STILLWATER, MINNESOTA—Two men sit at a long table, oblivious to the breakfast-time commotion. One moves a coffee cup from one side of a water glass to the other. “If I look here and don’t see the cup,” he says to the other, “then I know it must be there.” It sounds like a “deep” exchange between swotty young philosophy majors. But the fellow moving the cup has gray hair— and a Nobel Prize in physics. Sliding the porcelain, Anthony Leggett (...) of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, explains how scientists might try to see past the strictures of quantum mechanics, the bizarre theory that governs the behavior of tiny objects and clashes with our everyday notions of reality. “None of the existing interpretations of quantum mechanics as a theory of the entire world is satisfactory,” Leggett says to John Preskill, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Leggett, Preskill, and 22 other physicists, philosophers, and historians have gathered here for the Seven Pines Symposium.* Packed into a slightly ramshackle lodge in a wooded state park, the scholars—all of them men—will share their insights, suites of rooms without telephones, and meals of roast quail and pheasant at a long communal table. Perhaps not since the famous Solvay Conferences of the early 20th century, at which Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein debated the meaning of quantum theory in their free time, has physics seemed so genteel. Each year, the symposium tackles another of physics’ enduring puzzles: the nature of the vacuum, the concept of a f ield, the meaning of time. The aim is not to resolve the mysteries but to seed new lines of inquiry, says Roger Stuewer, a historian at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and chair of the symposium’s advisory board. “When we get the best people together,” he says, “ideas are planted that in some intangible way will influence what they do in the future.” Those germinating ideas are watered with a mellow Zinfandel and nourished with succulent steak. This year, attendees spent 5 days grappling with the implications of quantum mechanics, which have perplexed physi.. (shrink)

The conjunction of Schrodinger dynamics and the usual way of thinking about the conditions under which quantum systems exhibit determinate values implies that measurements don't have outcomes. The orthodox fix to this quantum measurement problem is von Neumann's postulate of measurement collapse, which suspends Schrodinger dynamics in measurement contexts. Contending that the fundamental dynamical law of quantum theory breaks down every time we test the theory empirically, the collapse postulate is unsatisfactory. Recently philosophers and physicists have proposed a less violent (...) solution to the measurement problem. Their modal interpretations of quantum mechanics advocate unusual ways of thinking about the situations under which quantum systems exhibit determinate observable values, semantics which reconcile determinate measurement outcomes with universal Schrodinger dynamics. Thus modal interpretations hold out hope that quantum theory is complete and exceptionless. ;This dissertation tempers that hope. I consider the modal approach to the neglected problem of state preparation. A promising modal account exploits standard quantum transition probabilities. But, I claim, modal interpretations must subject these transition probabilities to a consistency constraint which they can be shown to violate. Non-standard transition probabilities might avoid this inconsistency, but they would also introduce novel dynamics, and so undo the modal triumph of taking Schrodinger dynamics to be complete and universal. Next I consider Albert and Loewer's assault on modal accounts of "error-prone" measurements. I argue that the Albert-Loewer problem is more general than Albert, Loewer, or their critics appreciate, and that the Araki-Yanase theorem implies the existence of a class of observables whose error-free measurements succumb to the Albert-Loewer problem. I review modal responses to Albert and Loewer which appeal to the palliative effects of a decohering environment and find them incomplete. Finally, based on the physicist Anthony Leggett's work with SQUIDs, I present a system concerning which the empirical commitments of modal interpretations contradict those of the quantum statistical algorithm, minimally interpreted. I conclude that these modal difficulties can be resolved only by taking the quantum formalism to be incomplete. (shrink)

In many ways, Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza appears to be a contradictory figure in the history of philosophy. From the beginning, he has been notorious as an "atheist" who seeks to substitute Nature for a personal deity; yet he was also, in Novalis's famous description, "the God-intoxicated man." He was an uncompromising necessitarian and causal determinist; yet his ethical ideal was to become a "free man." He maintained that the human mind and the human body are identical; yet he also (...) insisted that the human mind can achieve a kind of eternality that transcends the death of the body. He has been adopted by Marxists as a precursor of historical materialism, and by Hegelians as a precursor of absolute idealism. He was a psychological egoist, proclaiming that all individuals necessarily seek their own advantage and implying that other individuals were of value to him only insofar as they were useful to him; yet his writings aimed to promote human community based on love and friendship, he had many devoted friends, and even his critics were obliged to acknowledge that his personal conduct was above reproach. He held that the state has the right to do whatever it has the power to do, while at the same time he defended democracy and freedom of speech. He denied supernatural revelation and criticized popular religion as a grave danger to the peace and stability of the state; yet he devoted himself to the careful interpretation of scripture and argued for toleration and freedom of religion. Rarely employing figures of speech or rhetorical flourishes of any kind, his works are nevertheless among the most magisterial and uplifting of all philosophical writings, and they have inspired more poets and novelists than those of any other philosopher of the early modern period. (shrink)

