Principa Practica is a provocative work in which author Arnold Johanson maintains that philosophers since Socrates have been asking the wrong questions, like "What is good?" and "What is right?" The reason for this, according to the author, is that moral philosophers have based their work on a logical framework more suitable to science than to ethics and politics. Striking out in a new direction, the author bases his work on the concept of requirement which he finds not (...) only has a rich logical structure but, if properly formulated, can be used to guide humanity in its struggle to find meaning in life, on one hand, and to find peace, happiness, and order, on the other. The fact that the work has an emphasis on logic may suggest that only those with a technical bent can read this work, but this is not so: much of this work—over two-thirds—is designed to be read by those without a technical background in mathematics and logic. (shrink)

I argue that a certain type of naturalist should not accept a prominent version of the no-miracles argument (NMA). First, scientists (usually) do not accept explanations whose explanans-statements neither generate novel predictions nor unify apparently disparate established claims. Second, scientific realism (as it appears in the NMA) is an explanans that makes no new predictions and fails to unify disparate established claims. Third, many proponents of the NMA explicitly adopt a naturalism that forbids philosophy of science from using any methods (...) not employed by science itself. Therefore, such naturalistic philosophers of science should not accept the version of scientific realism that appears in the NMA. (shrink)

Since anonymous agents can spread misinformation with impunity, many people advocate for greater accountability for internet speech. This paper provides a veritistic argument that accountability mechanisms can cause significant epistemic problems for internet encyclopedias and social media communities. I show that accountability mechanisms can undermine both the dissemination of true beliefs and the detection of error. Drawing on social psychology and behavioral economics, I suggest alternative mechanisms for increasing the trustworthiness of internet communication.

I provide an account of the cognitive attitude of trust that explains the role trust plays in the planning of rational agents. Many authors have dismissed choosing to trust as either impossible or irrational; however, this fails to account for the role of trust in practical reasoning. A can have therapeutic, coping, or corrective reasons to trust B to ${\phi}$ , even in the absence of evidence that B will ${\phi}$ . One can choose to engage in therapeutic trust to (...) inspire trustworthiness, coping trust to simplify one’s planning, or corrective trust to avoid doing a testimonial injustice. To accommodate such types of trust, without accepting doxastic voluntarism, requires an account of the cognitive attitude of trust broader than belief alone. I argue that trust involves taking the proposition that someone will do something as a premise in one’s practical reasoning, which can be a matter of believing or accepting the proposition. I defend this account against objections that it (i) provides insufficient rational constraints on trust, (ii) conflates trust and pretense of trust, and (iii) cannot account for the rationality of back-up planning. (shrink)

Environmental aesthetics is an emerging discipline that explores the meaning and influence of environmental perception and experience on human life. Arguing for the idea that environment is not merely a setting for people but is fully integrated and continuous with us, The Aesthetics of Environment explores the aesthetic dimensions of the human-environmental continuum in both theoretical terms and concrete situations. From outer space to the museum, from architecture to landscape, from city to countryside to wilderness, this book discovers in the (...) aesthetic perception of environment the reciprocity that constitutes both person and place. (shrink)

According to some philosophers who accept a propositional conception of evidence, someone's evidence includes a proposition only if it is true. I argue against this thesis by appealing to the possibility of knowledge from falsehood.

Ignorance of one’s privileges and prejudices is an epistemic problem. While the sources of ignorance of privilege and prejudice are increasingly understood, less clarity exists about how to remedy ignorance. In fact, the various causes of ignorance can seem so powerful, various, and mutually reinforcing that studying the epistemology of ignorance can inspire pessimism about combatting socially constructed ignorance. I argue that this pessimism is unwarranted. The testimony of members of oppressed groups can often help members of privileged groups overcome (...) their ignorance. This paper argues that a particular type of speaker’s trust—hopeful trust—can motivate hearers to become cognizant of their privilege and prejudice. I argue that hopeful trust is a powerful way of eliciting trust-responsiveness that can be an effective mechanism for challenging privilege and prejudice. To make this case, I draw on case studies of online attempts to challenge ignorance. While the problems of testimonial injustice, defensi... (shrink)

Public health agencies regularly survey randomly selected anonymous students to track drug use, sexual activities, and other risk behaviors. Students are unidentifiable, but a recent project that i...

