JULIAN DODD’S MUSICAL PLATONISM The purpose of the paper is to analyse Julian Dodd’s musical Platonism in the ontology of works of music. Dodd defends two views; first, that musical works are norm-types the tokens of which are dateable, locatable patterns of sounds. Second, that musical works are entities individuated purely in terms of how they sound. The main results of the analysis is the rejection of the following Dodd’s theses: 1. that types exist eternally; 2. that they are unstructured; (...) 3.that their identity is determined by the condition that something must meet to be one of its tokens. Keywords: ONTOLOGY OF WORKS OF MUSIC, MUSICAL PLATONISM, JULIAN DODD. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

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 (...) or sidesteps problems that have been raised for previous work in this area. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie i analiza kształtowania się pojęcia woli w starożytnej filozofii pogańskiej. W kontekście poglądów Sokratesa, Platona i Arystotelesa autor przedstawia wiele greckich intuicji dotyczących psychologii aktów moralnych i ludzkiego działania. Po pierwsze artykuł przedstawia doktrynę intelektualizmu etycznego, przypisywaną Sokratesowi, według której kognitywne elementy są głównym motywem naszych działań. Z tego powodu trudno znaleźć pojęcie wolnej woli w sokratejskiej antropologii. Po drugie artykuł prezentuje interpretację platońskiej antropologii, według której sferę thymos można nazwać proto-wolą. Ostatecznie autor ukazuje, jak trudno (...) jest znaleźć pojęcie woli w arystotelesowskiej etyce i antropologii, pomimo że Arystoteles bardzo szczegółowo wyjaśniał relacje między przekonaniami, pragnieniami i działaniem. Ani pro- airesis, ani boulesis nie mogą pełnić funkcji woli, szczególnie gdy wola ma być władzą, która pragnie, może wybierać ijest samodeterminującą się władzą. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

In the good old days, when general philosophy of science ruled the Earth, a simple division was often invoked to talk about philosophical issues specific to particular kinds of science: that between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Over the last 20 years, philosophical studies shaped around this dichotomy have given way to those organized by more fine-grained categories, corresponding to specific disciplines, as the literatures on the philosophy of physics, biology, economics and psychology--to take the most prominent four (...) examples--have blossomed. In general terms, work in each of these areas has become increasingly enmeshed with that in the corresponding science itself, increasingly naturalistic (in at least one sense of that term), and in my view, increasingly interesting. (shrink)

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 (...) interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

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.

Does consciousness survive bodily death? This question remains a profound, perennial mystery. Although scientific studies have focused on out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs), there is scant evidence to support the claim that consciousness survives death. Many speculative theories state that consciousness moves through various afterlife realities. Tantalizing clues are found in world religion, esoteric philosophy, extrasensory perception, hypnotic regression, and scientific experimentation. At the present time, there is an abundance of theoretical scholarly discourse on the topic of “survival.” (...) After 60 years of NDE research, common ground has been established from NDEers’ anecdotal evidence and perceptual experiences. (shrink)

Both in Polish and international literature Duns Scotus’ ethical thought has had a number of conflicting interpretations. The article presents the main elements of Duns Scotus’ ethical thought. The quaestions it tries to answer are the following: a) is Scotus’ ethics voluntaristic; b) if so, what type of voluntarism can one attribute to Scotus. Finding Scotus’ ethics moderately voluntaristic I distinguish and characterize three types of voluntarism that could be attributed to Scotus: psychological voluntarism (Duns finds the will more perfect (...) than the intellect as its acts are more perfect); theological voluntarism (Duns takes the Commandments of the first table to be obligatory in a stronger way than the Commandments of the second table), causal voluntarism (the will is taken to be the primary cause of free action, non determined even by the most perfect good). (shrink)