A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to (...) save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism. We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics. Key Words: explanation; functionalism; mental causation; metaphysics; reductionism. (shrink)

C. L. Hardin has argued that the colour opponency of the vision system leads to chromatic subjectivism: chromatic sensory states reduce to neurophysiological states. Much of the force of Hardin's argument derives from a critique of chromatic objectivism. On this view chromatic sensory states are held to reduce to an external property. While I agree with Hardin's critique of objectivism it is far from clear that the problems which beset objectivism do not apply to the subjectivist position as well. I (...) develop a critique of subjectivism that parallels Hardin's anti-objectivist argument. (shrink)

This was the book which first garnered international celebrity and notoriety for its author, and which fire-started a debate about the supernatural claims of Christianity. Rejecting Christian doctrines and metaphysics in favour of the religious consciousness which characterises human identity, Cupitt 'takes leave' of God by abandoning objective theism. Whatever one thinks of the author's views, and of the non-realist beliefs he has been seen to champion, Taking Leave of God remains an essential work, and one of the most controversial (...) theological interventions of its age. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The neural structures of the brain exist to construct information. They do this by creating concepts that relate internal, personal need to external, environmental reality. Meaning is formed in the brain by neural network patterns that traverse these two structures of experience: the visceral nervous system and the somatic nervous system. How exactly does the brain get from constructing information to creating meaning, and what can this process tell us about the nature of experience? This book addresses both of these (...) questions, making an important contribution to both neuroscience and philosophy. (shrink)

It is possible that you are living in a simulation—that your world is computer-generated rather than physical. But how likely is this scenario? Bostrom and Chalmers each argue that it is moderately likely—neither very likely nor very unlikely. However, they adopt an unorthodox form of reasoning about self-location uncertainty. Our main contention here is that Bostrom’s and Chalmers’ premises, when combined with orthodoxy about self-location, yields instead the conclusion that you are almost certainly living in a simulation. We consider how (...) this (surprising) conclusion might be resisted, and show that the analogy between Sleeping Beauty cases and simulation cases provides a new way of evaluating approaches to self-location uncertainty. In particular, we argue that some conditionalization-based approaches to self-location are problematically limited in their applicability. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have developed an extensive literature on social ontology that applies methods and concepts from analytic metaphysics. Much of this is entirely abstracted from, and unconcerned with, social science. However, Epstein (2015) argues explicitly that analytic social metaphysics, provided its account of ontological ‘grounding’ is repaired in specific ways, can rescue social science from explanatory impasses into which he thinks it has fallen. This version of analytic social ontology thus directly competes with radically naturalistic alternatives, in a way that (...) helps to clarify what makes some metaphysics genuinely scientific (that is, part of the scientific enterprise and worldview). I consider this competition, marshal considerations against the value to social science of analytic metaphysics, and sketch a contrasting scientific metaphysics for understanding the implications of revisionist social ontology in unified scientific ontology. (shrink)

Hume argues that respect for property (“justice”) is a convention-dependent (“artificial”) virtue. He does so by appeal to a principle, derived from his virtue-based approach to ethics, which requires that, for any kind of virtuous action, there be a “first virtuous motive” that is other than a sense of moral duty. It has been objected, however, that in the case of justice (and also in a parallel argument concerning promise-keeping) Hume (i) does not, (ii) should not, and (iii) cannot recognize (...) such a motive. This paper defends Hume’s argument against these three objections. (shrink)

