A minimal truthmaker for a given proposition is the smallest portion of reality which makes this proposition true. Minimal truthmakers are frequently mentioned in the literature, but there has been no systematic account of what they are or of their importance. In this article we shall clarify the notion of a minimal truthmaker and argue that there is reason to think that at least some propositions have minimal truthmakers. We shall then argue that the notion can play a useful role (...) in truthmaker theory, by helping to explain the truth of certain propositions as precisely as possible. (shrink)

Ground, essence, and modality seem to have something to do with each other. Can we provide unified foundations for ground and essence, or should we treat each as primitives? Can modality be grounded in essence, or should essence be expressed in terms of modality? Does grounding entail necessitation? Are the notions of ground and essence univocal? This volume focuses on the links—or lack thereof—between these three notions, as well as the foundations of ground, essence, and modality more generally, bringing together (...) work on the metaphysics, epistemology, and logic of these three notions by some of the leading figures in the field as well as emerging young scholars. The invited contributors to this volume presented their work at a conference on Ground, Essence, and Modality at the University of Helsinki in June 2016, funded by the Academy of Finland Project The Epistemology of Metaphysics: From Rationalism to Nominalism. This conference is just one of many recent high-profile events and publications on these themes (e.g., the edited volumes Correia and Schnieder 2012a; Sirkel and Tahko 2014; Jago 2016). After providing a brief historical summary of the (re)emergence of modality, essence and ground as central notions in metaphysics (Sect. 1), we shall outline some of the main themes in recent work on these notions and on the links between them (Sect. 2). In Sect. 3 we briefly introduce the papers in this volume. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Einar Bohn [AJP 2019] has proposed a version of panpsychism on which consciousness is fundamentally a property of pluralities of basic objects. I argue that this pluralized panpsychism is structurally similar to emergentism, and faces the problem of explaining how a plurality of basic objects could be a subject of experiences. Because of these issues, pluralized panpsychism is not a substantial improvement on orthodox panpsychism.

Merleau-Ponty’s notion of being motivated or solicited to act has recently been the focus of extensive investigation, yet work on this topic has tended to take the general notion of being motivated for granted. In this paper, I shall outline an account of what it is to be motivated. In particular, I shall focus on the relation between the affective character of states of being motivated and their intentional content, i.e. how things appear to the agent. Drawing on Husserl’s discussion (...) of perceptual awareness, I suggest that the intentional content of states of being motivated has a horizonal structure, in which both affective and perceptual features are implied. In states of being motivated, the agent becomes aware of certain possibilities for action, towards which they feel drawn. This structure is what Merleau-Ponty refers to as the “intentional arc” (1962, 136). (shrink)

The self or subject of experiences is often regarded as a mysterious entity, prompting approaches that seek to deflate it, metaphysically speaking. One such approach is the bundle theory, the most well-known version of which holds that each subject is a bundle of experiences. This version of the bundle theory seems vulnerable to the having objection: since subjects have experiences, they cannot be identical with bundles of experiences. I shall argue that while the having objection is intuitively plausible, its dialectical (...) force is limited since it does not work without substantial further metaphysical assumptions. (shrink)

Recent work on metaphysical grounding has suggested that physicalism can be characterised in terms of the mental facts being grounded in physical facts. It is often assumed that the full grounds of a fact metaphysically necessitate that fact. Therefore, it seems that if the physical grounds the mental, then the physical facts metaphysically necessitate the mental facts. Stefan Leuenberger argues that such a version of physicalism would be vulnerable to counterexamples. I shall outline a characterisation of grounding which appeals to (...) a relation between grounding and the essences of properties instantiated in the grounded facts or in their grounds. If a grounded fact is such that its constituent property is essentially related to the properties instantiated in its grounds, or vice versa, then the grounded fact will be metaphysically necessitated by its full grounds. This characterisation of grounding not only avoids Leuenberger’s counterexamples, but has broader implications for characterising physicalism in terms of grounding. (shrink)

We are each aware of our own experiences as they occur, but in this inner awareness our experiences do not seem to be presented to us as objects in the way that they typically are when we reflect on them. A number of philosophers, principally in the phenomenological tradition, have characterised this in terms of inner awareness being a non-objectifying mode of awareness. This claim has faced persistent objections that the notion of non-objectifying awareness is obscure or merely negatively characterised. (...) In this paper I shall outline a positive conception of a non-objectifying mode of awareness, feature-encountering awareness. I shall apply this conception to our awareness of our experiences, characterising it as an awareness of instantiations of phenomenal properties in a temporal dimension. Inner awareness thus characterised clearly differs from standard modes of objectifying awareness. (shrink)