FRANCIS SUÁREZ’S VIEWS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD AND THE NATURAL LAW The article presents Francis Suárez’s views concerning the problem of the possibility of granting dispensation from the natural law by the absolute power of God. Suárez’s opinions on this matter were shown in his comprehensive work on the philosophy of law: De legibus ac Deo legislatore, in Book II De lege aeterna, naturali, et jure gentium, chapter XV entitled Utrum Deus dispensare possit in lege (...) naturali etiam de absoluta potestate. Analyzing the notion of natural law Suárez accepts the Thomistic formula, according to which, the created world is a collection of things with invariable natures. These natures require us to fulfil certain moral obligations and to act in a proper manner. And for this reason, natural law, included in the Decalogue, is invariable and even God is not able to grant its dispensation. The commandments involve an intrinsic principle of justice and obligation and for this reason they are not liable to dispensation. God cannot act contrary to His own nature and His being just, so He would not order people to do something intrinsically unjust. Doctor Eximius justifies moral norms expressed in the Decalogue axiologically, not in a voluntaristic way, by referring to God’s will alone. Suárez criticises both strong theological voluntarism, attributed to Ockham, as well as weak theological voluntarism, attributed to John Duns Scotus. Keywords: FRANCIS SUÁREZ, ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD, NATURAL LAW. (shrink)

God’s Knowledge of Future Contingents. John Duns Scotus’ Explanation The article concerns John Duns Scotus’ views on the problem of God’s knowledge of future contingents, presented by Scotus in his Lectura in librum primum Sententiarumd. 39, n. 1-93. He begins his analysis of the notion of God’s knowledge concerning the future events by criticizing two theories: first, the claim that the content of the idea of a thing, possessed by God, can include contingency of this thing; second, the claim that (...) eternity of God is simultaneous with the flowing time as a whole, and therefore His knowledge of future contingents is the knowledge of present contingents. Duns Scotus presents his own conception in the form of the following claims: (1) there is contingency in the reality, however, we are not able to prove it; (2) the proximate second causes are not the causes of contingency in things; (3) the main cause of contingency in reality is God, precisely His will. Thus, contingency is not an imperfection because it is produced immediately by God. The article also presents Scotus’ theory of synchronic contingency. This conception explains the possibility of God’s contingent knowledge of contingent reality. Keywords: John Duns Scotus, future contingents, God’s knowledge, free will, necessity, contingency. (shrink)

The paper presents Suárez’s view on the individuation of beings, which he developed in his Disputatio V, De unitate individuali eiusque principio. The aim, apart from simply presenting Doctor Eximius’s thought, is also to compare his views with his scholastic predecessors. When considering the question of individuation, Suárez remained under a considerable influence of the medieval tradition, which, however, he transformed in his writings according to his own convictions. He used the language of Duns Scotus when speaking of individuation and (...) determining it in terms of indivisibility, but rejected the idea of individuation by matter, classically attributed to the Thomistic School. Postulating the individuation principle, identified with the entity, and not with the act of existence nor the being of haecceitas, Suárez departed from non-classical interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas as well as from the Scotistic solutions, and postulated a view that to some extent resembled that of Ockham and Bonaventure, although Suárez does not explicitly refer to the latter. (shrink)

Wersja przedostatnia, z 2010 roku. Proszę cytować wersję opublikowaną. Pre-final version, from 2010. Please, quote the published version.

It is not uncommon in educational research and social science in general either to eschew the word truth or to put it in scare quotes in order to signify scepticism about it. After the initial wave of relativism in the philosophy of natural science, a second wave has developed in social science with the rise of postmodernism and poststructuralism. The tendency here is to relativise truth or to bracket out questions of truth. In contradistinction, this paper revindicates the metaphysical nature (...) of truth. Truth is a transcendental precondition of educational inquiry and is best understood as a formal, regulative norm. Realism about truth enjoins a defence of the correspondence theory, which is provided here. At the same time, however, the development of realism in the social sciences has ironically followed the postmodernists in its scepticism about truth and its rejection of the correspondence theory. This paper critically appraises such recent developments, since all research is unintelligible without realism about the social world and whether our substantive knowledge-claims correspond with it. (shrink)

The paper presents John Duns Scotus’ view on the relationship between the notions of person, individual being and incommunicability. Scotus’ opinions on this matter are presented in the context of the approaches taken by Boethius and Richard of St Victor. The main conclusions of the article are as follows. According to Scotus, although individual, the nature of God is communicable. Its individuality is not the effect of a causal relation, however God is an individual being per se. Due to the (...) communicability of God’s nature, each Person of God possesses divinity in full sense. Each God’s Person, as a person, has got two kinds of independence: actual and dispositional, hence one could say that each Person of God is necessarily independent. Individuality of a contingent being is an effect of a process of individuation, in which a neutral nature is contracted into the individual nature by the causal factor, i.e. the haecceitas. Nature as nature is communicable; however, nature which is individual is not communicable due to its individuality. Rational, created, and individual nature is the foundation of the realization of personality. A created person is independent, both in actual and dispositional sense, however, it is not necessarily independent as it has an obediental potentiality to be personified by another personhood. Separated soul (anima separata), in turn, is individual because of its haecceitas, which is the ultimate reality of the form. Because of this kind of individuality, this soul is incommunicable and it has actual independency, although it is not dispositionally independent. Thus, due to its dispositional dependency, the separated soul is not the person. (shrink)