The nature and consistency of John Locke's views about liberty and suspension, as well as their bearing on what is now called determinism, remain matters of controversy and sometimes, despair. This chapter explains what it is that "determines the will" according to John Locke. It begins by explaining the central terms Locke employs and the meanings he assigns them. Next, the chapter cites and discusses some of the main doctrines that he formulates using that terminology. In light of these explanations, (...) the chapter analyzes two recent interpretations of Locke's doctrines about liberty, suspension, and the will. The first of these, offered by Vere Chappell, convicts Locke of inconsistency; the second, offered by Gideon Yaffe, proposes away to acquit him. Finally, drawing on the lessons of those examinations, the chapter presents and develops a consistent and more satisfying interpretation of Locke's treatments of liberty and suspension in relation to the will. (shrink)

In my essay, Why abortion is immoral, I criticised discussions of the morality of abortion in which the crucial issue is whether fetuses are human beings or whether fetuses are persons. Both argument strategies are inadequate because they rely on indefensible assumptions. Why should being a human being or being a person make a moral difference? I argued that the correct account of the morality of abortion should be based upon a defensible account of why killing children and adults is (...) wrong. I claimed that what makes killing us wrong is that our premature deaths deprive us of our futures of value, that is, the goods of life we would have experienced had we survived. This account of the wrongness of killing explains why killing is one of the worst of crimes and how killing greatly harms the victim. It coheres with the attitudes of those with cancer or HIV facing premature death. It explains why we believe it is wrong to kill infants. It does not entail that it wrongs a human being to end her life if she is in persistent vegetative state or if her future must consist only of unbearable physical suffering and she wants to die. This account of the wrongness of killing implies that abortion is immoral because we were fetuses once and we know those fetuses had futures of value. Mark Brown claims that this potential future of value account is unsound because it implies that we have welfare rights to what we need to stay alive that most people would reject. I argue that Brown is incorrect in two ways: a welfare right to what we need to stay alive is not directly implied by my account and, in addition, most of us do believe that dependent human beings have substantial welfare rights to what they need to stay alive. Brown argues that depriving us of a future of value of which we have mental representations both is a better explanation of the wrongness of killing and does not imply that abortion is immoral. I reply that if Brown's arguments against my view were sound, those arguments could be easily adapted to show that his view is unsound as well and Brown's view is both ambiguous and unsound on any interpretation. The most popular class of pro-choice argument strategies appeals to the view that some or all fetuses lack either a mental state or function or a capacity for a mental state or function necessary for possession of the right to life. Desires, interests, sentience, various concepts, moral agency, and rationality have all been suggested as candidates for this crucial mental role. Brown's analysis is one member of this class of strategies. I believe that it is possible to show that none of these strategies is reasonable. However, there are so many of these strategies that the required argument demands something more like a book and less like a short essay. The argument of the following essay is a piece of this larger argument. (shrink)

Pathological gambling (PG) is a kind of ‘ideal puzzle’ for the economic model of the consumer. The pathological gambler takes pains to engage in activity that transparently has negative expected returns if utility varies positively with money. She also, typically, spends further resources on commitment devices designed to interfere with her gambling. These properties together describe an agent that is a kind of perfect foil for the rationally maximizing consumer. Recently, aspects of the neuropathology underlying the strange economic agency of (...) the pathological gambler are becoming understood. Thus PG is an ideal test bed phenomenon for working out relationships between economic modeling based on constrained optimization of utility and the new neuroscience of behavior. (shrink)

Gilbert Harman and Judith Thomson have argued that moral facts cannot explain our moral beliefs, claiming that such facts could not play a causal role in the formation of those beliefs. This paper shows these arguments to be misguided, for they would require that we abandon any number of intuitively plausible explanations in non-moral contexts as well. But abandoning the causal strand in the argument over moral explanations does not spell immediate victory for the moral realist, since it must still (...) be shown that moral facts do figure in our best global explanatory theory. (shrink)

Since the publication of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's Basic color terms in 1969 there has been continuing debate as to whether or not there are linguistic universals in the restricted domain of color naming. In this paper I am primarily concerned with the attempt to explain the existence of basic color terms in languages. That project utilizes psychological and ultimately physiological generalizations in the explanation of linguistic regularities. The main problem with this strategy is that it cannot account for (...) a particular subset of basic color words: words that the Berlin-Kay tradition calls “composite”. The existence of such words does not compromise the claim that there are basic color words. It does suggest that such words—and basic terms in general—require a more complex type of explanatory strategy than much contemporary work on color naming supposes. It is my main contention that the central problems with the Berlin-Kay tradition arise from the difficulty of linking conceptually and empirically disparate domains: linguistic, psychological, physiological. What is needed is not an attempt to reduce color naming to biology or to culture but, rather, an adequate conceptual account of how people may come to have and use basic color terms—an account which stands between the biological and the cultural. (shrink)

