La opera flotante de John Barth tiene varias puertas de acceso para el análisis. Una de ellas nos lleva a indagar sobre el tema que circunda la obra: el suicidio. Para ello, en el presente trabajo vamos a contrastar las posibles características apocalípticas del personaje principal, Todd Andrews, con determinados postulados de la filosofía existencialista de Jean Paul Sartre. La propuesta estará centrada en revisar puntos de divergencia y de afinidad en ambas cosmovisiones.

Plus que Malebranche lui-même, ce volume interroge les potentialités complexes de ses textes et les différents prismes qui les ont réfractées, dans des contextes et à des desseins souvent bien différents de ceux de l'Oratorien. Plus que de savoir si telle ou telle réception est ou non "fidèle" aux "intentions" de Malebranche, ce volume entend participer à une réflexion plus large sur une méthodologie de l'histoire des idées soucieuse de n'occulter aucune des lectures réelles d'une œuvre à la fois apologétique (...) et grosse de matériaux subversifs. (shrink)

Para poder encontrar uma base comum de justificação de princípios e normas que,sob condições de um pluralismo social e cultural, pudessem ser publicamente reconhecidos,John Rawls e Jürgen Habermas fazem uma reconstrução do ponto de vista sob o qualé possível fundamentar imparcialmente normas de ação. Mas de acordo com a concepçãohabermasiana de democracia, a legitimidade das normas depende da institucionalização deprocedimentos que promovem a deliberação e aumentam as chances de se alcançardecisões válidas de acordo com o uso público da razão. Esse (...) procedimento se refere à trocadiscursiva de razões na qual os participantes buscam chegar a um acordo somente combase no melhor argumento, ancorando a validade das normas na possibilidade de um acordoracionalmente fundamentado por parte de todos os possíveis concernidos, consideradosparticipantes em discursos racionais. (shrink)

O objetivo do presente artigo é comparar as perspectivas de Friedrich von Hayek e Hannah Arendt sobre a relação entre liberdade e política. A perspectiva de Hayek é chamada de liberdade da política devido a seu pessimismo quanto à capacidade da ação política estatal ampliar a liberdade individual. E a perspectiva de Arendt é chamada de liberdade na política devido a sua aceitação positiva do espaço político enquanto campo para o exercício da ação e da liberdade dos indivíduos. A conclusão (...) é que a liberdade na política pressupõe alguma liberdade da política, mas não se contenta com a liberdade negativa. A concretização da liberdade exige participação nos assuntos públicos e vida ativa na esfera pública. (shrink)

Este artículo contrasta el método del abandono del límite con la analogía de Tomás de Aquino, ofreciendo una descripción global de esta última, en orden a la determinación del significado y el estatuto gnoseológico de la noción de ente. Examina en los respectivos planteamientos el valor y el alcance metafísico de la potencia, de la articulación abstracta del tiempo y de la “entelécheia”.

Se presentan y discuten las teorías de las emociones de William James y de Antonio Damasio haciendo énfasis en la intencionalidad de las emociones y en su entretejimiento con la racionalidad práctica. Se argumenta que la propuesta de James enfrenta varias dificultades para dar cuenta de ambos aspectos de las emociones y se muestra cómo la teoría neo-jamesiana de Damasio supera en parte algunas de esas dificultades, pero también da pie a otras objeciones. Al final se expone en forma breve (...) la propuesta de Jesse Prinz sobre las emociones como “evaluaciones corporalizadas”, la cual procura incluir al mismo tiempo el aspecto cognitivo de las emociones y su naturaleza corporal. (shrink)

En principio es el placer un tema históricamente tratado, aunque moralmente recusado, mas con el abordaje teórico de pensadores cirenaicos y epicúreos tal concepto acabó por situarse en una defensa del mismo, hecho que resignifica a esa expresión tan censurada en el filosofar griego de antaño. De igual manera, el uso de sinonimias como gozo, fruición, bienestar, entre otros conceptos para referirse al placer, posicionan una vez más a este como elemento valioso en el tratamiento filosófico ulterior a las nociones (...) éticas aristipiana y epicureísta. Al fin y al cabo, frente a los improperios emitidos por los adversarios de la corriente hedonista, Aristipo y Epicuro justificaron sus postulados ante esas interpelaciones con el fin de salvaguardar sus principios bajo la idea de bondad de las sensaciones, siendo estas un rasgo común entre tales filósofos. Sin embargo, ambos autores disienten en el modo para conseguir tal fin, diferencias que en el presente estudio se intentan demostrar. (shrink)