(Part of a symposium on an OUP collection of Paul Russell's papers on free will and moral responsibility). Paul Russell’s The Limits of Free Will is more than the sum of its parts. Among other things, Limits offers readers a comprehensive look at Russell’s attack on the problematically idealized assumptions of the contemporary free will debate. This idealization, he argues, distorts the reality of our human predicament. Herein I pose a dilemma for Russell’s position, critical compatibilism. The dilemma illuminates the (...) tension between Russell’s critical and compatibilist commitments. The problem is not obviously insurmountable, and as a compatibilist who is sympathetic to the view, my aim is to spark further discussion. (shrink)

In the era of “big data,” science is increasingly information driven, and the potential for computers to store, manage, and integrate massive amounts of data has given rise to such new disciplinary fields as biomedical informatics. Applied ontology offers a strategy for the organization of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, logic, and philosophy. This book provides an introduction to the field of applied ontology that is of (...) particular relevance to biomedicine, covering theoretical components of ontologies, best practices for ontology design, and examples of biomedical ontologies in use. After defining an ontology as a representation of the types of entities in a given domain, the book distinguishes between different kinds of ontologies and taxonomies, and shows how applied ontology draws on more traditional ideas from metaphysics. It presents the core features of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now used by over one hundred ontology projects around the world, and offers examples of domain ontologies that utilize BFO. The book also describes Web Ontology Language (OWL), a common framework for Semantic Web technologies. Throughout, the book provides concrete recommendations for the design and construction of domain ontologies. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson’s compatibilism has had considerable influence. However, as Watson has argued in “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil”, his view appears to have a disturbing consequence: extreme evil exempts an agent from moral responsibility. This is a reductio of the view. Moreover, in some cases our emotional reaction to an evildoer’s history clashes with our emotional expressions of blame. Anyone’s actions can be explained by his or her history, however, and thereby can conflict with our present blame. Additionally, we (...) too might have been evil if our history had been like the unlucky evildoer’s. Thus, our emotional responses to the evildoer compromise our standing to blame them. Since Strawson’s view demarcates moral responsibility by moral emotional responses, his view appears to be self-defeating. In this paper, I defend the Strawsonian view from the reductio and self-defeat problems. I argue that two emotions, disgust and elevation, can be moral reactive attitudes in Strawson’s sense. First, moral disgust expresses neither blame nor exemption from responsibility. Instead, moral disgust presupposes blameworthiness but is instead a distinct response to the extreme wrongdoer. Secondly, moral disgust involves self-directed attitudes that explain away our apparent lack of standing to blame the evil agent. The structure of disgust as a reactive attitude is mirrored along the positive dimension by the emotion that Haidt has called “elevation”, a feeling of moral inspiration. I conclude by defending my view from objections about the moral appropriateness of disgust. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper assignments (...) in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

A common compatibilist view says that we are free and morally responsible in virtue of the ability to respond aptly to reasons. Many hold a version of this view despite disagreement about whether free will requires the ability to do otherwise. The canonical version of this view is reductive. It reduces the pertinent ability to a set of modal properties that are more obviously compatible with determinism, like dispositions. I argue that this and any reductive view of abilities faces a (...) significant challenge: it cannot adequately explain the freedom-grounding element of this ability. The problem has the form of a dilemma. This leaves reasons-responsive compatibilists with two options: abandon theories of free will grounded in abilities or abandon reductive theories of abilities. (shrink)

