘size’ and ‘complexity’, but also reveals the relational. It is the relational—the relationship between the ‘global’ and its contents or the ‘local’—which provides for or is wont for analytic complexity (...)
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  17.  40
    The Phronetic Approach to Politics: Values and Limits.Damian Williams - manuscript
    A phronetic approach takes into account everything possible. By this, the phronetic researcher ought to be better-informed of the practical—that which is readily available in order to solve localized political problems and to direct political participants to think in terms of value-rational understanding and action. Phronetic knowledge ought to be of utility to the citizenry—and not only to academia. It does not only explain phenomena, but also provides for altering the outcomes associated with political phenomena by integrating value judgments and (...)
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  18. Kant against the cult of genius: epistemic and moral considerations.Jessica J. Williams - 2021 - In Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress: The Court of Reason. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 919-926.
    In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...)
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  19. Explanatory Depth in Primordial Cosmology: A Comparative Study of Inflationary and Bouncing Paradigms.William J. Wolf & Karim P. Y. Thebault - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    We develop and apply a multi-dimensional conception of explanatory depth towards a comparative analysis of inflationary and bouncing paradigms in primordial cosmology. Our analysis builds on earlier work due to Azhar and Loeb (2021) that establishes initial condition fine-tuning as a dimension of explanatory depth relevant to debates in contemporary cosmology. We propose dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy as two further dimensions of depth in the context of problems with instability and trans-Planckian modes that afflict bouncing and inflationary approaches respectively. In (...)
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  20. A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy.Elizabeth Barnes & J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 6. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 103-148.
    If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.
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  21.  86
    Why so Pessimistic about Human Rights?Damian Williams - 2013 - The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy 2013.
    Many will readily acknowledge there being rights of humans which trump the rights of states. Thus, these rights are aptly labeled ‘Human Rights,’ by which we may measure and admonish state-conduct. However, in contemporary Human Rights discourse, there is an emerging strand of thought in the academy that is Anti-Human Rights. To understand the foundations of Anti-Human Rights discourse, and to address the arguments that have been put forth, I analyze and incorporate the works of John O. Nelson, Raymond Geuss, (...)
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  22. Quantum Mechanics, Metaphysics, and Bohm's Implicate Order.George Williams - 2019 - Mind and Matter 2 (17):155-186.
    The persistent interpretation problem for quantum mechanics may indicate an unwillingness to consider unpalatable assumptions that could open the way toward progress. With this in mind, I focus on the work of David Bohm, whose earlier work has been more influential than that of his later. As I’ll discuss, I believe two assumptions play a strong role in explaining the disparity: 1) that theories in physics must be grounded in mathematical structure and 2) that consciousness must supervene on material processes. (...)
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  23. In search of animal normativity: a framework for studying social norms in non-human animals.Evan Westra, Simon Fitzpatrick, Sarah F. Brosnan, Thibaud Gruber, Catherine Hobaiter, Lydia M. Hopper, Daniel Kelly, Christopher Krupenye, Lydia V. Luncz, Jordan Theriault & Kristin Andrews - 2024 - Biological Reviews 1.
    Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...)
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  24. Eliminativism, Dialetheism and Moore's Paradox.John N. Williams - 2013 - Theoria 81 (1):27-47.
    John Turri gives an example that he thinks refutes what he takes to be “G. E. Moore's view” that omissive assertions such as “It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining” are “inherently ‘absurd'”. This is that of Ellie, an eliminativist who makes such assertions. Turri thinks that these are perfectly reasonable and not even absurd. Nor does she seem irrational if the sincerity of her assertion requires her to believe its content. A commissive counterpart of (...)
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  25. Bioéthique et "bioéthicien" : révélation d’une profession.Sihem Neila Abtroun & Bryn Williams-Jones - 2022 - In Christian Hervé, Michèle Stanton-Jean, Mylène Deschênes & Henri-Corto Stoeklé (eds.), Covid-19, One Health et intelligence artificielle. Paris, France: Dalloz.
    Depuis 2020, le monde a connu une situation sanitaire exceptionnelle à la suite de la pandémie de Covid-19, faisant face à une incertitude dans le monde médical clinique, de la recherche et dans l’ensemble des domaines connexes en santé publique. Le caractère imprévisible et l’absence de données fiables en lien avec ce virus ont fait émerger une quantité d’enjeux éthiques concrets, cela a donc révélé un domaine particulier, la bioéthique, et plus particulièrement une profession, les bioéthiciens. Les « bioéthiciens » (...)
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  26. Animal Culture and Animal Welfare.Simon Fitzpatrick & Kristin Andrews - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (5):1104-1113.
    Following recent arguments that cultural practices in wild animal populations have important conservation implications, we argue that recognizing captive animals as cultural has important welfare implications. Having a culture is of deep importance for cultural animals, wherever they live. Without understanding the cultural capacities of captive animals, we will be left with a deeply impoverished view of what they need to flourish. Best practices for welfare should therefore require concern for animals’ cultural needs, but the relationship between culture and welfare (...)
