What can we know and what should we believe about today's world? _What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues_ applies the concerns and techniques of epistemology to a wide variety of contemporary issues. Questions about what we can know-and what we _should_ believe-are first addressed through an explicit consideration of the practicalities of working these issues out at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Coady calls for an 'applied turn' in epistemology, a process he likens to the applied (...) turn that transformed the study of ethics in the early 1970s. Subjects dealt with include: Experts-how can we recognize them? And when should we trust them? Rumors-should they _ever_ be believed? And can they, in fact, be a source of knowledge? Conspiracy theories-when, if ever, should they be believed, and can they be known to be true? The blogosphere-how does it compare with traditional media as a source of knowledge and justified belief? Timely, thought provoking, and controversial, _What to Believe Now _offers a wealth of insights into a branch of philosophy of growing importance-and increasing relevance-in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death, they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian (...) Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism. By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called _intentionality_--the fact that the mind can be about other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments, Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics, whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

1. Happiness, then and now -- Happiness, eudaimonia, and practical reasoning -- Happiness as eudaimonia -- Happiness and virtuous activity -- New directions from old debates -- 2. Happiness then: the sufficiency debate -- Aristotle's case against the sufficiency thesis -- 3. Happiness now: rethinking the self -- Socrates' case for the sufficiency thesis -- Epictetus and the stoic self -- The Stoics' case for the sufficiency thesis -- The embodied conception of the self -- The embodied conception and psychological (...) well-being -- The Stoics' case against the embodied conception. (shrink)

What do the words "ceteris paribus" add to a causal hypothesis, that is, to a generalization that is intended to articulate the consequences of a causal mechanism? One answer, which looks almost too good to be true, is that a ceteris paribus hedge restricts the scope of the hypothesis to those cases where nothing undermines, interferes with, or undoes the effect of the mechanism in question, even if the hypothesis's own formulator is otherwise unable to specify fully what might constitute (...) such undermining or interference. I will propose a semantics for causal generalizations according to which ceteris paribus hedges deliver on this promise, because the truth conditions for a causal generalization depend in part on the—perhaps unknown—nature of the mechanism whose consequences it is intended to describe. It follows that the truth conditions for causal hypotheses are typically opaque to the very scientists who formulate and test them. (shrink)

We claim that if a complete philosophy of evidence-based practice is intended, then attention to the nature of causation in health science is necessary. We identify how health science currently conceptualises causation by the way it prioritises some research methods over others. We then show how the current understanding of what causation is serves to constrain scientific progress. An alternative account of causation is offered. This is one of dispositionalism. We claim that by understanding causation from a dispositionalist stance, many (...) of the processes within an evidence-based practice framework are better accounted for. Further, some of the problems associated with the health research, e.g. external validity of causal findings, dissolve. (shrink)

To what extent do self-deception and delusion overlap? In this paper we argue that both self-deception and delusions can be understood in folk-psychological terms. “Motivated” delusions, just like self-deception, can be described as beliefs driven by personal interests. If self-deception can be understood folk-psychologically because of its motivational component, so can motivated delusions. Non-motivated delusions also fit the folk-psychological notion of belief, since they can be described as hypotheses one endorses when attempting to make sense of unusual and powerful experiences. (...) We suggest that there is continuity between the epistemic irrationality manifested in self-deception and in delusion. (shrink)

Recent interest in the epistemology of testimony can be traced to C. A. J. Coady's Testimony: A Philosophical Study (1992) and then a collection of papers edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, Knowing from Words (1994). These two volumes framed several issues in the epistemology of testimony and largely set the agenda for work in that area over the next two decades. -/- One major issue in this literature is whether testimonial knowledge can be "reduced" to some other (...) kind of knowledge: Is testimonial knowledge sui generis, requiring its own distinctive treatment, or is testimonial knowledge merely an instance of, for example, inductive knowledge, requiring no special epistemology over and above that required for inductive knowledge in general? One way that testimonial knowledge might be special is that it involves social elements that make it distinctive. This possibility raises further issues that have been prominent in the literature: In what ways is testimonial knowledge a social phenomenon, and what are the consequences of this for the epistemology of testimony and for epistemology more generally? (shrink)