The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded features by imaginatively projecting them into the relevant regions of visual egocentric space. In this paper, I argue that amodal perception is not a single, unitary capacity. Drawing appropriate distinctions reveals amodal perception to be characterized not only by mental imagery, as Nanay suggests, (...) but also by genuinely visual representations as well as beliefs. I conclude with some brief remarks on the role of object-directed bodily action in conferring a sense of unseen presence on an object's occluded features. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson’s account of moral responsibility in “Freedom and Resentment” has been widely influential. In both that paper and in the contemporary literature, much attention has been paid to Strawson’s account of blame in terms of reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation. The Strawsonian view of praise in terms of gratitude has received comparatively little attention. Some, however, have noticed something puzzling about gratitude and accountability. We typically understand accountability in terms of moral demands and expectations. Yet gratitude does not (...) express or enforce moral demands or expectations. So, how is it a way to hold an agent accountable? In a more general manner, we might ask if there is even sense to be made of the idea that agents can be accountable—i.e., “on the hook”—in a positive way. In this paper, I clarify the relationship between gratitude and moral accountability. I suggest that accountability is a matter of engaging with others in a way that is basically concerned with their feelings and attitudes rather than solely a matter of moral demands. Expressions of gratitude are a paradigmatic form of this concerned engagement. I conclude by defending my view from the objection that it leads to an overly generous conception of holding accountable and suggest in reply that moral responsibility skeptics may not help themselves to as many moral emotions as they might have thought. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 46-48.

This paper focuses on the research field of machine ethics and how it relates to a technological singularity—a hypothesized, futuristic event where artificial machines will have greater-than-human-level intelligence. One problem related to the singularity centers on the issue of whether human values and norms would survive such an event. To somehow ensure this, a number of artificial intelligence researchers have opted to focus on the development of artificial moral agents, which refers to machines capable of moral reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. (...) To date, different frameworks on how to arrive at these agents have been put forward. However, there seems to be no hard consensus as to which framework would likely yield a positive result. With the body of work that they have contributed in the study of moral agency, philosophers may contribute to the growing literature on artificial moral agency. While doing so, they could also think about how the said concept could affect other important philosophical concepts. (shrink)

This is a response to Erman and Moller's response to our reply to their 'Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World', both also in this journal.

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper assignments (...) in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

I develop a new theory of properties by considering two central arguments in the debate whether properties are dispositional or categorical. The first claims that objects must possess categorical properties in order to be distinct from empty space. The second argument, however, points out several untoward consequences of positing categorical properties. I explore these arguments and argue that despite appearances, their conclusions need not be in conflict with one another. In particular, we can view the second argument as supporting only (...) the claim that there is not a plurality of categorical properties, and not the stronger claim that there are no categorical properties whatsoever. I then develop a new account of properties which capitalizes on this insight. (shrink)

The standard event-causal theory of action says that an intentional action is caused in the right way by the right mental states. This view requires reductionism about agency. The causal role of the agent must be nothing over and above the causal contribution of the relevant mental event-causal processes. But commonsense finds this reductive solution to the “agent-mind problem”, the problem of explaining the relationship between agents and the mind, incredible. Where did the agent go? This paper suggests that this (...) challenge against event-causal reductionism is importantly related to debates about fundamentality. It also suggests that extant event-causal answers to the agent-mind problem, ones that suggest that part of an agent’s mind can stand proxy for the agent herself, fail against the challenge. It sketches an alternative reductive view that appeals to entity grounding. This view resolves the commonsense challenge and promises to be theoretically fruitful with respect to other longstanding problems with the event-casual view. The paper concludes with a burden-shifting argument against emergentist agent-causal theories and non-reductive event-causal theories of agency. (shrink)

In a well-known apocryphal story, Theresa of Avila falls off the donkey she was riding, straight into mud, and injures herself. In response, she seems to blame God for her fall. A playful if indignant back and forth ensues. But this is puzzling. Theresa should never think that God is blameworthy. Why? Apparently, one cannot blame what one worships. For to worship something is to show it a kind of reverence, respect, or adoration. To worship is, at least in part, (...) to praise. You cannot praise and blame simultaneously. Indeed, Paul counsels against “back-talk” against God, suggesting we lack the standing to blame our creator (Romans 9:20). Drawing on Strawsonian theorizing about praise and blame, this paper argues that, surprisingly, a person can both blame and worship God. Although blameful worship is possibly epistemically akratic, it may sometimes be acceptable given our nature as finite, emotional beings. In fact, blaming God might on occasion be the only way we have to stand with God’s goodness despite apparent evidence of evil in the world. This suggestion, I’ll argue, should change the way we think about the problem of evil. The problem has interpersonal and moral psychological dimensions that merit serious attention. (shrink)