In this essay, I address a novel criticism recently levelled at the Strong Programme by Nick Tosh and Tim Lewens. Tosh and Lewens paint Strong Programme theorists as trading on a contrastive form of explanation. With this, they throw valuable new light on the explanatory methods employed by the Strong Programme. However, as I shall argue, Tosh and Lewens run into trouble when they accuse Strong Programme theorists of unduly restricting the contrast space in which legitimate historical and sociological explanations (...) of scientific knowledge might be given. Their attack founders as a result of their failure to properly understand the overall methodological concerns of Strong Programme theorists. After introducing readers to the technique of contrastive explanation and correcting the errors in Tosh and Lewens’ interpretation of the Strong Programme, I argue that it is, in fact, Tosh and Lewens’ own commitment to scientific realism which places an unacceptable restriction on the explanatory space open to historians and sociologists of science. The happy ending is that the Strong Programme provides more freedom for analysis than does scientific realism, and that careful attention to the methodological benefits of contrastive explanation can help lighten the burden on historians and sociologists of science as they go about their explanatory business. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that reversing the contrast of the eye region, which includes the eyebrows, affects the N170 ERP. To selectively assess the impact of just the eyes, the present study evaluated the N170 in response to reversing contrast polarity of just the iris and sclera in upright and inverted face stimuli. Contrast reversal of the eyes increased the amplitude of the N170 for upright faces, but not for inverted faces, suggesting that the contrast of eyes is an important (...) contributor to the N170 ERP. (shrink)

Dennett, a philosopher, and Griffin, an ethologist, have recently presented influential arguments promoting the extended use of intentional language by students of animal behavior. This essay seeks to elucidate and to contrast the claims made by each of these authors, and to evaluate their proposals primarily from the perspective of a practicing comparative psychologist or ethologist. While Griffin regards intentional terms as explanatory, Dennett assigns them a descriptive function; the issue of animal consciousness is central to Griffin's program and only (...) tangentially related to Dennett's. The philosopher's arguments are founded upon a more coherent metaphysics, but Dennett neglects to substantiate his claim that animal competences can be most readily modelled by artificial intelligence specialists when they are described in intentional terms. Both authors assume that some examples of animal behavior should not be given an intentional characterization, but neither provides adequate guidelines for the identification of cases belonging to this negative set. (shrink)

We present a unified treatment of contrast and denial as slightly different instantiations of the same discourse schema. Both denial and contrast are analysed as involving a revision operation, what sets them apart is merely the type of information being retracted. The formal analysis requires a representational framework that separates different types of information and is therefore implemented in Layered DRT. One of our selling points is the account of the uses of rectification vs. contrastive particles (like German sondern/aber) we (...) get for free with our unification. (shrink)

Justin Snedegar develops and defends contrastivism about reasons. This is the view that normative reasons are fundamentally reasons for or against actions or attitudes only relative to sets of alternatives. Simply put, reasons are always reasons to do one thing rather than another, instead of simply being reasons to do something, full stop.

_Purpose:_ In order to develop an evidence-based, sport-specific minimum impairment criteria (MIC) for the sport of vision-impaired (VI) shooting, this study aimed to determine the relative influence of losses in visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS) on shooting performance. Presently, VA but not CS is used to determine eligibility to compete in VI shooting. _Methods:_ Elite able-sighted athletes ( n = 27) shot under standard conditions with their habitual vision, and with their vision impaired by the use of simulation (...) spectacles (filters which reduce both VA and CS) and refractive blur (lenses which reduce VA with less effect on CS). Habitual shooting scores were used to establish a cut-off in order to determine when shooting performance was ‘below expected’ in the presence of vision impairment. Logistic regression and decision tree analyses were then used to assess the relationship between visual function and shooting performance. _Results:_ Mild reductions in VA and/or CS did not alter shooting performance, with greater reductions required for shooting performance to fall below habitual levels (below 87% of normalized performance). Stepwise logistic regression selected CS as the most significant predictor of shooting performance, with VA subsequently improving the validity of the model. In an unconstrained decision tree analysis, CS was selected as the sole criterion (80%) for predicting ‘below expected’ shooting score. _Conclusion:_ Shooting performance is better predicted by losses in CS than by VA. Given that it is not presently tested during classification, the results suggest that CS is an important measure to include in testing for the classification of vision impairment for athletes competing in VI shooting. (shrink)

This is a collection of papers that resulted from the Third International Conference on Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics that was held at Shanghai ...

