Anarchism is by far the least broadly understood ideology and the least studied academically. Though highly influential, both historically and in terms of recent social movements, anarchism is regularly dismissed. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach is a welcome addition to this growing field, which is widely debated but poorly understood. Occupying a distinctive position in the study of anarchist ideology, this volume, authored by a handpicked group of established and rising scholars, investigates how anarchists often seek to sharpen their message and (...) struggle to determine what ideas and actions are central to their identity. Moving beyond defining anarchism as simply an ideology or political theory, this book examines the meanings of its key concepts, which have been divided into three categories: Core, Adjacent, and Peripheral concepts. Each chapter focuses on one important concept, shows how anarchists have understood the concept, and highlights its relationships to other concepts. Although anarchism is often thought of as a political topic, the interdisciplinary nature of Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach makes it of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities. (shrink)

For each positive n , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are definitionally equivalent [or synonymous in the sense of deBouvere]. It (...) is further shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are definitionally equivalent with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories. (shrink)

Are there deep differences between these cultures in their ways of thinking? How can they be described? There is no neutral language for doing so. One can doubt all claims to deep essence as being metaphysical illusions and figments. However, the differences are certainly experienced. They can be characterized negatively. This is where Chinese and Western viewpoints meet. Whereas Jullien finds the cultural Other enabling him to think otherwise and effectively to keep the recursive self-negating aspect of discourse active and (...) alive in his own discourse, I attempt to do this by reference to the apophatic current underlying Western philosophical reflection in all its most radically critical and especially self-critical manifestations. Especially from consideration of Eastern approaches to universality, the apophatic wisdom that can be gathered here can serve to put us on guard against any universality that can be thought. Universality is not what it is thought to be by the universals that we can think. The naïve faith in thought and education as per se emancipatory is belied by history. The universal remains an ideal rather than a manifest fact in the course of history. It cannot be approached except always by way of the negative. (shrink)

JOHN CORCORAN AND WILIAM FRANK. Surprises in logic. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 19 253. Some people, not just beginning students, are at first surprised to learn that the proposition “If zero is odd, then zero is not odd” is not self-contradictory. Some people are surprised to find out that there are logically equivalent false universal propositions that have no counterexamples in common, i. e., that no counterexample for one is a counterexample for the other. Some people would be surprised to (...) find out that in normal first-order logic existential import is quite common: some universals “Everything that is S is P” —actually quite a few—imply their corresponding existentials “Something that is S is P”. Anyway, perhaps contrary to its title, this paper is not a cataloging of surprises in logic but rather about the mistakes that did or might have or might still lead people to think that there are no surprises in logic. The paper cataloging of surprises in logic is on our “to-do” list. -/- ► JOHN CORCORAN AND WILIAM FRANK, Surprises in logic. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] There are many surprises in logic. Peirce gave us a few. Russell gave Frege one. Löwenheim gave Zermelo one. Gödel gave some to Hilbert. Tarski gave us several. When we get a surprise, we are often delighted, puzzled, or skeptical. Sometimes we feel or say “Nice!”, “Wow, I didn’t know that!”, “Is that so?”, or the like. Every surprise belongs to someone. There are no disembodied surprises. Saying there are surprises in logic means that logicians experience surprises doing logic—not that among logical propositions some are intrinsically or objectively “surprising”. The expression “That isn’t surprising” often denigrates logical results. Logicians often aim for surprises. In fact, [1] argues that logic’s potential for surprises helps motivate its study and, indeed, helps justify logic’s existence as a discipline. Besides big surprises that change logicians’ perspectives, the logician’s daily life brings little surprises, e.g. that Gödel’s induction axiom alone implies Robinson’s axiom. Sometimes wild guesses succeed. Sometimes promising ideas fail. Perhaps one of the least surprising things about logic is that it is full of surprises. Against the above is Wittgenstein’s surprising conclusion : “Hence there can never be surprises in logic”. This paper unearths basic mistakes in [2] that might help to explain how Wittgenstein arrived at his false conclusion and why he never caught it. The mistakes include: unawareness that surprise is personal, confusing logicians having certainty with propositions having logical necessity, confusing definitions with criteria, and thinking that facts demonstrate truths. People demonstrate truths using their deductive know-how and their knowledge of facts: facts per se are epistemically inert. [1] JOHN CORCORAN, Hidden consequence and hidden independence. This Bulletin, vol.16, p. 443. [2] LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Kegan Paul, London, 1921. -/-. (shrink)