How do laws resemble rules of games, moral rules, personal rules, rules found in religious teachings, school rules, and so on? Are laws rules at all? Are they all made by human beings? And if so how should we go about interpreting them? How are they organized into systems, and what does it mean for these systems to have 'constitutions'? Should everyone want to live under a system of law? Is there a special kind of 'legal justice'? Does it consist (...) simply in applying the law of the system? And how does it relate to the ideal of 'the rule of law'?These and other classic questions in the philosophy of law form the subject-matter of Law as a Leap of Faith. In this book John Gardner collects, revisits, and supplements fifteen years of celebrated writings on general questions about law and legal systems - writings in which he attempts, without loss of philosophical finesse or insight, to cut through some of the technicalities with which the subject has become encrusted in the late twentieth century. Taking his agenda broadly from H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law, Gardner shows how the key ideas in that work live on, and how they have been and can still be improved in modest ways to meet important criticisms - in some cases by concession, in some cases by circumvention, and in some cases by restatement. In the process Gardner engages with key ideas of other modern giants of the subject including Kelsen, Holmes, Raz, and Dworkin. Most importantly he presents the main elements of his own unique and refreshingly direct way of thinking about law, brought together in one place for the first time. (shrink)

The Cyrenaic school of philosophy (named after its founder Aristippus’ native city of Cyrene in North Africa) flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Ugo Zilioli’s book provides the first book-length introduction to the school in English. The book begins by introducing the main figures of the Cyrenaic school beginning with Aristippus and by setting them into their historical context. Once the reader is familiar with those figures and with the genealogy of the school, the book offers an overview (...) of ancient and modern interpretations of the Cyrenaics, to provide readers with alternative accounts of the doctrines they endorsed and of the role they played in the context of ancient thought. Finally, the book offers a reconstruction of Cyrenaic philosophy and shows how the ethical side of their speculation connected with the epistemology and ontology they endorsed and that, as a result, the Cyrenaics were able to offer a quite sophisticated philosophy. Indeed, Zilioli demonstrates that they represented, in ancient philosophy, an important and original metaphysical position and alternative to the kind of realism endorsed by Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

To what extent is any individual morally obligated to live environmentally sustainably? In answering this, I reject views I see as constituting two extremes. On one, it depends entirely on whether there exists a collective agreement; and if no such agreement exists, no one is obligated to reduce her/his consumption or pollution unilaterally. On the other, the lack of a collective agreement is morally irrelevant, and regardless of what others are doing, each person is obligated to limit her/his pollution and (...) consumption to a level that would be sustainable if everyone were to act in this way. I argue that the truth is somewhere between these, but that a very precise specification of the extent of one's responsibility is impossible. Roughly, what can be said is that each individual ought constantly to strive to do more than she/he does currently and to push her/himself into new, uncomfortable territory, though no one is obligated to martyr her/himself for an environmental cause. (shrink)

When Aristotle speaks of theologikê, he means not the study of a single God, but the study of gods and divine things in general. He never uses the phrase “the unmoved mover” to pick out just one being, and that phrase would not express the essence of the beings it applies to. To see what sort of religious interest there might be in such a being, and how the words “god” and “divine” enter into Aristotle's philosophy, it is best to (...) start with what he says about gods and divine things in moral and political contexts. Guided by his criticisms of Plato on the soul's self-motion, Aristotle sets out, in Physics VIII, to give a revised version of Plato's cosmotheological argument in Laws X. This article focuses on Aristotle's theology and his views about gods, the soul, the cosmos, heavens and heavenly bodies, and the first principle or first cause. (shrink)

Neuroscience has been proposed for use in the legal system for purposes of mind reading, assessment of responsibility, and prediction of misconduct. Each of these uses has both promises and perils, and each raises issues regarding the admissibility of neuroscientific evidence.