What conception of causation is at work in the law? I argue that the law implicitly relies on a contrastive conception. In a liability case where the defendant's breach of duty must be shown to have caused the plaintiff's damages, it is not enough to consider what would have happened if the cause had not occurredthe law requires us to look to a specific replacement for the effect, which in this case is the hypothetical outcome in which the plaintiff came (...) off better. In place of I suggest the more explicit An explicitly contrastive approach can thus potentially help the lawyer phrase her causal question in a more explicit way, while shedding light on our conception of causation. (shrink)

We argue that contrastive statements have the same underlying semantics and affect the context in the same way as denials. We substantiate this claim by giving a unified account of the two phenomena that treats contrast as a subtype of denial. This analysis crucially requires a dynamic semantics view of context-dependence with a multi-dimensional representation of information.

We investigated how two cues to contrast—beat gesture and contrastive pitch accenting—affect comprehenders' cognitive load during processing of spoken referring expressions. In two visual‐world experiments, we orthogonally manipulated the presence of these cues and their felicity, or fit, with the local (sentence‐level) referential context in critical referring expressions while comprehenders' task‐evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) were examined. In Experiment 1, beat gesture and contrastive accenting always matched the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore relatively felicitous on the global (...) (experiment) level, whereas in Experiment 2, beat gesture and contrastive accenting never fit the referential context of filler referring expressions and were therefore infelicitous on the global level. The results revealed that both beat gesture and contrastive accenting increased comprehenders' cognitive load. For beat gesture, this increase in cognitive load was driven by both local and global infelicity. For contrastive accenting, this increase in cognitive load was unaffected when cues were globally felicitous but exacerbated when cues were globally infelicitous. Together, these results suggest that comprehenders' cognitive resources are taxed by processing infelicitous use of beat gesture and contrastive accenting to convey contrast on both the local and global levels. (shrink)

Realism and empiricism have always been contradictory tendencies in the philosophy of science. The view I will sketch is a synthesis, which I call Contrastive Empiricism. Realism and empiricism are incompatible, so a synthesis that merely conjoined them would be a contradiction. Rather, I propose to isolate important elements in each and show that they combine harmoniously. I will leave behind what I regard as confusions and excesses. The result, I hope, will be neither contradiction nor mishmash.

Smart MR contrast agents exhibit modulation of their relaxivity by specific physiological or biochemical trigger-events, while targeted MR contrast agents are envisioned to deliver the large gadolinium chelates into the target tissue. In an effort to develop novel smart and targeted MR contrast agents, the series of the DO3A based multifunctional chelating agents with the variable length of the side chain has been synthesized. They serve as valuable multipurpose precursors for contrast agents based on gadolinium chelates in the design of (...) relaxometric MR probes. The presence of the amino group in the side chain of the macrocycle allows for conversion into various functional groups (aminophosponates, aminocarboxylates, etc.) or for conjugation with different biomolecules, dyes, and polymers. Choice of the functional groups depends on the.. (shrink)

To the extent that indeterminacy intervenes between our reasons for action and our decisions, intentions and actions, our freedom seems to be reduced, not enhanced. Free will becomes nothing more than the power to choose irrationally. In recognition of this problem, some recent libertarians have suggested that free will is paradigmatically manifested only in actions for which we have reasons for both or all the alternatives. In these circumstances, however we choose, we choose rationally. Against this kind of account, most (...) fully developed by Robert Kane, critics have pressed the demand for contrastive explanations. Kane has responded by arguing that the demand does not need to be met: responsibility for an action does not require that there be a contrastive explanation of that action. However, this response proves too much: it implies that agents are responsible not only for the actions they choose, but also for the counterfactual actions which were equally available to them. (shrink)