This paper argues that trustworthiness is an epistemic virtue that promotes objectivity. I show that untrustworthy imposture can be an arrogant act of privilege that silences marginalized voices. But, as epistemologists of ignorance have shown, sometimes trickery and the betrayal of epistemic norms are important resistance strategies. This raises the question: when is betrayal of trust epistemically virtuous? After establishing that trust is central to objectivity, I argue for the following answer: a betrayal is epistemically vicious when it strengthens or (...) promotes oppressive, exclusive networks of trust, and a betrayal is epistemically virtuous when it expands trust networks to involve the oppressed. These criteria correctly account for both the epistemic vice of a recent case of Internet imposture and the epistemic virtue of resistant tricksters. (shrink)

Over a decade ago, I introduced a large-scale theory of the cognitive brain which explained for the first time how the human brain is able to create internal models of its intimate world and invent models of a wider universe. An essential part of the theoretical model is an organization of neuronal mechanisms which I have named the Retinoid Model (Trehub, 1977, 1991). This hypothesized brain system has structural and dynamic properties enabling it to register and appropriately integrate disparate foveal (...) stimuli into a perspectival, egocentric representation of an extended 3D world scene including a neuronally-tokened locus of the self which, in this theory, is the neuronal origin of retinoid space. As an integral part of the larger neuro-cognitive model, the retinoid system is able to perform many other useful perceptual and higher cognitive functions. In this paper, I draw on the hypothesized properties of this system to argue that neuronal activity within the retinoid structure constitutes the phenomenal content of consciousness and the unique sense of self that each of us experiences. -/- Trehub, A. (1977). Neuronal models for cognitive processes: Networks for learning, perception, and imagination. _Journal of Theoretical Biology_ 65: 141-169. -/- Trehub, A. (1991). _The Cognitive Brain_. MIT Press. -/- . (shrink)

Most people will agree that if my brain were made to have within it precisely the same pattern of activity that is in it now but through artificial means, as in its being fed all its stimulation through electrodes as it sits in a vat, an experience would result for me that would be subjectively indistinguishable from that I am now having. In ‘The Story of a Brain’ I ask whether the same subjective experience would be maintained in variations like (...) these: The hemispheres are in different vats but interacting with each other through radio transmission. Smaller chunks - and eventually the individual neurons - are interacting in this way. The hemispheres or the smaller chunks undergo internally the same pattern of activity but without interacting with each other. (shrink)

Recent scholarship indicates that Quine’s “Truth by Convention” does not present the radical critiques of analytic truth found fifteen years later in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” This prompts a historical question: what caused Quine’s radicalization? I argue that two crucial components of Quine’s development can be traced to the academic year 1940–1941, when he, Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Hempel, and Goodman were all at Harvard together. First, during those meetings, Quine recognizes that Carnap has abandoned the extensional, syntactic approach to philosophical (...) analysis, an approach espoused in Carnap’s 1934 Logical Syntax of Language, and which Quine endorsed his entire career. Second, Tarski presents Quine with a philosophically well-motivated reason to think that an apparently analytic discipline, arithmetic, could be synthetic; this reflects one of the central assertions found in “Two Dogmas” but not in “Truth by Convention.” I use this account of Quine’s development to resolve a dispute between Creath and Mancosu concerning the timeline for Quine’s evolving critiques of analyticity. (shrink)

Suppose one believes that the historical record of discarded scientific theories provides good evidence against scientific realism. Should one adopt Kyle Stanford’s specific version of this view, based on the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives? I present reasons for answering this question in the negative. In particular, Stanford’s challenge cannot use many of the prima facie strongest pieces of historical evidence against realism, namely: superseded theories whose successors were explicitly conceived, and superseded theories that were not the result of elimination-of-alternatives inferences. (...) Attempts to accommodate and within Stanford’s framework are incompatible with other commitments Stanford holds, such as anti-realism being piecemeal instead of global. As separate lines of criticism, I argue that there are problems with Stanford’s claim that the PUA is the most important challenge to realism, and with his view of instrumentalist theory endorsement. (shrink)