A common presupposition in metaethical theory is that moral assessment comes in two flavors, one of which is sensitive to our epistemic circumstances, the second of which is not so sensitive. Though this thought is popular, a number of questions arise. In this paper, I limit my discussion to what I dub the "explanatory question": how one might understand the construction of subjective moral assessment given an explanatorily prior objective assessment. I argue that a proper answer to this question is (...) important not simply for its own sake, but because it also sheds new light on important challenges to the existence of both objective and subjective moral obligations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay examines the exhibition of dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Dinosaurs provide an especially illuminating lens through which to view the history of museum display practices for two reasons: they made for remarkably spectacular exhibits; and they rested on contested theories about the anatomy, life history, and behavior of long-extinct animals to which curators had no direct observational access. The American Museum sought to capitalize on the (...) popularity of dinosaurs while mitigating the risks of mounting an overtly speculative display by fashioning them into a kind of mixed-media installation made of several elements, including fossilized bone, shellac, iron, and plaster. The resulting sculptures provided visitors with a vivid and lifelike imaginative experience. At the same time, curators, who were anxious to downplay the speculative nature of mounted dinosaurs, drew systematic attention to the material connection that tied individual pieces of fossilized bone to the actual past. Freestanding dinosaurs can therefore be read to have functioned as iconic sculptures that self-consciously advertised their indexical content. (shrink)

Synthetic biology makes use of genetic and other materials derived from modern biological life forms to design and construct novel synthetic organisms. Artificial organisms are not constructed from parts of existing biological organisms, but from non-biological materials. Artificial and synthetic organisms are artefactual organisms. Here we are concerned with the non-instrumental value of such organisms. More specifically, we are concerned with the extent to which artefactual organisms have natural value, inherent worth and intrinsic value. Our conclusions are largely supportive of (...) the value of artefactual organisms. However, they do not constitute a comprehensive ethical evaluation of them. (shrink)

This article discusses the relation between the early Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s philosophies of logic, arguing that Carnap’s position in The Logical Syntax of Language is in certain respects much closer to the Tractatus than has been recognized. In Carnapian terms, the Tractatus’ goal is to introduce, by means of quasi-syntactical sentences, syntactical principles and concepts to be used in philosophical clarification in the formal mode. A distinction between the material and formal mode is therefore already part of the Tractatus’ view, (...) and its method for introducing syntactical concepts and principles should be entirely acceptable for Carnap by his own criteria. Moreover, despite the Tractatus’ rejection of syntactical statements, there is an important correspondence between Wittgenstein’s saying-showing distinction and Carnap’s object-language-syntax-language distinction: both constitute a distinction between logico-syntactical determinations concerning language and language as determined or described by those determinations. Wittgenstein’s distinction therefore constitutes a precursor of the object-language syntax-language distinction which the latter in a certain sense affirms, rather than simply contradicting it. The saying-showing distinction agrees with Carnap’s position also in marking logic as something that isn’t true/false about either language or reality, which is a conception that underlies Carnap’s principle of tolerance. (shrink)

This volume presents influential work by Nicholas Wolterstorff at the intersection between political philosophy and religion, alongside nine new essays on the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. These novel essays offer an attractive alternative to the public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls.

