It is common to defend the Homeostatic Property Cluster ( HPC ) view as a third way between conventionalism and essentialism about natural kinds ( Boyd , 1989, 1991, 1997, 1999; Griffiths , 1997, 1999; Keil , 2003; Kornblith , 1993; Wilson , 1999, 2005; Wilson , Barker , & Brigandt , forthcoming ). According to the HPC view, property clusters are not merely conventionally clustered together; the co-occurrence of properties in the cluster is sustained by a similarity generating ( (...) or homeostatic ) mechanism . I argue that conventional elements are involved partly but ineliminably in deciding which mechanisms define kinds , for deciding when two mechanisms are mechanisms of the same type, and for deciding where one particular mechanism ends and another begins. This intrusion of conventional perspective into the idea of a mechanism raises doubts as to whether the HPC view is sufficiently free of conventional elements to serve as an objective arbiter in scientific disputes about what the kinds of the special sciences should be. (shrink)

Recent technological innovation has made video doctoring increasingly accessible. This has given rise to Deepfake Pornography, an emerging phenomenon in which Deep Learning algorithms are used to superimpose a person’s face onto a pornographic video. Although to most people, Deepfake Pornography is intuitively unethical, it seems difficult to justify this intuition without simultaneously condemning other actions that we do not ordinarily find morally objectionable, such as sexual fantasies. In the present article, I refer to this contradiction as the pervert’s dilemma. (...) I propose that the method of Levels of Abstraction, a philosophical mode of enquiry inspired by Formal Methods in computer science, can be employed to formulate at least one possible solution to the dilemma. From this perspective, the permissibility of some actions appears to depend on the degree to which they are abstracted from their natural context. I conclude that the dilemma can only be solved when considered at low levels of abstractions, when Deepfakes are situated in the macro-context of gender inequality. (shrink)

The Drosophila anterior‐posterior pattern genes of the terminal class, particularly the tailless gene, affect structures derived from the acron and the tail region of the embryo. These domains correspond in position and function to asegmental domains at the termini of annelids and more primitive insect embryos. This suggests that terminal genes in Drosophila may have originated in an ancestor common to both annelids and arthropods, and thus that the specification of termini in these metameric organisms is an ancient, evolutionarily conserved (...) process. (shrink)

English summary: Was Paul of Tarsus a philosopher? Does he even rank amongst those philosophers who influenced occidental live and thought? The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben says, that the Epistle to the Romans is the fundamental messianic text of the western culture. The Jewish scholars Jacob Taubes and Daniel Boyarin insist on the philosophical and political Force of Pauline thinking. Long before that, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger dealt intently with the Epistle. Was Paul a Philosopher? In any case he (...) received a lot of attention from the modern philosophers. The collection of contributions by theologians and philosophers gives profound insights into his thinking. German description: War Paulus aus Tarsus ein Philosoph? Zahlt er gar zu jenen bedeutenden Philosophen, die das abendlandische Leben und Denken massgeblich mit pragten? Der italienische Philosoph Giorgio Agamben bezeichnet jedenfalls den Romerbrief des Apostels als "grundlegenden messianischen Text der westlichen Kultur". Nachdrucklich weisen auch judische Gelehrte wie Jacob Taubes und Daniel Boyarin auf die philosophisch-politische Sprengkraft paulinischen Denkens hin. Lange zuvor setzten sich bereits Friedrich Nietzsche und Martin Heidegger intensiv mit den Briefen des Apostels auseinander. War Paulus ein Philosoph? In jedem Fall geniesst er unter den Philosophen der Moderne und Spatmoderne eine bemerkenswert grosse Aufmerksamkeit. Die hier versammelten Beitrage von Philosophen und Theologen geben einen profunden Einblick in sein denkerisches Potential. (shrink)

This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure associated with the (...) Kuhnian tradition, which depend on a descriptivist approach to meaning, and we argue that descriptivism is not the right account of the meaning and reference of theoretical terms. We suggest that an account along the lines of the causal-historical theory of reference provides a more faithful picture of how terms for unobservable theoretical entities and properties come to refer; we argue that this picture works particularly well for TSR. In the last section we discuss how our account raises concerns specifically for perspectival forms of scientific realism. (shrink)

Physicalism, a topic that has been central to modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics, is the philosophical view that everything in the space-time world is ultimately physical. The physicalist will claim that all facts about the mind and the mental are physical facts and deny the existence of mental events and state insofar as these are thought of as independent of physical things, events and states. This collection of essays, first published in 2001, offers a series of perspectives on this (...) important doctrine and brings depth and breadth to the philosophical debate. A group of distinguished philosophers, comprising both physicalists and their critics, consider a wide range of issues including the historical genesis and present justification of physicalism, its metaphysical presuppositions and methodological role, its implications for mental causation, and the account it provides of consciousness. (shrink)

This book explains how we can understand objective chance in a metaphysically neutral way, as reducible to certain patterns that can be discerned in the actual events of our world.

