According to a popular idea, freedom is grounded in orthonomy – the ability to be responsive to normative demands. But how exactly must an agent’s action relate to their reasons in order for this orthonomous relationship to hold? In this paper, I propose a novel explanationist answer to this question. I argue that extant answers – causalism and modalism about orthonomy – fail because they fail to account for the fact that intuitions about freedom and orthonomy track facts about explanation. (...) And these facts cannot be reduced to either causal or modal facts. Instead, I propose that we should understand freedom as grounded in special accidentality-dispersing explanations in terms of normative reasons. The resultant view is to be understood as following a Frankfurtian intuition: only factors that explain action can be relevant to whether the action is free. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There are two tenets about free agency that have proven difficult to combine: free agency is grounded in an agent’s possession or exercise of their reasons-responsiveness, only actual sequence features can ground free agency. This paper argues that and can only be reconciled if we recognise that their clash is just the particular manifestation of a wider conflict between two approaches to the notion of non-accidentality. According to modalism, p is non-accidentally connected to q iff p modally tracks q. (...) According to explanationism, p is non-accidentally connected to q iff q explains p in the right way. The conflict between these two approaches becomes manifest in Frankfurt-like cases for many notions, in which p and q are intuitively non-accidentally connected even though there is no modal tracking between them. Thus, and can’t be combined because the Frankfurt-cases upon which rests track explanationist intuitions, while the non-accidentality requirement of reasons-responsiveness in is usually spelled out in modalist terms. Hence, the possibility of an actual sequence reasons-responsiveness account depends on finding an explanationist approach to the non-accidentality requirement of reasons-responsiveness. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to create dialectical space for a hitherto under-discussed option in the philosophy of conspiracy theories. The extant literature on the topic almost exclusively assumes that conspiracy theories are a type of explanation. The typical mental attitude towards explanations is belief, a representational attitude that can be assessed as true, false, warranted or unwarranted. I call models based on this assumption alethic models. Alethic models can’t pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental (...) attitudes without latching onto their negative epistemic properties. The extant literature therefore finds itself in an unfortunate situation. It either has to presume that conspiracy theories are epistemically defective in general (generalism). Or it has to deny that conspiracy theories are a distinct class of mental attitudes. Conspiracy theories are then nothing more than theories, theories about conspiracies, and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis (particularism). Instead, this paper motivates the research program of narrative models. According to narrative models, conspiracy theories are first and foremost stories – structured fictions. And their relevant mental attitudes are the attitudes of fiction – make-believe and imagination. Fictions are not subjects to epistemic norms. They are neither rational nor irrational. Narrative models can therefore pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental attitudes without labeling them as defective in general. In addition, they are able to explain certain features of conspiracy discourse particularly well, and they offer new perspectives on the popularity of conspiracy theories and the means of intervention we have at our disposal. (shrink)

Agents sometimes have a final, de dicto desire to do what is right. They desire to do what is right for its own sake and under this description. These agents have pure moral motivation (PMM). It is often surmised that PMM is in some sense defective. Most famously, it has been suggested that PMM manifests a kind of moral fetishism. However, it also seems defective if an agent shows no concern whatsoever for moral rightness in their motivations. In this paper, (...) I attempt to resolve this puzzling tension. I argue, first, that PMM is defective insofar as it manifests a failure to respond to reasons. I argue, second, that not every instance of PMM manifests a responsiveness failure. In particular, we need to distinguish between the de dicto final desire to do what is right and the de dicto final desire to do what is right for the right reasons. (shrink)

Ascorbic acid is a redox regulator in many physiological processes. Besides its antioxidant activity, many intriguing functions of ascorbic acid in the expression of immunoregulatory genes have been suggested. Ascorbic acid acts as a co‐factor for the Fe+2‐containing α‐ketoglutarate‐dependent Jumonji‐C domain‐containing histone demethylases (JHDM) and Ten eleven translocation (TET) methylcytosine dioxygenasemediated epigenetic modulation. By influencing JHDM and TET, ascorbic acid facilitates the differentiation of double negative (CD4−CD8−) T cells to double positive (CD4+CD8+) T cells and of T‐helper cells to different (...) effector subsets. Ascorbic acid modulates plasma cell differentiation and promotes early differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to NK cells. These findings indicate that ascorbic acid plays a significant role in regulating both innate and adaptive immune cells, opening up new research areas in Immunonutrition. Being a water‐soluble vitamin and a safe micro‐nutrient, ascorbic acid can be used as an adjunct therapy for many disorders of the immune system. (shrink)