Aristotle created logic and developed it to a level of great sophistication. There was nothing there before; and it took more than two millennia for something better to come around. The astonishment experienced by readers of the Prior Analytics, the most important of Aristotle's works that present the discipline, is comparable to that of an explorer discovering a cathedral in a desert. This article explains and evaluates some of Aristotle's views about propositions and syllogisms. The most important omission is the (...) difficult subject of syllogisms involving modalities. Aristotle distinguishes two relations of opposition that can obtain between propositions with the same subject- and predicate-expressions: contrariety and contradiction. In every canonical syllogism, one term is common to the two premises: it is called “middle term,” or simply “middle.” The remaining two terms of the premises are the only ones occurring in the conclusion: they are called “extreme terms,” or simply “extremes.”. (shrink)

Compositionality remains effective as an explanation of cases in which processing complexity increases due to syntactic factors only. It falls short of accounting for situations in which complexity arises from interactions with the sentence or discourse context, perceptual cues, and stored knowledge. The idea of compositionality as a methodological principle is appealing, but imputing the complexity to one component of the grammar or another, instead of enriching the notion of composition, is not always an innocuous move, leading to fully equivalent (...) theories. Compositionality sets an upper bound on the degree of informational encapsulation that can be posited by modular or component-based theories of language: simple composition ties in with a strongly modular take on meaning assembly, which is seen as sealed off from information streams other than the lexicon and the syntax. (shrink)

This chapter situates the dispute over the metacognitive capacities of non-human animals in the context of wider debates about the phylogeny of metarepresentational abilities. This chapter clarifies the nature of the dispute, before contrasting two different accounts of the evolution of metarepresentation. One is first-person-based, claiming that it emerged initially for purposes of metacognitive monitoring and control. The other is social in nature, claiming that metarepresentation evolved initially to monitor the mental states of others. These accounts make differing predictions about (...) what we should expect to find in non-human animals: the former predicts that metacognitive capacities in creatures incapable of equivalent forms of mindreading should be found, whereas the latter predicts that they should not. The chapter elaborates and defend the latter form of account, drawing especially on what is known about decision-making and metacognition in humans. In doing so the chapter shows that so-called ‘uncertainty-monitoring’ data from monkeys can just as well be explained in non-metarepresentational affective terms, as might be predicted by the social-evolutionary account. (shrink)

This essay examines how biocentric positions assess the aims and planned products of synthetic biology. In this emerging field, scientists and engineers aim at designing and producing new life forms by various procedures. In this paper I explore whether, for biocentrists, 1) synthetic organisms have moral standing and, 2) the process of synthesising living organisms has moral implications. Because naturalness plays a role in some biocentric theories, synthetic biology — at first sight — seems to challenge the idea that all (...) living organisms have moral standing. However, according to the interpretations that I offer, the biocentric positions discussed here would also assign moral standing to synthetic organisms. That living organisms have moral standing does not necessarily imply that it is morally problematic to synthesise them. However, different lines of biocentric argumentation suggest that in designing and synthesising living organisms, the moral standing of the product needs to be taken into account. This means among other things, that according to biocentrists, such procedures may lead to special responsibilities or require certain attitudes from scientists towards their products. (shrink)

Public recognition of the fragility of the natural systems on which present and future generations depend has prompted calls for the practice of environmental stewardship —calls widely criticised in the environmental ethics literature. Some argue that stewardship 's historical associations entail that it is inherently sexist, speciesist and/or anthropocentric. Others argue that absent belief in a creator to appoint us as stewards and hold us accountable, talk of 'environmental stewardship ' is empty. I review the concept's recent evolution and provide (...) a tentative definition. I argue that so defined, it is not vulnerable to standard criticisms, but is instead a promising way of construing morally decent conduct towards the environment. (shrink)

For a century or more political theology has been in decline. Recent years, however, have seen increasing interest not only in how church and state should be related, but in the relation between divine authority and political authority, and in what religion has to say about the limits of state authority and the grounds of political obedience. In this book, Nicholas Wolterstorff addresses this whole complex of issues. He takes account of traditional answers to these questions, but on every point (...) stakes out new positions. Wolterstorff offers a fresh theological defense of liberal democracy, argues that the traditional doctrine of 'two rules' should be rejected and offers a fresh exegesis of Romans 13, the canonical biblical passage for the tradition of Christian political theology. This book provides useful discussion for scholars and students of political theology, law and religion, philosophy of religion and social ethics. (shrink)