This paper articulates and responds to a challenge to contemporary compatibilist views of free will. Despite the popularity and appeal of compatibilist theories, many are left with lingering doubts about compatibilism. This paper explains this doubt in terms of the absurdity challenge: because a compatibilist accepts that they do not have causal access to all the actual sufficient causal sources of their own agency, the compatibilist can find their own agency absurd. By taking a cue from political philosophy, this paper (...) argues that a non-ideal construction of the problem of free will allows compatibilists to overcome this existential-metaphysical challenge, and by doing so, perhaps adopt a metaphysically progressive picture of human agency. (shrink)

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us confidence (...) in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

Bracket out the wrong of committing a wrong, or conspiring or colluding or conniving with others in their committing one. Suppose you have done none of those things, and you find yourself merely benefiting from a wrong committed wholly by someone else. What, if anything, is wrong with that? What, if any, duties follow from it? If straightforward restitution were possible — if you could just ‘give back’ what you received as a result of the wrongdoing to its rightful owner (...) — then matters are morally more straightforward. But in real-world cases that is often impossible, and questions of ‘how much, from whom and to whom?’ become far more vexing. The beneficiary disgorging all benefits of the wrong is part of the story, but where that is not possible or will not suffice to compensate the victim of wrongdoing we discuss various ways of allocating the cost of making the victim whole, including supplementation from public coffers. (shrink)

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and (...) the Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

Addiction theorists have often utilized the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant to illustrate the complex nature of addiction and the varied methodological approaches to studying it. A common purported upshot is skeptical in nature: due to these complexities, it is not possible to offer a unifying account of addiction. I think that this is a mistake. The elephant is real–there is a _there_ there. Here, I defend a dispositionalist account of addiction as _the systematic disposition to fail (...) to control one’s desires to engage in certain types of behaviors_. I explain this position, defend the inclusion of desires and impaired control, and flesh out the notion of _systematicity_ central to my account. I then illustrate how my dispositionalist framework can unify the disparate and seemingly incompatible accounts of addiction (and their respective methodological approaches). I close with a brief plan to extend and implement my account. (shrink)

In Pascal Boyer’s book Religion Explained inference systems are made to do a lot of work in his attempts to explain cognition in religion. These inference systems are systems in the brain that produces inferences when they are activated by things we perceive in our environment. According to Boyer they perceive things, produce explanations, and perform calculations. However, if Wittgenstein’s observation, that “only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it (...) has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious” is correct then it seems that Boyer’s talk of inference systems perceiving and inferring is confused. (shrink)

In seeing a tilted penny, we are experientially aware of both its circularity and another shape, which I dub ‘β‐ellipticality’. Some claim that our experiential awareness of the intrinsic shapes/sizes of everyday objects depends upon our experiential awareness of β‐shapes/β‐sizes. In contrast, I maintain that β‐property experiences are the result of what Richard Wollheim calls ‘seeing‐in’, but run in reverse: instead of seeing a three‐dimensional object in a flat surface, we see a flat surface in a three‐dimensional object. Using this (...) new account, I re‐examine the phenomenological directness of visual experience and undermine an argument for skepticism about β‐property experiences. (shrink)

According to proponents of the extended mind, bio-external resources, such as a notebook or a smartphone, are candidate parts of the cognitive and mental machinery that realises cognitive states and processes. The present chapter discusses three areas of ethical concern associated with the extended mind, namely mental privacy, mental manipulation, and agency. We also examine the ethics of the extended mind from the standpoint of three general normative frameworks, namely, consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

Progress in addiction science is hampered by disagreements and ambiguity around its core construct: addiction. Addiction Ontology (AddictO) offers a path to a solution of the kind that has addressed similar problems in other areas of science: a set of clearly and uniquely defined entities to which terms such as ‘addiction’, addictive disorder’ and ‘substance dependence ’can be applied for ease of reference while recognizing that it is the construct definitions and their unique IDs that are central, not the terms.