The general process view of learning, which guided research into learning for the first half of this century, has come under attack in recent years from several quarters. One form of criticism has come from proponents of the so-called biological boundaries approach to learning. These theorists have presented a variety of data showing that supposedly general laws of learning may in fact be limited in their applicability to different species and learning tasks, and they argue that the limitations are drawn (...) by the nature of each species' adaptation to the particular requirements of its natural environment. The biological boundaries approach has served an important critical function in the move away from general process learning theory, but it is limited in its ability to provide an alternative to the general process approach. In particular, the biological boundaries approach lacks generality, it is in some respects subservient to the general process tradition, and its ecological content is in too many cases limited toex post factoadaptive explanations of learning skills. A contrasting, ecological approach to learning, which can provide a true alternative to general process theory, is presented. The ecological approach begins by providing an ecological task description for naturally occurring instances of learning; this step answers the question:Whatdoes this animal learn to do? The next step is an analysis of the means by which learning occurs in the course of development, answering the question:Howdoes the animal learn to do this? On the basis of such analyses, local principles of adaptation are formulated to account for the learning abilities of individual species. More global principles are sought by generalization among these local principles and may form the basis for a general ecological theory of learning. (shrink)

Any theory of mind needs to explain mental causation. Kim’s exclusion argument concludes that non-reductive physicalism cannot meet this challenge. One classic reply is that mental properties capture the causally relevant level of generality, because they are insensitive to physical realization. However, this reply suggests downward exclusion, contrary to physicalism’s assumption of closure. This paper shows how non-reductive physicalists can solve this problem by introducing a contrastive account of causation with non-exhaustive contrasts. That view has independent justification, because it is (...) also needed to solve other puzzles. On this theory, both a mental property and its physical realizer can cause the same physical effect without lapsing into any problematic overdetermination when they cause that effect in contrast with distinct foils. This contrastive solution has advantages over previous accounts of mental causation and is defended against objections. (shrink)

Classical electron theory with classical electromagnetic zero-point radiation (stochastic electrodynamics) is the classical theory which most closely approximates quantum electrodynamics. Indeed, in inertial frames, there is a general connection between classical field theories with classical zero-point radiation and quantum field theories. However, this connection does not extend to noninertial frames where the time parameter is not a geodesic coordinate. Quantum field theory applies the canonical quantization procedure (depending on the local time coordinate) to a mirror-walled box, and, in general, each (...) non-inertial coordinate frame has its own vacuum state. In particular, there is a distinction between the “Minkowski vacuum” for a box at rest in an inertial frame and a “Rindler vacuum” for an accelerating box which has fixed spatial coordinates in an (accelerating) Rindler frame. In complete contrast, the spectrum of random classical zero-point radiation is based upon symmetry principles of relativistic spacetime; in empty space, the correlation functions depend upon only the geodesic separations (and their coordinate derivatives) between the spacetime points. The behavior of classical zero-point radiation in a noninertial frame is found by tensor transformations and still depends only upon the geodesic separations, now expressed in the non-inertial coordinates. It makes no difference whether a box of classical zero-point radiation is gradually or suddenly set into uniform acceleration; the radiation in the interior retains the same correlation function except for small end-point (Casimir) corrections. Thus in classical theory where zero-point radiation is defined in terms of geodesic separations, there is nothing physically comparable to the quantum distinction between the Minkowski and Rindler vacuum states. It is also noted that relativistic classical systems with internal potential energy must be spatially extended and can not be point systems. The classical analysis gives no grounds for the “heating effects of acceleration through the vacuum” which appear in the literature of quantum field theory. Thus this distinction provides (in principle) an experimental test to distinguish the two theories. (shrink)

Less salient, lower contrast disks appear to be more numerous than more salient, higher contrast disks when intermingled in equal numbers into the same display, but they are equal in perceived numerosity when segregated into different displays. Comparative judgements indicate that the apparent numerosity of the lower contrast disks is unaffected by being intermingled with high contrast disks, whereas the high contrast disks are reduced in numerosity by being intermingled with the low contrast ones. Here, we report that this illusion (...) also occurs for absolute judgements of the numerosities of displays of from 20 to 80 disks. A model based on luminance-difference contrast normalization explains the illusory loss of high-contrast items along with veridical perception of the low-contrast ones. The model correctly predicts that perceived numerosity is linearly related to the square-root of the number of disks, with the extent of the illusion depending on an attentionally-weighted function of contrast and assimilation. (shrink)

In his paper, “Why Every Theory of Luck is Wrong,” Steven D. Hales presents a range of purported counterexamples to every account of luck that has a control condition or a chance condition. He gathers these counterexamples under the headings of lucky necessities, skillful luck, and diachronic luck. He concludes that no account of luck does or even can be developed which adequately handles these cases. In response, a novel account of luck— contrastive luck —is briefly developed in this paper. (...) Contrastive luck, complete with control and modal conditions, meets the challenges posed by Hales’ strongest representative counterexamples. Only space limitations prevent speaking to all. The takeaway is that at least one account of luck evades his charge of defect. Not every theory of luck is wrong. (shrink)