This article proposes a neurobiologically motivated theory of meaning as internal representation that holds on to the principle of compositionality, but negates the principle of semantic constituency. The approach builds on neurobiological findings regarding topologically structured cortical feature maps and the mechanism of object-related binding by neuronal synchronization. It incorporates the Gestalt principles of psychology and is implemented by recurrent neural networks. The semantics to be developed is structurally analogous to some variant of model-theoretical semantics. The semantics to be developed (...) is a neuro-emulative model-theoretical semantics of a first-order language. The model-theoretical semantics is merely denotational and does not imply anything about the structures of the mind or the underlying neural mechanisms that enable producing and comprehend meaningful expressions. The relation between a mental representation and its content is some form of causal-informational covariation. (shrink)

I formulate a counterfactual version of the notorious ‘Ramsey Test’. Whereas the Ramsey Test for indicative conditionals links credence in indicatives to conditional credences, the counterfactual version links credence in counterfactuals to expected conditional chance. I outline two forms: a Ramsey Identity on which the probability of the conditional should be identical to the corresponding conditional probability/expectation of chance; and a Ramsey Bound on which credence in the conditional should never exceed the latter. Even in the weaker, bound, form, the (...) counterfactual Ramsey Test makes counterfactuals subject to the very argument that Lewis used to argue against the indicative version of the Ramsey Test. I compare the assumptions needed to run each, pointing to assumptions about the time‐evolution of chances that can replace the appeal to Bayesian assumptions about credence update in motivating the assumptions of the argument. I finish by outlining two reactions to the discussion: to indicativize the debate on counterfactuals; or to counterfactualize the debate on indicatives. (shrink)

The foregoing considerations support the conjecture that prototypes are semi-compositional in the sense that there exist unboundedly many combinations of nouns with non-exceptional adjectives, which satisfy the rule default-to-prototype and hence are compositional. Presumably there also exist unboundedly many combinations of nouns with exceptional adjectives, which violate DP and hence are non-compositional. An analysis of the connection between productivity and compositionality has been suggested by Robbins. He argues that, for the explanation of productivity, one need not assume that conceptual meanings (...) always compose—it is enough that they compose in infinitely many cases. Since semi-compositionality entails the existence of unboundedly many non-compositional cases, non-compositionality cannot be dealt away with a finite list of idiomatic exceptions, but is a genuine feature of prototype semantics in natural language. (shrink)

What is it for something to have a nature? And what is it for law to have a nature? Analysis of the concept of law has often been taken to be a search for the essential features of law, but it is not clear that the nature of a phenomenon or artifact is better explained by its essential features than by its common ones. And it is not clear that necessary truths have more explanatory value than typical truths. Especially -- (...) but not necessarily - if we recognize the possibility that law is a cluster concept, the value of explaining the widespread but not strictly necessary features of law in explaining law itself becomes more apparent. The jurisprudential project of differentiating law from other social phenomena is an important one, but the distinction may be a fuzzy one and not susceptible either to sharp demarcation or to specification of essential features of law that will assist in differentiation. But if we inquire into what typically or usually or almost always characterizes law rather than what necessarily characterizes it, we may make genuine progress in distinguishing law from the social phenomena to which it is adjacent but with which it is not congruent. (shrink)

Forgiveness seems especially apt in cases where the wrongdoer first performs some act of reparation. Suppose Valerie betrays Madison's trust out of careerist self-interest. The betrayal is serious, no excusing or exempting conditions obtain, and Madison responds with justified resentment. In one world, Valerie never acknowledges the impropriety of her past act and continues on as before. In another world, Valerie apologizes and sends Madison a beautiful bouquet of flowers. All else being equal, forgiveness seems called for or apt in (...) the second case in a way that it does not in the first. Reparative activities have a certain power, and forgiving in response to the wrongdoer's reparation strikes many as especially apt. (shrink)