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  27. Animal morality: What is the debate about?Simon Fitzpatrick - 2017 - Biology and Philosophy 32 (6):1151-1183.
    Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. (...)
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  28. Chimpanzee normativity: evidence and objections.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (4):1-28.
    This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical (...)
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  29. Moral Realism, Moral Disagreement, and Moral Psychology.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2014 - Philosophical Papers 43 (2):161-190.
    This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment and (...)
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  30. Doing away with the No Miracles Argument.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2013 - In Dennis Dieks & Vassilios Karakostas (eds.), Recent Progress in Philosophy of Science: Perspectives and Foundational Problems. Springer.
    The recent debate surrounding scientific realism has largely focused on the “no miracles” argument (NMA). Indeed, it seems that most contemporary realists and anti-realists have tied the case for realism to the adequacy of this argument. I argue that it is mistake for realists to let the debate be framed in this way. Realists would be well advised to abandon the NMA altogether and pursue an alternative strategy, which I call the “local strategy”.
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  31. The primate mindreading controversy : a case study in simplicity and methodology in animal psychology.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2009 - In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds. Cambridge University Press. pp. 224--246.
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  32. Is Artificial General Intelligence Impossible?William J. Rapaport - 2024 - Cosmos+Taxis 12 (5+6):5-22.
    In their Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, Landgrebe and Smith (2023) argue that it is impossible for artificial general intelligence (AGI) to succeed, on the grounds that it is impossible to perfectly model or emulate the “complex” “human neurocognitive system”. However, they do not show that it is logically impossible; they only show that it is practically impossible using current mathematical techniques. Nor do they prove that there could not be any other kinds of theories than those in (...)
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  33. Morality and Religion.William Wainwright & Anne Jeffrey - 2023 - In Christian B. Miller (ed.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Ethics. Bloomsbury Academic.
    A number of important religious views entail that the ontological and epistemic relations between religion and morality are tighter than most secular thinkers suppose. We will focus on three theistic metaethical accounts of moral phenomena and moral knowledge: natural law theories, divine command theories, and divine will theories. These three types of accounts are among the most dominant in the philosophical literature on theistic ethics in contemporary anglophone philosophy, perhaps owing to their connection to major Western religions such as Christianity, (...)
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  34. Against Morgan's Canon.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2017 - In Kristin Andrews & Jacob Beck (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds. Routledge.
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  35. Realism and instrumentalism in Bayesian cognitive science.Danielle Williams & Zoe Drayson - 2024 - In Tony Cheng, Ryoji Sato & Jakob Hohwy (eds.), Expected Experiences: The Predictive Mind in an Uncertain World. Routledge.
    There are two distinct approaches to Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. Black-box approaches use Bayesian theory to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a cognitive system without reference to the mediating causal processes; while mechanistic approaches make claims about the neural mechanisms which generate the outputs from the inputs. This paper concerns the relationship between these two approaches. We argue that the dominant trend in the philosophical literature, which characterizes the relationship between black-box and mechanistic approaches to (...)
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  36. The Origin of Consciousness.Ronald Williams - forthcoming - Biologicaluniverse.Org.
    This paper explores the evolution of consciousness through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It proposes that the patterns and structures inherent in biological systems mirror the underlying mathematical principles of the cosmos. The essay traces the development of consciousness from its rudimentary state in cells to its complex state in humans, emphasizing the role of evolving environmental complexity in driving evolutionary changes. By recognizing and organizing themselves according to evolving patterns in their environment, organisms, including humans, have navigated (...)
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  37. The Spiritual Senses in Western Spirituality and the Analytic Philosophy of Religion.William J. Wainwright - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3 (1):21 - 41.
    The doctrine of the spiritual senses has played a significant role in the history of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox spirituality. What has been largely unremarked is that the doctrine also played a significant role in classical Protestant thought, and that analogous concepts can be found in Indian theism. In spite of the doctrine’s significance, however, the only analytic philosopher to consider it has been Nelson Pike. I will argue that his treatment is inadequate, show how the development of the (...)
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  38. Kelly on Ockham’s Razor and Truth-Finding Efficiency.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (2):298-309.
    This paper discusses Kevin Kelly’s recent attempt to justify Ockham’s Razor in terms of truth-finding efficiency. It is argued that Kelly’s justification fails to warrant confidence in the empirical content of theories recommended by Ockham’s Razor. This is a significant problem if, as Kelly and many others believe, considerations of simplicity play a pervasive role in scientific reasoning, underlying even our best tested theories, for the proposal will fail to warrant the use of these theories in practical prediction.
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  39. An introduction to cybernetics.William Ross Ashby - 1956 - London: Chapman & Hall.
    2015 Reprint of 1956 Printing. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Cybernetics is here defined as "the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine"-in a word, as the art of steersmanship; and this book will interest all who are interested in cybernetics, communication theory and methods for regulation and control. W. Ross Ashby (1903-1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of complex systems. His two books, (...)
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  40. The Affective Dionysian Tradition in Medieval Northern Europe.William Wainwright - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (2):21--34.