Many have tackled the question ‘What (if anything) is analytic philosophy?’ I will not attempt to answer this vexed question. Rather, I address a smaller, more manageable set of interrelated questions: first, when and how did people begin using the label ‘analytic philosophy’? Second, how did those who used this label understand it? Third, why did many philosophers we today classify as analytic initially resist being grouped together under the single category of ‘analytic philosophy’? Finally, for the first generation who (...) described themselves as analytic philosophers, what was their intended contrast class? Relatedly, when did ‘continental philosophy’ become the standard opposition? Some evidence I present justifies received answers to these questions; other evidence supports surprising and unorthodox answers to these questions. (shrink)

This paper discusses critically what simulation models of the evolution ofcooperation can possibly prove by examining Axelrod’s “Evolution of Cooperation” and the modeling tradition it has inspired. Hardly any of the many simulation models of the evolution of cooperation in this tradition have been applicable empirically. Axelrod’s role model suggested a research design that seemingly allowed to draw general conclusions from simulation models even if the mechanisms that drive the simulation could not be identified empirically. But this research design was (...) fundamentally flawed, because it is not possible to draw general empirical conclusions from theoretical simulations. At best such simulations can claim to prove logical possibilities, i.e. they prove that certain phenomena are possible as the consequence of the modeling assumptions built into the simulation, but not that they are possible or can be expected to occur in reality I suggest several requirements under which proofs of logical possibilities can nevertheless be considered useful. Sadly, most Axelrod-style simulations do not meet these requirements. I contrast this with Schelling’s neighborhood segregation model, thecore mechanism of which can be retraced empirically. (shrink)

An epistemology of art has seemed problematic mainly because of arguments claiming that an essential element of a theory of knowledge, truth, has no place in aesthetic contexts. For, if it is objectively true that something is beautiful, it seems to follow that the predicate “is beautiful” expresses a property – a view asserted by Plato but denied by Hume and Kant. But then, if the belief that something is beautiful is not objectively true, we cannot be said to know (...) that something is beautiful and the path to an epistemology of art is effectively blocked. The article places the existence aesthetic properties in the proper context; presents a logically correct argument for the existence of such properties; identifies strategies for responding to this argument; explains why objections by Hume, Kant, and several other philosophers fail; and sketches a realization account of beauty influenced by Hogarth. (shrink)

This article describes our efforts to screen and enrol clinical trial participants conscientiously in the COVID-19 pandemic setting. We present the standard screening and enrolment process prior to, and our process of adapting to, the pandemic. Our goal was to develop a way to screen and enrol people for clinical trials that was both equitable and effective. In addition, we outline the steps our research department took to ensure that ethical, clinical and logistical factors were considered when matching a patient (...) to a clinical trial. (shrink)

Ecology has become a popular conceptual model in numerous fields of inquiry and it seems especially appropriate for environmental philosophy. Apart from its literal employment in biology, ecology has served as a useful metaphor that captures the interdependence of factors in a field of research. At the same time as ecology is suggestive, it cannot be followed literally or blindly. This paper considers the appropriateness of the uses to which ecology has been put in some recent discussions of architectural and (...) environmental aesthetics, and develops a critique of the differing ecological aesthetics of Jusuck Koh and Xiangzhan Cheng. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Human Environments is a companion volume to Carlson's and Berleant's The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Whereas the earlier collection focused on the aesthetic appreciation of nature, The Aesthetics of Human Environments investigates philosophical and aesthetics issues that arise from our engagement with human environments ranging from rural landscapes to urban cityscapes. Our experience of public spaces such as shopping centers, theme parks, and gardens as well as the impact of our personal living spaces on the routine activities (...) of our everyday life are discussed in terms of their aesthetic value and the nature of our aesthetic appreciation. This volume will appeal to any reader concerned about the aesthetic quality of the world in which we live. (shrink)

The species category is defined as thesmallest historical individual within which there is a parental pattern of ancestry and descent. The use of historical individual in this definition is consistent with the prevailing notion that speciesper se are not involved in processes — they are effects, not effectors. Reproductive isolation distinguishes biparental historical species from their parts, and it provides a basis for understanding the nature of the evidence used to discover historical individuals.