Cosmic Justice Hypotheses. -/- This applied-logic lecture builds on [1] arguing that character traits fostered by logic serve clarity and understanding in ethics, confirming hopeful views of Alfred Tarski [2, Preface, and personal communication]. Hypotheses in one strict usage are propositions not known to be true and not known to be false or—more loosely—propositions so considered for discussion purposes [1, p. 38]. Logic studies hypotheses by determining their implications (propositions they imply) and their implicants (propositions that imply them). Logic also (...) studies hypotheses by seeing how variations affect implications and implicants. People versed in logical methods are more inclined to enjoy working with hypotheses and less inclined to dismiss them or to accept them without sufficient evidence. Cosmic Justice Hypotheses (CJHs), such as “in the fullness of time every act will be rewarded or punished in exact proportion to its goodness or badness”, have been entertained by intelligent thinkers. Absolute CJHs, ACHJs, imply that it is pointless to make sacrifices, make pilgrimages, or ask divine forgiveness: once acts are done, doers must ready themselves for the inevitable payback, since the cosmos works inexorably toward justice. Ceteris Paribus CJHs, CPCJHs, on the other hand, such as “in the fullness of time every act will be rewarded or punished in exact proportion to its goodness or badness—other things being equal”, leave room for exceptions. For example, some people subscribing to Ceteris Paribus CJHs think that certain bad acts can be performed with impunity as long as certain procedures are carried out previous to, or simultaneous with, or even after the acts. Belief Ceteris Paribus CJHs has been exploited by unscrupulous “spiritual leaders” who claim to have power to grant exceptions. In opposition to belief in CPCJHs are CJHs that hold belief in CPCJHs to be inherently wrong and subject to punishment. Other variants of CJHs are Cumulative Cosmic Justice Hypotheses, such as “in the fullness of time every person will be rewarded or punished in exact proportion to the net goodness or badness of their acts”. Still other variants include the Hereditary Cumulative Cosmic Justice Hypotheses, such as “in the fullness of time every person will be rewarded or punished in exact proportion to the net goodness or badness of their ancestors’ acts”. [1] JOHN CORCORAN, Inseparability of Logic and Ethics, Free Inquiry, S. 1989, pp. 37–40. [2] ALFRED TARSKI, Introduction to Logic, Dover, 1995. (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that empathy is morally significant because it plays an important role in informing our moral deliberations. Empathy should be thought of not as an alternative to rational deliberation about how we are to act, but rather as an important input into such deliberation. -/- I focus on exploring what we learn when we empathize with the suffering of another person. Standard epistemic defences of empathy say only that such empathy will give us knowledge of which (...) affective states the suffering person is feeling. I add to those defences by arguing that empathy with a suffering person also gives us additional types of knowledge about the affective states that this person is feeling. Most significantly, I argue that empathizing with a suffering person gives us knowledge of the strength of one of our reasons to help that person. I call this the Normative Epistemic Claim. -/- In chapter 1, I contextualize my approach within the recent philosophical discussion of empathy. In the following chapter, I explore the relationship between empathy and altruism, and argue that there is an unanswered question about how empathy gives rise to altruistic motivation. I suggest that we should answer this question by considering the idea that empathy gives us phenomenal knowledge about the affective states of other people. I defend this idea in chapter 3, where I also relate it to the debate about phenomenal knowledge that has been stimulated by Frank Jackson’s example of Mary, the scientist who comes to see colour for the first time. In chapter 4, I begin to show the importance of phenomenal knowledge to moral deliberation. I argue that by giving us such knowledge, empathy with a suffering person also gives us knowledge of how intrinsically bad that person’s suffering is for them. In chapter 5, I extend this approach to defend the Normative Epistemic Claim. Finally, in chapter 6, I summarize the role of empathy in moral deliberation and broaden my discussion to include consideration of the significance that empathy has in inhibiting harming and in directing us to promote the joy of other people. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the “Austro-American” logical empiricism proposed by physicist and philosopher Philipp Frank, particularly his interpretation of Carnap’s Aufbau, which he considered the charter of logical empiricism as a scientific world conception. According to Frank, the Aufbau was to be read as an integration of the ideas of Mach and Poincaré, leading eventually to a pragmatism quite similar to that of the American pragmatist William James. Relying on this peculiar interpretation, Frank intended to (...) bring about a rapprochement between the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle in exile and American pragmatism. In the course of this project, in the last years of his career, Frank outlined a comprehensive, socially engaged philosophy of science that could serve as a “link between science and philosophy”. (shrink)