Recent work on consciousness has distinguished between the qualitative character of an experience (what a particular experience is like) and its subjective character or subjectivity (the for-me-ness of any experience). It is often suggested that subjectivity is a characteristic inner awareness subjects enjoy of their own occurrent experiences. A number of thinkers have also suggested that not only is each subject aware of her own experiences, but that in having these experiences she is aware of them as her own. This (...) is the subjectivity-mineness thesis: necessarily, an experience which is given to its subject is given as the subject’s own experience. I shall argue against the subjectivity-mineness thesis. While I agree that experiences are characterised by inner awareness, it is questionable whether inner awareness entails an awareness of my experiences as mine. I shall offer an alternative account of inner awareness, the impersonal account. On this account the subject of the experience is not presented in the content of inner awareness, but the mode of inner awareness is such that necessarily, this awareness is an awareness of experiences which belong to this subject. This is what makes inner awareness a characteristically first-personal form of awareness. (shrink)

Substance has long been one of the key categories in metaphysics. This Element focuses on contemporary work on substance, and in particular on contemporary substance ontologies, metaphysical systems in which substance is one of the fundamental categories and individual substances are among the basic building blocks of reality. The topics discussed include the different metaphysical roles which substances have been tasked with playing; different critieria of substancehood (accounts of what is it to be a substance); arguments for and against the (...) existence of substances; and different accounts of which entities, if any, count as substances1. (shrink)

The distinction between the space of reasons and the realm of law captures two familiar ways of making events intelligible, by reference to reasons or to natural laws, respectively. I describe a third way of making events intelligible, by explaining them in terms of an agent’s being motivated to do certain things. Explanations of this sort do not involve appealing to reasons for which the agent acts, nor to natural laws under which the event falls. To explain an event in (...) this way is to place it in the space of motivations. I outline the relation between the space of motivations and the space of reasons, and suggest that the space of motivations may serve as a common ground between the positions defended by McDowell and Dreyfus in their recent debate. (shrink)

One of the most widely-discussed arguments against physcialism appeals to the conceivability of zombies, being which are physically or functionally identical to humans but which have no conscious experiences. Philip Goff : 119–139, 2010; Consci Cognit 21: 742–746, 2012a; in Sprevak M, Kallestrup J New waves in philosophy of mind. Palgrave, 2014) has recently presented a number of different anti-physicalist arguments appealing to the conceivability of ghosts, entities whose nature is exhausted by their being conscious. If ghosts are conceivable, this (...) would rule out a priori physicalism. If the conceivability of ghosts entails that they are metaphysically possible, then this forms the basis for arguments against a posteriori physicalism. Drawing on work on conceivability by Peter Kung :620–663, 2010, Noûs 50: 90–120, 2016) and my own discussion of arguments which appeal to the conceivability of zombies Consciousness and the ontology of properties. Routledge, New York, 2019), I shall argue that ghosts are conceivable, but that what allows us to conceive of them undermines the belief that conceivability is a reliable guide to possibility. While this does not undermine Goff’s argument against a priori phyiscalism, it suggests that a posteriori physicalists need not be haunted by ghosts. (shrink)

In recent work Philip Goff has defended the thesis of subjecthood transparency: someone possessing the concept ‘subjecthood’ is thereby in a position to know, a priori, what it is for an entity to be a subject of experiences. Kevin Morris has criticized a specific argument that Goff provides for subjecthood transparency. I will argue that Morris’s criticism of Goff’s argument does not succeed. I will then present an alternative criticism of Goff’s argument, one that also applies to the thesis of (...) subjecthood transparency itself. (shrink)

There has been much recent discussion of whether Husserlian phenomenology might be relevant to the explanatory gap—the problem of explaining how conscious experience arises from nonexperiential events or processes. However, some phenomenologists have argued that the explanatory gap is a confused problem, because it starts by assuming a false distinction between the subjective and the objective. Rather than trying to solve this problem, they claim that phenomenology should dissolve it by undermining the distinction upon which it is based. I shall (...) argue that adopting a phenomenological approach does not provide reason to think that the explanatory gap is not a genuine problem. In assessing the assumptions underlying the gap, we must distinguish between objectivity understood as a stance we can take toward the world and objectivity as the world's having a structure independent of any experience. The explanatory gap can be understood as the problem of finding a place for consciousness in this objective structure. This does not force us to take an objective stance or reduce the methods of phenomenology to those of the natural sciences. (shrink)