We shall try to defend two non-standard views that run counter to two well-entrenched familiar views. The standard views are the universal and existential quantifiers of first-order logic are not modal operators, and the quantifiers are extensional. If that is correct then the counterclaims create genuine problems for some traditional philosophical doctrines.

This conceptual article draws on structuration theory and social identity theory to isolate firm-internal institutionalization processes as antecedents and drivers of corporate political strategizing. Path dependencies in corporate routines and actors' knowledgeability about these path dependencies are singled out as primary factors structuring strategic decision making within the firm. The concepts of path dependency and knowledgeability, respectively, refer to the institutional and cognitive dimension of corporate political strategizing. These two dimensions come together in actors' identities. Identities on their turn shape (...) managers' recognition of policy issues and the interpretation of issue salience relative to corporate interests. Thus, the article argues that institutional features of competitive environments precipitate in processes of identity building and preference formation and are reproduced through organizational routines and practices within the firm. (shrink)

The idea of aesthetic disinterestedness has been a central concept in aesthetics since the late eighteenth century. This exchange offers a contemporary reconsideration of disinterestedness from different sides of the question.

Definitions I presented in a previous article as part of a semantic approach in epistemology assumed that the concept of derivability from standard logic held across all mathematical and scientific disciplines. The present article argues that this assumption is not true for quantum mechanics (QM) by showing that concepts of validity applicable to proofs in mathematics and in classical mechanics are inapplicable to proofs in QM. Because semantic epistemology must include this important theory, revision is necessary. The one I propose (...) also extends semantic epistemology beyond the ‘hard’ sciences. The article ends by presenting and then refuting some responses QM theorists might make to my arguments. (shrink)

The term “objective” has both a metaphysical and an epistemological meaning, and each of these meanings gives rise to a corresponding objective-subjective dichotomy. A formal definition of objectivity is given, and this clarifies the nature of the epistemological dichotomy. These dichotomies are represented by classes of existents, and a Venn-type diagram is used to illustrate the relationship between them. It is shown that the class of all existents can be partitioned into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes, which correspond to (...) Rand's intrinsic-subjective-objective trichotomy. (shrink)

This essay traces the steps to social aesthetics. It begins by affirming the central place of sense experience for aesthetics and its refinement in the perceptual acuity of a developed sensibility. This leads to associating aesthetic appreciation with such perceptual experience. Rejecting the identification of disinterestedness with such appreciation, the present paper proposes the full participatory involvement in the experience of appreciation as expressed by the concept of aesthetic engagement. This describes the appreciative situation as an aesthetic field in which (...) the perceptual, creative, focusing, and activating factors are in reciprocal interaction. It characterizes not only appreciation in the arts but occurs as well in appreciating natural, built, and social environments. Aesthetic engagement in social aesthetics is exemplified by the gaze in the experience of four well-known paintings I shall consider. Following these a series of related ideas are developed that lead to the concept of a social aesthetics. Finally, the essay returns to the paintings for an enhanced understanding of social aesthetics. (shrink)

Brought about through philosophical analysis – a first in the history of art – paradigm shifts in the ontology and epistemology of sculpture are described, motivated, and exemplified with pieces they inspired. Navigating the new aesthetic environment requires an ‘escape from Plato's Cave’ by means of a kind of phenomenological reduction. The new conceptual foundation allows artists unprecedented levels of freedom to explore and innovate, connects sculpture to music, and has the potential to enhance significantly the appreciation of art and (...) its impact on contemporary culture. The algorithmic nature of my paradigms shows that art and science have more in common than previously thought. (shrink)