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 (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (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)

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 (...) cannot be legitimate rights-bearers. After considering and rejecting standard responses to this argument, the paper challenges its fundamental assumption: that rights-correlative duties must be grounded in the interests of the rights-bearer. The paper then presents the RoN critic with a dilemma. The critic must either accept that EEs are legitimate rights-bearers, or delegitimise many well-established rights-bearers along with EEs. Either way, the no interest argument loses its force. (shrink)

Some properties are causally relevant for a certain effect, others are not. In this paper we describe a problem for our understanding of this notion and then offer a solution in terms of the notion of a program explanation.

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 (...) the context of the latter issue, we argue that the recently formulated trans-Planckian censorship conjecture leads to a trade-off for inflationary models between dynamical fine-tuning and autonomy. We conclude with the suggestion that explanatory preference with regard to the different dimensions of depth is best understood in terms of differing attitudes towards heuristics for future model building. (shrink)

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. (...) I’ll argue that the first assumption appears to lead us toward Everett’s many worlds interpretation, which suggests a red flag. I’ll also argue that the second assumption is suspect due to the persistent explanatory gap for consciousness. Later, I explore ways that Bohm’s later work holds some promise in providing a better fit with our world, both phenomenologically and empirically. Also, I’ll address the possible problem of realism. (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)

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.

In this paper, I consider the relationship between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, both of which are well-known accounts of the nature of scientific inference. In Sect. 2, I give a brief overview of Bayesianism and IBE. In Sect. 3, I argue that IBE in its most prominently defended forms is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism because not all of the items that feature on popular lists of “explanatory virtues”—by means of which IBE ranks competing explanations—have confirmational import. (...) Rather, some of the items that feature on these lists are “informational virtues”—properties that do not make a hypothesis \ more probable than some competitor \ given evidence E, but that, roughly-speaking, give that hypothesis greater informative content. In Sect. 4, I consider as a response to my argument a recent version of compatibilism which argues that IBE can provide further normative constraints on the objectively correct probability function. I argue that this response does not succeed, owing to the difficulty of defending with any generality such further normative constraints. Lastly, in Sect. 5, I propose that IBE should be regarded, not as a theory of scientific inference, but rather as a theory of when we ought to “accept” H, where the acceptability of H is fixed by the goals of science and concerns whether H is worthy of commitment as research program. In this way, IBE and Bayesianism, as I will show, can be made compatible, and thus the Bayesian and the proponent of IBE can be friends. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of the radical disagreement over the adequacy of string theory. The prominence of string theory despite its notorious lack of empirical support is sometimes explained as a troubling case of science gone awry, driven largely by sociological mechanisms such as groupthink (e.g. Smolin 2006). Others, such as Dawid (2013), explain the controversy by positing a methodological revolution of sorts, according to which string theorists have quietly turned to nonempirical methods of theory assessment given (...) the technological inability to directly test the theory. The appropriate response, according to Dawid, is to acknowledge this development and widen the canons of acceptable scientific methods. As I’ll argue, however, the current situation in fundamental physics does not require either of these responses. Rather, as I’ll suggest, much of the controversy stems from a failure to properly distinguish the “context of justification” from the “context of pursuit”. Both those who accuse string theorists of betraying the scientific method and those who advocate an enlarged conception of scientific methodology objectionably conflate epistemic justification with judgements of pursuit-worthiness. Once we get clear about this distinction and about the different norms governing the two contexts, the current situation in fundamental physics becomes much less puzzling. After defending this diagnosis of the controversy, I’ll show how the argument patterns that have been posited by Dawid as constituting an emergent methodological revolution in science are better off if reworked as arguments belonging to the context of pursuit. (shrink)

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

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 (...) gross human rights violations. Yet, many times the Security Council is slow to act, and consensus is exceedingly rare. This begs the question: in the face of gross human rights violations and Security Council inaction, is unilateral humanitarian intervention justified? The present state of international law on the matter is unsettled and controversial to many. What follows is a discussion on the development of international law relating to unilateral humanitarian intervention, the permissibility of intervention for gross human rights violations, and justification for intervention under existing international law. I conclude that under the present multilateral regime, unilateral humanitarian intervention is legally justified, despite fears that the principle may be invoked for the purposes of cloaking acts of aggression. (shrink)