Barry Dainton has developed a sophisticated version of the bundle theory of the subject of experiences. I shall focus on three claims Dainton makes: the identity-conditions of subjects can be specified in terms of capacities to produce experiences; the identity-conditions of token capacities are not determined by their subjects; and a subject is nothing over and above a bundle of such capacities. I shall argue that Dainton’s key notion of co-consciousness, a primitive relation of experienced togetherness, presupposes a subject common (...) to each of the experiences which are experienced together. Therefore, co-consciousness cannot be used to state the identity-conditions of subjects in a non-circular manner. I shall also argue that none of the different options Dainton offers for specifying the identity-conditions of token experiential capacities independently of their subjects are successful. I shall then outline a way in which this can be done, but argue that it undermines the claim that a subject is nothing over and above a bundle of such capacities. (shrink)

Abstract John McDowell has claimed that the rational link between perceptions and empirical judgements allows us to perceive objects as belonging to a wider reality, one which extends beyond the objects perceived. In this way, we can be said to have a perceptual awareness of the world. I argue that McDowell's account of this perceptual awareness does not succeed. His account as it stands does not have the resources to explain how our perceptions can present objects as belonging to a (...) wider reality, regardless of the judgements we make about that reality. I suggest that we can give a better account of this perceptual awareness of the world by appealing to transcendental phenomenology. A phenomenological study of perceptual experiences describes how they are structured by a sense of the perceived objects as belonging to a world containing other objects of possible perception. I shall outline this sense we have of the world, and argue that it allows us to perceive objects as belonging to a wider reality. Transcendental phenomenology can thus help to explain our perceptual awareness of the world. (shrink)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 298-303, May 2012.

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, Volume 8, Issue 4, Page 303-312, December 2019.

A common conception of facts is as worldly entities, complexes made upof non-factual constituents such as properties, relations andproperty-bearers. Understood in this way facts face the unityproblem, the problem of explaining why various constituents arecombined to form a fact. In many cases the constituents could haveexisted without being unified in the fact---so in virtue of what arethey so unified? I shall present a new approach to the unity problem.First, facts which are grounded are unified by the obtaining of theirgrounds. Second, (...) many ungrounded facts are such that they must obtainif their non-factual constituents exist (e.g. if the property $F$nessis essential to a particular, $a$, then if $a$ exists the fact that$a$ is $F$ must obtain). In this way the obtaining of these facts isexplained by the essence of some of their constituents. I alsoaddress the possibility of facts which are brutely unified(i.e. neither grounded nor essentially unified), and compare theaccount I offer with some of the main alternatives. (shrink)

The priority monist holds that the cosmos is the only fundamental object, of which every other concrete object is a dependent part. One major argument against monism goes back to Russell, who claimed that pluralism is favoured by common sense. However, Jonathan Schaffer turns this argument on its head and uses it to defend priority monism. He suggests that common sense holds that the cosmos is a whole, of which ordinary physical objects are arbitrary portions, and that arbitrary portions depend (...) for their existence on the existence of the whole. In this paper, we challenge Schaffer’s claim that the parts of the cosmos are all arbitrary portions. We suggest that there is a way of carving up the universe such that at least some of its parts are not arbitrary. We offer two arguments in support of this claim. First, we shall outline semantic reasons in its favour: in order to accept that empirical judgements are made true or false by the way the world is, one must accept that the cosmos includes parts whose existence is not arbitrary. Second, we offer an ontological argument: in order for macro-physical phenomena to exist, there must be some micro-physical order which they depend upon, and this order must itself be non-arbitrary. We conclude that Schaffer’s common sense argument for monism cannot be made to work. (shrink)

This paper canvasses the various dimensions along which theories of truth may disagree about the extent to which truth is minimal.

Aberrant consumer behaviour costs firms millions of pounds a year, and the Internet has provided young techno-literate consumers with a new medium to exploit businesses. This paper addresses Internet related ethics and describes the ways in which young consumers misdemean on the Internet and their attitudes towards these. Using a sample of 219 generation Y consumers, the study identified 24 aberrant behaviours which grouped into five factors; illegal, questionable activities, hacking related, human Internet trade and downloading. Those perceived as least (...) wrong were; "Downloading movie and music files from the Internet for free". The consequences of these behaviours have implications for educators, consumer policy and marketers. (shrink)

Environmental philosophers often conflate the concepts of intrinsic value and moral standing. As a result, individualists needlessly deny intrinsic value to species, while holists falsely attribute moral standing to species. Conceived either as classes or as historical individuals, at least some species possess intrinsic value. Nevertheless, even if a species has interests or a good of its own, it cannot have moral standing because species lack sentience. Although there is a basis for duties toward some species (in terms of their (...) intrinsic value), it is not the one that the holists claim. (shrink)