Online technologies enable vast amounts of data to outlive their producers online, thereby giving rise to a new, digital form of afterlife presence. Although researchers have begun investigating the nature of such presence, academic literature has until now failed to acknowledge the role of commercial interests in shaping it. The goal of this paper is to analyse what those interests are and what ethical consequences they may have. This goal is pursued in three steps. First, we introduce the concept of (...) the Digital Afterlife Industry, and define it as an object of study. Second, we identify the politico-economic interests of the DAI. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approach based on an informational interpretation of Marxian economics. Third, we explain the practical manifestations of the interests using four real life cases. The findings expose the incentives of the DAI to alter what is referred to as the “informational bodies” of the dead, which in turn is to be seen as a violation of the principle of human dignity. To prevent such consequences, we argue that the ethical conventions that guide trade with remains of organic bodies may serve as a good model for future regulation of DAI. (shrink)

The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational field in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g ab itself, can be said to carry genuine energy and momentum, this is a powerful argument for adopting the substantivalist view of spacetime.This paper explores the standard textbook account of gravitational field energy and argues that (a) so-called stress-energy of the gravitational field is well-defined neither (...) locally nor globally; and (b) there is no general principle of energy-momentum conservation to be found in General Relativity. I discuss the nature and justification of the zero-divergence law for ordinary stress-energy, and its possible connection with the failure of General Relativity to realise Mach's principle. (shrink)

The web is increasingly inhabited by the remains of its departed users, a phenomenon that has given rise to a burgeoning digital afterlife industry. This industry requires a framework for dealing with its ethical implications. We argue that the regulatory conventions guiding archaeological exhibitions could provide the basis for such a framework.

Social distancing has become the most prominent measure many countries have implemented to combat the spread of COVID-19. The aim of the current study was to explore the potential role of empathy and self-construal styles, as individual personality traits, on self-reported social distancing. Participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Singelis Self-Construal Scale, and were asked to rate their level of social distancing and how much they endorsed social distancing on a five-point Likert-scale. Across a large and diverse sample, results (...) showed that trait-levels of empathic concern and perspective taking positively correlates with social distancing. However, we did not find evidence to suggest that trait-levels of personal distress correlates with social distancing. We interpret these findings as suggesting that empathy, both its altruistic and cognitive dimensions, plays an important role in motivating people to socially distance and should be emphasized during times of crisis. Furthermore, we suggest that emphasizing a person’s self-distress during times of crisis may not be an effective approach in promotion social distancing policies. We also found that both independence and interdependence self-construal styles positively correlates with social distancing. While we expected the latter result, we did not expect the former. This suggests that more work is needed to fully understand how self-construal styles, along with their cultural level analogs, influences social distancing. Overall, these results provide us with novel multi-national data about the role of individual differences on social distancing tendencies specifically, and human behavior during a global health crisis more generally. (shrink)

Under what conditions are people responsible for their choices and the outcomes of those choices? How could such conditions be fostered by liberal societies? Should what people are due as a matter of justice depend on what they are responsible for? For example, how far should healthcare provision depend on patients' past choices? What values would be realized and which hampered by making justice sensitive to responsibility? Would it give people what they deserve? Would it advance or hinder equality? The (...) explosion of philosophical interest in such questions has been fuelled by increased focus on individual responsibility in political debates. Political philosophers, especially egalitarians, have responded to such developments by attempting to map out the proper place for responsibility in theories of justice. This book both reflects on these recent developments in normative political theory and moves the debate forwards. (shrink)

The orthodox definition of hope suffers from an exclusion problem: it is unable to exclude subjects without hope. In fact, the orthodox definition even allows for despair to be falsely classified as hope. This problem suggests two basic desiderata for a successful analysis of hope: it should solve the exclusion problem, and it should have the resources to explain why, in a given situation, a subject does or does not form a hope. Bearing these desiderata in mind, I assess two (...) recent hope‐accounts offered by Jack M. C. Kwong and Cheshire Calhoun. I then offer my own view, which is based on the Jamesian notion of a “live possibility”. I suggest that a possibility needs to reach a certain probability threshold in order to count as live, and according to my account, to hope is to desire the truth of such a live possibility. This view is well‐equipped to solve the exclusion problem, and it can explain why a subject does or does not hope. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The reliability of a belief-producing process is a matter of how likely it is that the process will produce beliefs that are true. The term reliabilism may be used to refer to any position that makes this idea of reliability central to the explication of some important epistemic concept. I know of three such positions that appeal to some epistemologists: a reliabilist account of what makes a belief justified, a reliabilist account of what makes a true belief knowledge, and a (...) reliabilist answer to the question of the fourth condition, the question of what must be added to justified true belief to make knowledge. Obviously these are alternative positions rather than parts of a single coherent whole. I think of the first as reliabilism’s boldest stand, the second as the position to which it may retreat when the first is found untenable, and the third as its last refuge. I will criticize only the first two positions. (shrink)