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 (...) adopting this definition, modernity in the times of Equiano refers to, “the cultural practices and representations that produced certain kinds of subjects and objects of knowledge, upheld widely-shared notions of space and time, or facilitated the formation of cultural identities that resulted in pluralities and contradictions as well as unities and coherences,” which provided for a slave to acquire freedom amidst eighteenth-century imperialism, slave-trade, and emerging abolitionist sentiments within bourgeois culture. (shrink)

In the context of discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research, behavioral scientists widely accept a convention for false positive (α) and false negative error rates (β) proposed by Jacob Cohen, who deemed the general relative seriousness of the antecedently accepted α = 0.05 to be matched by β = 0.20. Cohen’s convention not only ignores contexts of hypothesis testing where the more serious error is the β-error. Cohen’s convention also implies for discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research that a statistically significant observed effect is (...) four times more probable to be a mistaken discovery than for a statistically significant true observed effect to be independently replicable. In the long run, Cohen’s convention thus is epistemically harmful to the development of a progressive science of human behavior, making its acceptance crucial in explaining the replication crisis in behavioral science. The balance between α- and β-errors generally ought to be struck using both epistemic and practical considerations. Yet epistemic considerations alone imply that making a genuine contribution to the body of knowledge in behavioral science requires error rates that are not only small but also symmetrical. (shrink)

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 (...) a state is an act of war. Its prevalence suggests there must be a void somewhere that facilitates its use without consequence. Others think state cyberattack is like other internet novelties: digital malfeasance, amounting to a nuisance that naturally follows from a digital‐based existence, particularly since non‐state actors are typically involved. Yet, state‐on‐state hostilities are historically perilous on a vast scale, and there is a multilateral system for regulating the use of force in the context of war. Acts of war, even when seeming minimal in impact, are not by‐products of a digital fad, and cyberattack is now described as far more than ‘nuisance’. If anywhere, the place for clarity on hostile state cyberoperations use should be accounted for in International Humanitarian Law. Yet, in its present form, it is ambiguous if not silent on the subject, suggesting that cyberattack currently presents an advantage to perpetrating states. Does this void or these ambiguities make cyberattacks more legally advantageous to states than traditional, kinetic weaponry? I examine whether existing IHL is sufficiently adaptable to state cyberoperations through a mixed legal and theoretical approach and conclude that they do. (shrink)

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 (...) is in its natural state. For Kant, nature brings about conditions that continually develop and refine humankind’s dispositions, purposefully setting about societies in order to facilitate a foundation within all civilized society, whereby all of humankind’s goals may be achieved. All matters have their place—placed there by nature, as though with purpose. For Kant, nature intended for humankind to employ reason, to acquiesce to coercion for social cohesion, and to strive to build a society that is ever-increasingly progressing towards perfection. Nature uses humankind’s dispositions, including ‘antagonistic’ behavior to gradually bring about a, “perfectly just civil constitution.” Humankind’s highest goal yet to be achieved is for that just civil constitution to emerge from trial and error (in the form of wars, revolutions, secessions, abdications), over time, ultimately providing for development of other dispositions within a perfect society. (shrink)

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 (...) context to context," and expands and narrows along what falls within judicial competencies at a particular time. On an elementary level, it is distinct from jurisdiction, as it establishes boundaries of subject matter on policy or constitutional grounds, whereas jurisdiction is grounded in established legal rules. However, questions of jurisdiction can be subsumed under broader questions of justiciability. (shrink)

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 (...) their country of origin," who have fled due to a legitimate fear of persecution. Fundamentally, it guarantees that asylees and refugees enjoy rights without discrimination; without penalization for illegal territorial entry; and, without expulsion or return to "territories where . . . life or freedom would be threatened on account of . . . race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion," —or 'non-refoulement'. What follows is background on development of the principle of non-refoulement, evasive US Asylum Cooperative Agreements ('ACAs') and implementing legislation, and the resulting erosion to the right to asylum. (shrink)