This paper attempts to account for the contrastive discourse connective (tam) tersine (‘on the contrary’) in Turkish discourse. We suggest that this connective evokes a discourse structure which has at least three parts: the material in the prior linguistic context, its refutation, and then rectification in the clause where the connective is hosted. Since negation is obligatory in the discourse context for refutation, we include a discussion of negation and we conclude that the obligatory negative clauses are instances of descriptive (...) negation rather than metalinguistic negation. We show that linguistic and cognitive contexts interact in producing and interpreting the discourse adverbial connective under discussion and the discourse structure in which it is used. It is claimed that (tam) tersine serves to bring closer the cognitive context of the intended audience to that of the writer’s while minimizing any potential discrepancies in the audience’s and the writer’s cognitive context. We argue that this discourse connective and the discourse it evokes are used in the argumentative mode. (shrink)

Can an act harm someone—a future someone, someone who does not exist yet but will—if that person would never exist but for that very action? This is one question raised by the non-identity problem. Many would argue that the answer is No: an action harms someone only insofar as it is worse for her, and an action cannot be worse for someone if she would not exist without it. The first part of this paper contends that the plausibility of the (...) ‘no harm’ argument stems from an equivocation. The second half argues for an account of harm that is both causal and contrastive. Finally, the paper contends that the contrastive account disarms the no harm argument and furthermore neutralizes a related argument that has been problematic for some previously proposed solutions to the non-identity problem. (shrink)

The sheer variety of socio-political events and technological advancements which affect modern society, and the speed and intensity at which these events occur around the world, delivers change known as epistemic and social transformation. Within this context, the question of justice for all is a poignant one. It is a cognitive revolution challenging humankind to consider whether or not the already contested meaning of philosophy can remain unchanged. The contributions to _Contrasts and contests about philosophy_ address this challenge from a (...) variety of different, and even contending, perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of the _South African Journal of Philosophy. _. (shrink)

According to proponents of irreducible cognitive phenomenology some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. One of the main approaches to defending the view that there is irreducible cognitive phenomenology is to give a phenomenal contrast argument. In this paper I distinguish three kinds of phenomenal contrast argument: what I call pure—represented by Strawson's Jack/Jacques argument—hypothetical—represented by Kriegel's Zoe argument—and glossed—first developed here. I argue that pure and hypothetical phenomenal contrast arguments face significant (...) difficulties, but that there is a sound glossed phenomenal contrast argument for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

We describe the three place relation of contrastive knowledge, which holds between a person, a target proposition, and a contrasting proposition. The person knows that p rather than that q. We argue for three claims about this relation. (a) Many common sense and philosophical ascriptions of knowledge can be understood in terms of it. (b) Its application is subject to fewer complications than non-contrastive knowledge is. (c) It applies over a wide range of human and nonhuman cases.

There is an interesting contrast between permissions to act and permissions to believe. Plausibly, if it is permissible to believe something from a perspective with incomplete evidence, it cannot become impermissible to believe it from a second perspective with complete evidence. In contrast, it seems that something permissible to do for an agent in a perspective with limited evidence can become impermissible in a second perspective in which all the relevant evidence is available. What is more, an agent with incomplete (...) evidence may be permitted to do something that she knows would be impermissible if she occupied a perspective of complete evidence. In this paper, I argue that this contrast is explained by a disanalogy between the role played by belief in epistemic deliberation and the role played by action in practical deliberation. Epistemic deliberation may be closed by adopting other attitudes than belief, whereas in general, practical deliberation can only be closed by endorsing some course of action. Thus, when there are pressures to close some practical deliberation, agents have to make a decision about what to do even if they lack relevant information. By contrast, lacking relevant evidence, agents may always refrain from forming a belief and close instead their epistemic deliberation by adopting some other attitude. (shrink)

Theron Pummer has argued that contrastive consent is necessary for the phenomenon of "secondary permissibility". I argue that it is not, and I undermine the motivation for thinking that it is.