L. E. J. Brouwer, the founder of mathematical intuitionism, believed that mathematics and its objects must be humanly graspable. He initiated a program rebuilding modern mathematics according to that principle. This book introduces the reader to the mathematical core of intuitionism – from elementary number theory through to Brouwer's uniform continuity theorem – and to the two central topics of 'formalized intuitionism': formal intuitionistic logic, and formal systems for intuitionistic analysis. Building on that, the book proposes a systematic, philosophical foundation (...) for intuitionism that weaves together doctrines about human grasp, mathematical objects and mathematical truth. (shrink)

This book offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current ecological crisis via the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on Marxist concepts to confirm humanity's centrality in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers including Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and Theodor Adorno are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism (...) and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural. (shrink)

The concept of vulnerability has long played a central role in discussions of research ethics. In addition to its rhetorical use, vulnerability has become a term of art in U.S. and international research regulations and guidelines, many of which contain specific provisions applicable to research with vulnerable subjects. Yet, despite the frequency with which the term vulnerability is used, little consensus exists on what it actually means in the context of human subject protection or, more importantly, on how a finding (...) of vulnerability should affect the process of research ethics review.The Common Rule, the centerpiece of the U.S. human subject protection regulations, uses the word vulnerable three times. First, it provides that institutional review boards that regularly review research involving a vulnerable category of subjects should consider including one or more individuals who are knowledgeable about and experienced in working with these subjects. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of how democratic governance is possible. It analyses democracy as a laminated system consisting of three interdependent levels – the political/institutional, the social/interactional, and the psychological/intrapsychic – each of which is necessary for the others to exist. Each level is subject to a regulatory principle that is necessary for it to function appropriately. At the political/institutional level, competing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of ‘loser’s consent,’ in which the losing party must (...) agree to cede power to the winning party. At the social/interactional level individuals from opposing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of a superordinate identity as citizen, which allows them to transcend their partisan political identities. At the psychological/intrapsychic level individuals must be governed by the regulatory principle of mutuality/thirdness which allows the possibility of an alternative to the binary identities that result from the doer/done-to position. (shrink)

In his “New Consensus” on explanation, Wesley Salmon (1989) famously argued that there are two kinds of scientific explanation: global, derivational, and unifying explanations, and then local, ontic explanations backed by causal relations. Following Salmon’s New Consensus, the dominant view in philosophy of science is what I term “neo-Causalism” which assumes that all ontic explanations of singular fact/event are causal explanations backed by causal relations, and that scientists only search for causal patterns or relations and only offer causal explanations of (...) singular facts/events. I argue that there are foundational, and fatal, flaws in the neo-Causal picture. The relations backing constitutive mechanistic explanations of activities of wholes using activities of parts, as well as other species of compositional explanation, cannot be causal relations. Treating them as causal or causation-like is therefore plausibly a category mistake. Compositional explanations in the sciences represent instead a sui generis kind of ontic explanation of singular fact/event backed by sui generis compositional relations. We thus need a pluralistic revision of Salmon’s New Consensus on explanation to reflect these findings. (shrink)

The central ideas of logical, or scientific, empiricism as it developed during the twenties and early thirties in Vienna and in Berlin, grew out of collaborative efforts of scientifically interested philosophers and philosophically interested scientists. Those thinkers noted that while the claims made by the physical sciences were amenable to objective test by experiment and observation, the pronouncements put forward by metaphysics were incapable of any such objective critical appraisal. And while hypotheses advanced in the physical sciences would eventually be (...) accepted or rejected and thus lead to the growth of a body of objective scientific knowledge, the problems and pronouncements of metaphysics, inaccessible to objective appraisal, kept reappearing over and over again. (shrink)

Theology in the modern era often assumes that the consummate form of theological discourse is objective prose—ignoring or condemning apophatic traditions and the spiritual eros that drives them. For too long, Kierkegaard has been read along these lines as a progenitor of twentieth-century neo-orthodoxy and a stern critic of the erotic in all its forms. In contrast, Hughes argues that Kierkegaard envisions faith fundamentally as a form of infinite, insatiable eros. He depicts the essential purpose of Kierkegaard’s writing as to (...) elicit ever-greater spiritual desire, not to provide the satisfactions of doctrine or knowledge. -/- Hughes’s argument revolves around close readings of provocative, disparate, and (in many cases) little-known Kierkegaardian texts. The thread connecting all of these texts is that they each conjure up some sort of performative “stage setting,” which they invite readers to enter. By analyzing the theological function of these texts, the book sheds new light on the role of the aesthetic in Kierkegaard’s authorship, his surprising affinity for liturgy and sacrament, and his overarching effort to conjoin eros for God with this-worldly love. (shrink)

The automation of online social life is an urgent issue for researchers and the public alike. However, one of the most significant uses of such technologies seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the research community: religion. Focusing on Islamic Prayer Apps, which automatically post prayers from its users’ accounts, we show that even one such service is already responsible for millions of tweets daily, constituting a significant portion of Arabic-language Twitter traffic. We argue that the fact that a phenomenon (...) of these proportions has gone unnoticed by researchers reveals an opportunity to broaden the scope of the current research agenda on online automation. (shrink)