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 (...) regard to any particular interests, but are instead unconditional; further, these formulae effectively limit choice of action and therefore give rise to duty. Kant implies that the structure of all maxims requires different formulae of the same moral law, i.e., all maxims have a ‘form’ and a ‘matter’, which prompt reconfiguring of the categorical imperative into different formulae in order to test the morality of a maxim. (shrink)

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 (...) and theorizing. (shrink)

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 (...) broader ethical precepts into the analysis. This is instrumental in producing knowledge that provides for practical application of problem solving that can be deemed good or better, and provides a means for ascertaining the bad or worse in a given political scenario. This paper examines how knowledge is produced by the phronetic approach, what knowledge can be known by the phronetic approach, and whether there are inherent limitations to the phronetic approach to understanding. (shrink)

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 (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

In this article, I consider an important challenge to the popular theory of scientific inference commonly known as ‘inference to the best explanation’, one that has received scant attention.1 1 The problem is that there exists a wide array of rival models of explanation, thus leaving IBE objectionably indeterminate. First, I briefly introduce IBE. Then, I motivate the problem and offer three potential solutions, the most plausible of which is to adopt a kind of pluralism about the rival models of (...) explanation. However, I argue that how ranking explanations on this pluralistic account of IBE remains obscure and pluralism leads to contradictory results. In light of these objections, I attempt to dissolve the problem by showing why IBE does not require a ‘model’ of explanation and by giving an account of what explanation consists in within the context of IBE. (shrink)

In this article, I will provide a critical overview of the form of non-deductive reasoning commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Roughly speaking, according to IBE, we ought to infer the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of our evidence. In section 2, I survey some contemporary formulations of IBE and highlight some of its putative applications. In section 3, I distinguish IBE from C.S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. After underlining some of the essential elements of IBE, (...) the rest of the entry is organized around an examination of various problems that IBE confronts, along with some extant attempts to address these problems. In section 4, I consider the question of when a fact requires an explanation, since presumably IBE applies only in cases where some explanation is called for. In section 5, I consider the difficult question of how we ought to understand IBE in light of the fact that among philosophers, there is significant disagreement about what constitutes an explanation. In section 6, I consider different strategies for justifying the truth-conduciveness of the explanatory virtues, e.g., simplicity, unification, scope, etc., criteria which play an indispensable role in any given application of IBE. In section 7, I survey some of the most recent literature on IBE, much of which consists of investigations of the status of IBE from the standpoint of the Bayesian philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically evaluate several related, provocative claims made by proponents of data-intensive science and “Big Data” which bear on scientific methodology, especially the claim that scientists will soon no longer have any use for familiar concepts like causation and explanation. After introducing the issue, in Section 2, I elaborate on the alleged changes to scientific method that feature prominently in discussions of Big Data. In Section 3, I argue that these methodological claims are in tension with a (...) prominent account of scientific method, often called “Inference to the Best Explanation”. Later on, in Section 3, I consider an argument against IBE that will be congenial to proponents of Big Data, namely, the argument due to Roche and Sober Analysis, 73:659–668, that “explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant.” This argument is based on Bayesianism, one of the most prominent general accounts of theory-confirmation. In Section 4, I consider some extant responses to this argument, especially that of Climenhaga Philosophy of Science, 84:359–368,. In Section 5, I argue that Roche and Sober’s argument does not show that explanatory reasoning is dispensable. In Section 6, I argue that there is good reason to think explanatory reasoning will continue to prove indispensable in scientific practice. Drawing on Cicero’s oft-neglected De Divinatione, I formulate what I call the “Ciceronian Causal-nomological Requirement”, which states, roughly, that causal-nomological knowledge is essential for relying on correlations in predictive inference. I defend a version of the CCR by appealing to the challenge of “spurious correlations,” chance correlations which we should not rely upon for predictive inference. In Section 7, I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Cicero’s oft-neglected De Divinatione, a dialogue investigating the legitimacy of the practice of divination. First, I offer a novel analysis of the main arguments for divination given by Quintus, highlighting the fact that he employs two logically distinct argument forms. Next, I turn to the first of the main arguments against divination given by Marcus. Here I show, with the help of modern probabilistic tools, that Marcus’ skeptical response is far from the decisive, proto-naturalistic assault (...) on superstition that it is sometimes portrayed to be. Then, I offer an extended analysis of the second of the main arguments against divination given by Marcus. Inspired by Marcus’ second main argument, I formulate, explicate, and defend a substantive principle of scientific methodology that I call the “Ciceronian Causal-Nomological Requirement” (CCR). Roughly, this principle states that causal knowledge is essential for relying on correlations in predictive inference. Although I go on to argue that Marcus’ application of the CCR in his debate with Quintus is dialectically inadequate, I conclude that De Divinatione deserves its place in Cicero’s philosophical corpus, and that ultimately, its significance for the history and philosophy of science ought to be recognized. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe some strategies for teaching an introductory philosophy of science course to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students, with reference to my own experience teaching a philosophy of science course in the Fall of 2020. The most important strategy that I advocate is what I call the “Second Philosophy” approach, according to which instructors ought to emphasize that the problems that concern philosophers of science are not manufactured and imposed by philosophers from the outside, but (...) rather are ones that arise internally, during the practice of science itself. To justify this approach, I appeal to considerations from both educational research and the epistemology of testimony. In addition, I defend some distinctive learning goals that philosophy of science instructors ought to adopt when teaching STEM students, which include rectifying empirically well-documented shortcomings in students’ conceptions of the “scientific method” and the “nature of science.” Although my primary focus will be on teaching philosophy of science to STEM students, much of what I propose can be applied to non-philosophy majors generally. Ultimately, as I argue, a successful philosophy of science course for non-philosophy majors must be one that advances a student’s science education. The strategies that I describe and defend here are aimed at precisely that end. (shrink)