In Color for Philosophers C. L. Hardin argues that chromatic objectivism?a view which identifies colour with some or other property of objects?must be false. The upshot of Hardin's argument is this: there is, in fact, no principled correlation between physical properties and perceived colours. Since that correlation is a minimal condition for objectivism, objectivism is false. Mohan Matthen, who accepts Hardin's conclusion for what can be called "simple objectivism," takes it that an adaptationist theory of biological function applied to colour (...) is able to surmount the problems Hardin describes. It is Matthen's view that I am primarily concerned with in this paper. I will argue that it entails an overly simple view of adaptive value?as, perhaps, do all objectivist views. (shrink)

John Lizza says that to define death well, we must go beyond biological considerations. Death is the absence of life in an entity that was once alive. Biology is the study of life. Therefore, the definition of death should not involve non-biological concerns.

An apparent ethical dilemma arises when physicians consider enrolling their patients in randomized clinical trials. Suppose that a randomized clinical trial comparing two treatments is in progress, and a physician has an opinion about which treatment is better. The physician has a duty to promote the patient's best medical interests and therefore seems to be obliged to advise the patient to receive the treatment that the physician prefers. This duty creates a barrier to the enrollment of patients in randomized clinical (...) trials.1-10 Two strategies are often used to resolve the dilemma in favor of enrolling patients in clinical trials. (shrink)

In Plato's Symposium, Diotima ends her speech suggesting that erōs is the key to immortality. This raises two problems. First, if erōs is aimed at one's own immortality, then it seems selfish and not a genuine form of interpersonal love. Second, she argues that erōs leads us to procreate, but procreation is a way of producing others, not ourselves. In this article the author argues that our misunderstandings of erōs and eudaimonia account for the trouble we have in seeing how (...) Diotima succeeds in explaining a reasonable balance between prudent self-care and genuine love of others that leaves room for a genuine, albeit exotic, personal immortality. (shrink)

This essay develops on the aesthetic dimensions of decolonial thought in the work of Rodolfo Kusch and Enrique Dussel, who both point us to non-objectifying modes of thinking and being. Beyond a strictly epistemological approach, decolonial critique ought to offer an account of bodies, spaces, and movements that are the very condition of thought—that is to say, the condition of a mode of thinking otherwise, beyond the dominant colonial paradigm. This account of aesthetics involves the spacing and temporalizing of bodies (...) as they live and move through the world, or what Alejandro Vallega calls living-thinking. The spacing-temporalizing of life points us also to the rhythm of life—life as movement, flow, and spacing. Turning to resistant epistemologies alongside the work of Omar Rivera, I consider how these epistemologies go beyond disembodied and abstracted ways of knowing as they sidestep the subject/object divide and engage sensuous and embodied dimensions of thinking, aesthetic experiences, diverse geographies, and histories. In closing, I argue that decolonial aesthetics also points us to a critique of the coloniality of space. Moving beyond a cartographic grid that attempts to capture subjects and spaces in advance on its coordinate plane, decolonial aesthetics opens onto the richness of embodied and cosmic spaces. (shrink)

Judges is about loss: a loss of the individual which leads to a loss of the tribe, and, if circumstances remain unchecked, a loss of the nation.

"Any man-any artist, as Nietzsche or Cezanne would say- climbs the stairway in the tower of his perfection at the cost of a struggle with a deunde-not with an angel, as some have maintained, or with his muse. This fundamental distinction must be kept in mind if the root of a work of art is to be grasped." -Frederico Garcia Lorca.

A collection of cutting-edge work on cognition and a celebration of a foundational figure in the field.

With the appearance of Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane came the inauguration of theologians and philosophers questioning the preeminence of scholarly attention given to time to the virtual exclusion of space.

Our generation is turning to mentoring as an instrument of God to repair the ruin of our personal losses.

It is only the story... that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort. Without we are blind. -Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah.

We lose something central to our humanity when we divide our world into neat little packages of sacred and secular.

Aimee did not want to survive; she neither wanted to live nor to die.

"Everything is a pretext for a good dinner.".