    Recent students of mysticism have sharply distinguished monistic from theistic mysticism. The former is more or less identified with the empty consciousness experience and the latter with the love mysticism of such figures as Bernard of Clairvaux. I argue that a sharp distinction between the two is unwarranted. Western medieval mystics, for example, combined the apophatic theology of Dionysius the Areopagite with the erotic imagery of the mystical marriage. Their experiences were clearly theistic but integrally incorporated ”monistic moments’. I conclude (...)
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  41. Nativism, Empiricism, and Ockham’s Razor.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (5):895-922.
    This paper discusses the role that appeals to theoretical simplicity have played in the debate between nativists and empiricists in cognitive science. Both sides have been keen to make use of such appeals in defence of their respective positions about the structure and ontogeny of the human mind. Focusing on the standard simplicity argument employed by empiricist-minded philosophers and cognitive scientists—what I call “the argument for minimal innateness”—I identify various problems with such arguments—in particular, the apparent arbitrariness of the relevant (...)
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  42.  43
    The Origin of Consciousness in a Biological Framework for a Mathematical Universe (1 Pager).Ronald Williams - manuscript
    This one page essay explores the evolution of consciousness through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It proposes that the patterns and structures inherent in biological systems mirror the underlying mathematical principles of the cosmos. The essay traces the development of consciousness from its rudimentary state in cells to its complex state in humans, emphasizing the role of evolving environmental complexity in driving evolutionary changes. By recognizing and organizing themselves according to evolving patterns in their environment, organisms, including humans, (...)
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  43. Distinguishing Between Three Versions of the Doctrine of Double Effect Hypothesis in Moral Psychology.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2014 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (4):505-525.
    Based on the results of empirical studies of folk moral judgment, several researchers have claimed that something like the famous Doctrine of Double Effect may be a fundamental, albeit unconscious, component of human moral psychology. Proponents of this psychological DDE hypothesis have, however, said surprisingly little about how the distinction at the heart of standard formulations of the principle—the distinction between intended and merely foreseen consequences—might be cognised when we make moral judgments about people’s actions. I first highlight the problem (...)
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  44. Avoiding anthropocentrism in evolutionarily inclusive ethics.Simon Fitzpatrick - 2020 - Animal Sentience 5 (29).
    Mikhalevich & Powell are to be commended for challenging the “invertebrate dogma” that invertebrates are unworthy of ethical concern. However, developing an evolutionarily inclusive ethics requires facing some of the more radical implications of rejecting hierarchical scala naturae and human-centered conceptions of the biological world. In particular, we need to question the anthropocentric assumptions that still linger in discussions like these.
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  45. A Uniform Theory of Conditionals.William B. Starr - 2014 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 43 (6):1019-1064.
    A uniform theory of conditionals is one which compositionally captures the behavior of both indicative and subjunctive conditionals without positing ambiguities. This paper raises new problems for the closest thing to a uniform analysis in the literature (Stalnaker, Philosophia, 5, 269–286 (1975)) and develops a new theory which solves them. I also show that this new analysis provides an improved treatment of three phenomena (the import-export equivalence, reverse Sobel-sequences and disjunctive antecedents). While these results concern central issues in the study (...)
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  46. Clarifying The Interface Theory of Perception Using The Biological Framework.Ronald Williams - manuscript
    This essay explains Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception using The Biological Framework for a Mathematical Universe proposed by Ronald Williams. According to Hoffman, what we perceive is more like a “desktop interface with icons representing complex underlying processes, rather than a direct window into the true nature of the world." The theory of a biological framework for a mathematical universes suggests that these complex underlying processes of “the desktop interface with icons” contain correspondences to biological systems. For example, “the (...)
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  47. Gestalt psychology and the philosophy of mind.William Epstein & Gary Hatfield - 1994 - Philosophical Psychology 7 (2):163-181.
    The Gestalt psychologists adopted a set of positions on mind-body issues that seem like an odd mix. They sought to combine a version of naturalism and physiological reductionism with an insistence on the reality of the phenomenal and the attribution of meanings to objects as natural characteristics. After reviewing basic positions in contemporary philosophy of mind, we examine the Gestalt position, characterizing it m terms of phenomenal realism and programmatic reductionism. We then distinguish Gestalt philosophy of mind from instrumentalism and (...)
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  48. An Argument for Conjunction Conditionalization.Lee Walters & Robert Williams - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4):573-588.
    Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...)
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  49. Grounding cognition: heterarchical control mechanisms in biology.William Bechtel & Leonardo Bich - 2021 - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376 (1820).
    We advance an account that grounds cognition, specifically decision-making, in an activity all organisms as autonomous systems must perform to keep themselves viable—controlling their production mechanisms. Production mechanisms, as we characterize them, perform activities such as procuring resources from their environment, putting these resources to use to construct and repair the organism's body and moving through the environment. Given the variable nature of the environment and the continual degradation of the organism, these production mechanisms must be regulated by control mechanisms (...)
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  50. Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation.William Hirstein - 2005 - MIT Press.
    [This download contains the Table of Contents and Chapter 1.] This first book-length study of confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive science.
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