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, (...) Wendy Brown, and Slavoj Žižek. Based on the same, I argue that the core arguments to these assertions are unpersuasive. I attempt at viewing Human Rights justification in different terms, and, to argue for the legitimacy of Human Rights while abandoning the search for justifications in nature, U.S. Foreign Policy, or Neo-Marxist views. (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.

In this paper, I discuss the ways in which epistemic anxiety promotes well-being, specifically by examining the positive contributions that feelings of epistemic anxiety make toward intellectually virtuous inquiry. While the prospects for connecting the concept of epistemic anxiety to the two most prominent accounts of intellectual virtue, i.e., “virtue-reliabilism” and “virtue-responsibilism”, are promising, I primarily focus on whether the capacity for epistemic anxiety counts as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. As I argue, there is a close yet (...) unexplored connection between feelings of epistemic anxiety and the form of inference commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Specifically, I argue that both the recognition that some fact requires an explanation—a necessary first step in applying IBE—and the subsequent motivation to employ IBE are typically facilitated by feelings of epistemic anxiety. So, provided IBE is truth-conducive the capacity for epistemic anxiety should count as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. After outlining my main argument, I address the challenge that the capacity for epistemic anxiety has the potential to be misleading. To respond to this challenge, I discuss how our recognition that a fact requires an explanation must in part be a species of practical knowledge, rather than theoretical knowledge. For the agent to skillfully distinguish between facts that require an explanation and facts that do not, she must develop the virtuous disposition to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety. Despite the many negative aspects associated with anxiety, as I conclude, being disposed to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety is ultimately good for us. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed intensive efforts to specify which requirements ethical artificial intelligence (AI) must meet. General guidelines for ethical AI consider a varying number of principles important. A frequent novel element in these guidelines, that we have bundled together under the term explicability, aims to reduce the black-box character of machine learning algorithms. The centrality of this element invites reflection on the conceptual relation between explicability and the four bioethical principles. This is important because the application of general ethical (...) frameworks to clinical decision-making entails conceptual questions: Is explicability a free-standing principle? Is it already covered by the well-established four bioethical principles? Or is it an independent value that needs to be recognized as such in medical practice? We discuss these questions in a conceptual-ethical analysis, which builds upon the findings of an empirical document analysis. On the example of the medical specialty of radiology, we analyze the position of radiological associations on the ethical use of medical AI. We address three questions: Are there references to explicability or a similar concept? What are the reasons for such inclusion? Which ethical concepts are referred to? (shrink)