Legal Judgment Prediction (LJP) is a typical application of Artificial Intelligence in the intelligent judiciary. Current research primarily focuses on automatically predicting law articles, charges, and terms of penalty based on the fact description of cases. However, existing methods for LJP have limitations, such as neglecting document structure and ignoring case similarities. We propose a novel framework called Graph Contrastive Learning with Augmentation (GCLA) for legal judgment prediction to address these issues. GCLA constructs trainable document-level graphs for fact description, capturing (...) local and global context through sentence-level subgraphs. Graph augmentation enhances robustness. We introduce a comparison case relation perspective, using graph contrastive learning to model case-text label relationships effectively. Experimental results on real-world datasets demonstrate the competitive performance of GCLA. (shrink)

I outline four competing probabilistic accounts of contrastive evidential support and consider various considerations that might help arbitrate between these. The upshot of the discussion is that the so-called 'Law of Likelihood' is to be preferred to any of the alternatives considered.

Geoengineering is typically defined as a techno-scientific response to climate change that differs from mitigation and adaptation, and that includes diverse individual technologies, which can be classified as either solar radiation management or carbon dioxide removal. We analyse the representation of geoengineering on Wikipedia as a way of opening up this dominating, if contested, model for further debate. We achieve this by contrasting the dominating model as presented in the encyclopaedic article texts with the patterns of hyper-link associations between the (...) articles. Two datasets were created tracing the geoengineering construct on Wikipedia, shedding light on its boundary with its context, as well as on its internal structure. The analysis shows that the geoengineering category tends to be associated on Wikipedia primarily with atmospheric solar radiation management rather than land-based carbon dioxide removal type technologies. The results support the notion that the dominant model of defining and classifying geoengineering technology has been beneficial for solar radiation management type technologies more than for land-based carbon dioxide removal ones. The article also demonstrates that controversy mapping with Wikipedia data affords analysis that can open up dominating definitions and classifications of technologies, and offer resistance to their frequent naturalising and decontextualising tendencies. This work is in line with recent work on digital sociology, but the article contributes a new methodology and reports on the first empirical application of controversy mapping using Wikipedia data to a technology. (shrink)

Baumann (2008a) raises three main concerns for epistemic contrastivism. These lead him to a more complicated re-conception of knowledge, involving varying numbers of argument places for varying sorts of arguments. I will argue that these complications are unneeded. The more elegant and uniform contrastive treatment can resolve all of Baumann’s concerns, in a straightforward way.

This paper provides evidence for a contrastive account of explanation that is motivated by pragmatic theories that recognize the contribution that context makes to the interpretation of a prompt for explanation. This study replicates the primary findings of previous work in explanation-based category learning, extending that work by illustrating the critical role of the context in this type of learning. Participants interacted with items from two categories either by describing the items or explaining their category membership. We manipulated the feature (...) overlap between the categories and examined both the explanations generated and acquired knowledge of the categories. Explanations for membership in a given category were influenced by the unprompted contrast category, indicating an important role for contrastive processing in the generation of explanations. The influence of the contrast category was similarly seen in the transfer performance of the participants. (shrink)

Opponents of the new mechanistic account of scientific explanation argue that the new mechanists are committed to a ‘More Details Are Better’ claim: adding details about the mechanism always improves an explanation. Due to this commitment, the mechanistic account cannot be descriptively adequate as actual scientific explanations usually leave out details about the mechanism. In reply to this objection, defenders of the new mechanistic account have highlighted that only adding relevant mechanistic details improves an explanation and that relevance is to (...) be determined relative to the phenomenon-to-be-explained. Craver and Kaplan (B J Philos Sci 71:287–319, 2020) provide a thorough reply along these lines specifying that the phenomena at issue are contrasts. In this paper, we will discuss Craver and Kaplan’s reply. We will argue that it needs to be modified in order to avoid three problems, i.e., what we will call the Odd Ontology Problem, the Multiplication of Mechanisms Problem, and the Ontic Completeness Problem. However, even this modification is confronted with two challenges: First, it remains unclear how explanatory relevance is to be determined for contrastive explananda within the mechanistic framework. Second, it remains to be shown as to how the new mechanistic account can avoid what we will call the ‘Vertical More Details are Better’ objection. We will provide answers to both challenges. (shrink)

How should the contrastivist formulate closure? That is, given that knowledge is a ternary contrastive state Kspq (s knows that p rather than q), how does this state extend under entailment? In what follows, I will identify adequacy conditions for closure, criticize the extant invariantist and contextualist closure schemas, and provide a contrastive schema based on the idea of extending answers. I will conclude that only the contrastivist can adequately formulate closure.