Анотація. У статті розглянуто тісний зв´язок між зменшенням впливу Московського патріархату на суспільно-політичні процеси в Україні та відновленням українського культурно-цивілізаційного простору. А саме – поступове позбавлення православних віруючих проявів постімперського синдрому, зокрема установок, уявлень, поведінкових моделей тощо, пов´язаних із перебуванням українців у складі іншомовної та чужої за ментальністю й культурою імперії. Зазначено, що отримання православними віруючими України Томосу про визнання автокефалії і конституювання Православної Церкви України позитивно впливає не лише на розвиток самої ПЦУ, але й рівня патріотизму, відновлення і розвою (...) україномовного середовища, архетипних традицій, обрядів, поведінкових моделей тощо. Все це, у підсумку, сприяє українському поступу від азійської до європейської культурно-цивілізаційної моделі. (shrink)

Among the various methods of deceit, lying is often thought to be a special affront on the grounds that it invites the victim’s trust. Such an explanation is incomplete without an account of the moral significance of trust. This article distinguishes two morally problematic relations to trust, betrayals and abuses, and, appealing to the idea that we should be grateful to be trusted, attempts to explain these wrongs as violations of distinct demands of gratitude for trust. Only the wrong of (...) abuse, not betrayal, is useful for distinguishing methods of deceit. Although lying commits an abuse of trust, it turns out that it is really the broader category of deceit by means of communication that is special in this way. -/- . (shrink)

Modern Christian religiosity as a whole, and in particular the Greek-Catholic way of expressing it, are all-round in the public consciousness. Religion is transformed as intensely as other components of the latter. That is why today it is relevant to analyze, on the one hand, the relation of existential and anthropocentric, and on the other - the pluralistic filling of modern Ukrainian Greek Catholicism and to find out the optimal degree of this relation.

Voltaire’s creativity ismultifaceted, covering the problems of philosophical knowledge, the assertion of a deistic worldview, the implementation of the principles of human free will, a comprehensive critique of religion and the church, the beginning of the political concept of “educated absolutism.” The thinker became one of the greatest authorities of the French Enlightenment, being highly gifted, universally educated, owning the principles of critical thinking. The aimof this article is to determine the basic principles of the philosophical principle of deism in (...) Voltaire’s creativity and its influence on the formation of the philosophical-historical concept. The tasks of this article are perform an analysis the formation of the deistic worldview of the French thinker, the influences of the philosophy of sensualism and rationalism on the formation of the general foundations of social philosophy of the enlightener. Research methods are principles of unity of historical and logical, dialectical unity of analysis and synthesis, convergence from abstract to concrete, principles of objectivity and systematization. Research results: philosophical worldview of the XVII ‒ early XVIII centuries. had a one-sided character: on the one hand ‒ the philosophy of empiricism, based on knowledge of scientific facts using experimental methods of scientific research, and on the other ‒ rationalist philosophy, which took as primary the original theoretical generalizations. The integral system of philosophical knowledge in the first half of the eighteenth century was absent. Conclusion. The deistic foundations of Voltaire’s philosophical worldview determine not only the ontological and epistemological aspects, but undoubtedly forming the general principles of his philosophy of history, which have an abstract, mostly narrative character. However, the possibilities of a deistic worldview direct the thinker to search for an objective pattern of development of historical knowledge. They usually have a general theoretical value, as well as their practical implementation. (shrink)

VorbemerkungDer Beantwortung liegt eine allgemeine Stellungnahrae zum Unterricht an der Mittelschule, insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Mathematik bei. Die in Klammern [] gesetzten Ziffern verweisen auf die Punkte 1 bis 6 dieser Stellungnahme.

Specification is an integral part of Tom L Beauchamp and James F Childress' principlist approach to biomedical ethics. At the same time, the authors give much space conceding to critics that the method has significant limits. Although their pointing to limitations is not unreasonable as such, the emphasis Beauchamp and Childress put on them does not serve countering the critics' view that specification is insufficient for its intended purpose in applied ethics. This paper defends specification against Carson Strong's critique, showing (...) that his casuistic approach shares strong structural and functional similarities with specification. It concludes with the more general point that specification or some closely related method for determining morally relevant facts of concrete cases and issues is indispensable for any account of applied ethics. Beauchamp and Childress should endorse and defend specification more vigorously than they appear to do. (shrink)

In this paper I critically evaluate Ronald Dworkin's attempt in Life's Dominion to understand sacred value as a form of intrinsic value which is grounded in investment. I argue that there are two problems with Dworkin's conception of intrinsic value. First, it does not allow him to distinguish, as he must, between incremental and sacred values. Secondly, sacred value qua intrinsic value is not the kind of value which can be grounded in investment. I argue that both of these problems (...) are an implication of a realist conception of intrinsic value. Nevertheless, investment does seem to play a role in our judgements about intrinsic value and in light of this I aim to develop an alternative account of intrinsic value whichcan make sense of this. (shrink)