Definition of the problem The umbrella term “explicability” refers to the reduction of opacity of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These efforts are challenging for medical AI applications because higher accuracy often comes at the cost of increased opacity. This entails ethical tensions because physicians and patients desire to trace how results are produced without compromising the performance of AI systems. The centrality of explicability within the informed consent process for medical AI systems compels an ethical reflection on the trade-offs. Which (...) levels of explicability are needed to obtain informed consent when utilizing medical AI? Arguments We proceed in five steps: First, we map the terms commonly associated with explicability as described in the ethics and computer science literature, i.e., disclosure, intelligibility, interpretability, and explainability. Second, we conduct a conceptual analysis of the ethical requirements for explicability when it comes to informed consent. Third, we distinguish hurdles for explicability in terms of epistemic and explanatory opacity. Fourth, this then allows to conclude the level of explicability physicians must reach and what patients can expect. In a final step, we show how the identified levels of explicability can technically be met from the perspective of computer science. Throughout our work, we take diagnostic AI systems in radiology as an example. Conclusion We determined four levels of explicability that need to be distinguished for ethically defensible informed consent processes and showed how developers of medical AI can technically meet these requirements. (shrink)

Here, I consider the recent application of phylogenetic methods in historical linguistics. After a preliminary survey of one such method, i.e. cladistic parsimony, I respond to two common criticisms of cultural phylogenies: that cultural artifacts cannot be modeled as tree-like because of borrowing across lineages, and that the mechanism of cultural change differs radically from that of biological evolution. I argue that while perhaps remains true for certain cultural artifacts, the nature of language may be such as to side-step this (...) objection. Moreover, I explore the possibility that cladistic parsimony can be justified even if is true by appealing to the inference pattern known among philosophers as ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’. (shrink)

The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of (...) our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2) provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox. I argue for (1) in Section 2 by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail. I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in Section 3 and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

In the last two decades, a robust consensus has emerged among philosophers of science, whereby political, ethical, or social values must play some role in scientific inquiry, and that the ‘value-free ideal’ is thus a misguided conception of science. However, the question of how to distinguish, in a principled way, which values may legitimately influence science remains. This question, which has been dubbed the ‘new demarcation problem,’ has until recently received comparatively less attention from philosophers of science. In this paper, (...) I appeal to Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) on the basis of which I defend a Rawlsian solution to the new demarcation problem. As I argue, the Rawlsian solution places plausible constraints on which values ought to influence scientific inquiry, and, moreover, can be fruitfully applied to concrete cases to determine how the conflicting interests of stakeholders should be balanced. After considering and responding to the objection that Rawls’s theory of justice applies only to the “basic structure” of society, I compare the Rawlsian solution to some other approaches to the new demarcation problem, especially those that emphasize democratic criteria. (shrink)

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 (...) current use. Even if perfect theories were impossible or unlikely, perfection may not be needed and may even be unhelpful. (shrink)

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 (...) Bayesian cognitive science in terms of the dichotomy between instrumentalism and realism, is misguided. We propose that the two distinctions are orthogonal: black-box and mechanistic approaches to Bayesian modelling can each be given either an instrumentalist or a realist interpretation. We argue that the current tendency to conflate black-box approaches with instrumentalism and mechanistic approaches with realism stems from unwarranted assumptions about the nature of scientific explanation, the ontological commitments of scientific theories, and the role of abstraction and idealization in scientific models. We challenge each of these assumptions to reframe the debates over Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. (shrink)

In this critical notice, I focus my attention on the chapters that deal with the explanationist response to skepticism.

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, (...) "Design for a Brain" and "An Introduction to Cybernetics," were landmark works. They introduced exact and logical thinking into the nascent discipline and were highly influential. Contents include: What is new -- Change -- The Determinate Machine -- The Machine with Input -- Stability -- The Black Box -- Quantity of Variety -- Transmission of Variety -- Incessant Transmission -- Regulation in Biological Systems -- Requisite Variety -- The Error-controlled Regulator -- Regulating the Very Large System -- Amplifying Regulation. (shrink)

Many morally significant outcomes can be brought about only if several individuals contribute to them. However, individual contributions to collective outcomes often fail to have morally significant effects on their own. Some have concluded from this that it is permissible to do nothing. What I call ‘the problem of insignificant hands’ is the challenge of determining whether and when people are obligated to contribute. For this to be the case, I argue, the prospect of helping to bring about the outcome (...) has to be good enough. Furthermore, the individual must be in a position to increase the probability of its being brought about to an appropriate extent. Finally, I argue that when too few are willing to contribute, people may have a duty to increase their number. Thus, someone can be obligated to contribute or to get others to contribute. This prospect account is consistent with Kantianism, contractualism and rule consequentialism but inconsistent with act consequentialism. (shrink)