Recently at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a microorganism has been created through synthetic biology. In the future, more complex living beings will very probably be produced. In our natural environment, we live amongst a whole variety of beings. Some of them have moral status — they have a moral importance and we cannot treat them in just any way we please —; some do not. When it becomes possible to create artificially living beings who naturally possess moral status, will (...) this artificiality modify their status? Many people contend that it will, but I am not of the same mind and will develop three arguments against it. (shrink)

The theory of evolution, which provides the conceptual framework for all modern research in organismal biology and informs research in molecular bi- ology, has gone through several stages of expansion and refinement. Darwin and Wallace (1858) of course proposed the original idea, centering on the twin concepts of natural selection and common descent. Shortly thereafter, Wallace and August Weismann worked toward the complete elimination of any Lamarckian vestiges from the theory, leaning in particular on Weismann’s (1893) concept of the separation (...) of soma and germ, resulting in what is some- times referred to as “neo-Darwinism”. (shrink)

Prisoners involved in the Attica rebellion and in the recent Georgia prison strike have protested their dehumanizing treatment as animals and as slaves. Their critique is crucial for tracing the connections between slavery, abolition, the racialization of crime, and the reinscription of racialized slavery within the US prison system. I argue that, in addition to the dehumanization of prisoners, inmates are further de-animalized when they are held in conditions of intensive confinement such as prolonged solitude or chronic overcrowding. To be (...) de-animalized is to be treated not as a living being who is sustained by its mutual relations with other living and nonliving beings, but rather as a thing to be warehoused and/or exchanged for a profit. The violence of de-animalization affects both human and nonhuman animals held in control prisons, factory farms, laboratories and other sites of intensive confinement. In order to make the connections between these sites, and to develop forms of solidarity appropriate to our shared animality, we need a post-humanist critique of intensive confinement that breaks with the logic of opposition between human and animal, and articulates our constitutive relationality as (inter)corporeal beings. (shrink)

A reading is offered of Carl Hempel’s and Thomas Kuhn’s positions on, and disagreements about, rationality in science that relates these issues to the debate between W.V. Quine and Rudolf Carnap on the analytic/synthetic distinction.

Aristotle's categorial scheme had an unparalleled effect not only on his own philosophical system, but also on the systems of many of the greatest philosophers in the Western tradition. The set of doctrines in the Categories, known as categorialism, play, for instance, a central role in Aristotle's discussion of change in the Physics, in the science of being qua being in the Metaphysics, and in the rejection of Platonic ethics in the Nicomachean Ethics. Plainly, the enterprise of categorialism inaugurated by (...) Aristotle runs deep in the philosophical psyche. Even so, despite its wide-reaching influence—and, indeed owing to that influence—any attempt to describe categorialism faces a significant difficulty: experts disagree on many of its most important and fundamental aspects. This article argues that Aristotle's categorial scheme, as is the case with many works in the history of philosophy, is best illuminated by opposing beams of interpretive light. It examines how Aristotle arrived at his list of categories and considers the connection between Aristotle's categories and his hylomorphism. (shrink)

The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of knowledge circulation is explored in a study of the encounter between American and British nuclear scientists and engineers who together developed a gas centrifuge to enrich uranium in the 1960s. A fine-grained analysis of the transnational encounter reveals that the ‘how’ engages a wide variety of sometimes mundane modes of exchange in a series of face-to-face interactions over several years. The ‘why’ is driven by the reciprocal wish to improve the performance of the centrifuge, (...) though this motive is embedded in the asymmetric field of the ‘special relationship’ in nuclear matters between the United Kingdom and the United States. The result of the encounter is co-produced, hybrid knowledge in which the national provenance of the contributions from each side of the Atlantic is at once diluted and a contested site for the affirmation of national power. (shrink)