According to memory foundationalism, seeming to remember that P is prima facie justification for believing that P. There is a common objection to this theory: If I previously believed that P carelessly (i.e. without justification) and later seem to remember that P, then (according to memory foundationalism) I have somehow acquired justification for a previously unjustified belief. In this paper, I explore this objection. I begin by distinguishing between two versions of it: One where I seem to remember that P (...) while also seeming to remember being careless in my original believing that P and the other where I seem to remember that P while not seeming to remember my past carelessness. I argue that the former case is the real challenge for memory foundationalism. After establishing the case of unforgotten carelessness as objection to memory foundationalism, I recast memory foundationalism in way that allows it to escape this objection. (shrink)

Is testimony a legitimate source of aesthetic belief? Can I, for instance, learn that a film is excellent on your say-so? Optimists say yes, pessimists no. But pessimism comes in two forms. One claims that testimony is not a legitimate source of aesthetic belief because it cannot yield aesthetic knowledge. The other accepts that testimony can be a source of aesthetic knowledge, yet insists that some further norm prohibits us from exploiting that resource. I argue that this second form of (...) pessimism has certain advantages over the first. I offer two candidates for the non-epistemic norm that, on this view, stands in the way of our taking aesthetic testimony. And I argue that this form of pessimism meets a challenge to pessimism in general – that of explaining why, if testimony cannot be a legitimate source of aesthetic belief, we can nonetheless rightly rely on the aesthetic recommendations of others. (shrink)

Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control positively affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Kinds of moral luck are differentiated by the source of lack of control such as the results of her actions, the circumstances in which she finds herself, and the way in which she is constituted. Many philosophers accept the existence of some of these kinds of moral luck but not others, because, in their view, the existence of only some of them would (...) make morality unfair. I, however, argue that this intermediary approach is unstable, because either morality is fair in ways that rule out resultant, circumstantial, and constitutive moral luck (and this leads to moral responsibility skepticism), or morality is unfair in ways that permit the existence of those kinds of moral luck. Thus, such intermediary approaches lack the motivation that their proponents have long taken them to have. In the appendix, I point to ways in which morality is unfair concerning the scope of moral responsibility, moral obligation, moral taint, being a good or bad person, and flourishing. (shrink)

The world of artificial intelligence appears to be in rapid transition, and claims that artificial general intelligence is impossible are competing with concerns that we may soon be seeing Artificial Godlike Intelligence and that we should be very afraid of this prospect. This article discusses the issues from a psychological and social perspective and suggests that with the advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence, something that looks to humans like Artificial General Intelligence has become a distinct possibility as is the idea (...) of making it semi-autonomous: not just responding to discrete external inputs or performing specific tasks but able to prompt itself to create an ongoing stream of cognition that can possess something akin to a ‘purpose’. Add to that the ability of computers to be connected in vast networks, and we can envisage intelligences with staggering amounts of knowledge and reasoning capability, engaging with humans to anticipate and grant wishes. Such Semi-Autonomous Godlike Artificial Intelligences (SAGAIs—meaning ‘engagements’ in Hindi) could end up like Kali, wreaking death and destruction on our species or like Thor, acting as a saviour and protector of humanity. Which of these our SAGAIs most resemble could depend on whose wishes it is designed to serve: a rich oligarchy seeking ever greater wealth and power whatever the cost to others, or a populace that has compassion for each other and for life on the planet. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag argumentieren wir, dass eine umfassende Implementierung sogenannter Nudges weitreichende Auswirkungen für rechtliche und politische Institutionen hat. Die wissenschaftliche Diskussion zu Nudges ist derzeit hauptsächlich von philosophischen Theorien geprägt, die im Kern einen individualistischen Ansatz vertreten. Unsere Analyse bezieht sich auf die Art und Weise, in der sich Anhänger des Nudging neuster Erkenntnisse aus den Verhaltenswissenschaften bedienen – immer in der Absicht, diese für effektives Regieren einzusetzen. Wir unterstreichen, dass die meisten Nudges, die derzeit entweder diskutiert werden oder (...) bereits implementiert sind, nicht Teil eines Rechtssystems sind und keinen normativen Charakter haben. Dazu unterscheiden wir zwischen zwei Idealtypen, um menschliches Verhalten zu beeinflussen, die wir als normativ bzw. instrumentell bezeichnen. Diese Idealtypen stehen für verschiedene Weisen, in denen öffentliche Regeln strukturiert werden können; sie erlauben uns, die institutionellen Implikationen von Nudges zu verstehen und zu bewerten. Hier betonen wir den Wert des Rechts als Absicherung gegenüber den möglichen schädlichen Konsequenzen von in der Politik und Regierungsführung eingesetzten Nudges. Unser Beitrag schließt mit Reaktionen auf einige Einwände, die unsere Vorschläge bereits erhalten haben. (shrink)