Some experiments from the history of physics became so famous that they not only made it into the textbook canon but were transformed into lecture demonstration performances and student laboratory activities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While, at first glance, some of these demonstrations as well as the related instruments do resemble their historical ancestors, a closer examination reveals significant differences both in the instruments themselves and in the practices and meanings associated with them. In this paper, I analyse (...) the relation between the research instruments and the respective teaching demonstrations. In doing so, I particularly distinguish between demonstrations that address the process of the actual experimental procedures, and those that focus on the outcome or results (the product) of the experiment. This distinction will be illustrated in some exemplary case studies from the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth in which both the historical experiment and the related educational devices are analysed. The tension between the historical experiment on the one hand, and the different variants of the teaching version on the other, result in the educational as well as epistemological problems that are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Many think it is plausible that agents enjoy freedom and responsibility with respect to their actions in virtue of being reasons-responsive. Extant accounts spell out reasons-responsiveness (RR) as a general modal property. The agent is responsive to reasons for and against ϕ-ing, according to this idea, if they ϕ in accordance with the balance of reasons in a suitable proportion of possible situations. This paper argues that freedom and responsibility are not grounded in such modal properties on the basis of (...) a phenomenon I call ‘rational blind spots’. Agents have highly specific local blockages (or openings) that prevent them from seeing or reacting for a particular type of reason. When these blind spots are triggered, agents fail to be responsive to reasons in the sense relevant to freedom and responsibility. Thus, we judge that they are not free and responsible. But bind spots don’t remove the agent’s possession of general modal RR properties. Thus, extant accounts of reasons-responsiveness render the incorrect result that the agents in these cases remain responsible because they remain responsive to reasons in a general sense. (shrink)

Agency often consists in performing actions and engaging in activities that are successful. We pour glasses, catch objects, carry things, recite poems, and play instruments. It has therefore seemed tempting in recent philosophical thinking to conceptualise the relationship between our agentive abilities and our successes as follows: (Success) S is exercising their ability to ϕ only if S successfully ϕ-s. This paper argues that (Success) is false based on the observation that agency also often consists in making mistakes. We bungle (...) things. We spill water, we miss objects thrown at us, we drop things, misremember lines, and mess up songs. I argue that these mistakes, doings that fall short of being a φ-ing, can only be understood as subpar exercises of the ability to φ. Since this understanding is incompatible with (Success), the thesis should be given up. (shrink)

Georg Simon Ohm's work in the field of electricity led to what is now considered to be the most fundamental law of electrical circuits, Ohm's Law. Much less known is that only months earlier, Ohm had published another law—one that differed significantly from the now accepted one. The latter entailed a logarithmic relation between the length of the conductor and a parameter that Ohm called “loss of force.” This paper discusses how Ohm came up with an initial law that he (...) felt compelled to correct a few months later. We analyze Ohm's publication as well as his laboratory notes, relating them to our own laboratory experiences while using the replication method to study his work. We also discuss the conceptual background of Ohm's work. We conclude that he was significantly influenced by French studies in the field of electricity, most notably the ones by Charles Augustin Coulomb. (shrink)

A fun introduction in comics to deep thinking and the history of philosophy -- Back cover.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joint and Grief AchesHeer HendrySomething that surprised me when I started my clinical rotations in medical school was how often we discussed proper footwear. In the lulls of rounds, I've heard healthcare providers talk about how worn-down shoes or inadequate arch support have caused them joint and back pains. We spend hours on our feet and bring the aches home with us, a reminder of our workday as we (...) walk our dogs or grocery shop. Embarrassingly, this is what was on my mind as I was starting a 12-hour shift wearing a new pair of shoes that an ICU nurse had recommended.It was the third day of my emergency medicine rotation, and my team received descriptions and plans for the 23 patients in the department precisely at 0700. I scribbled notes about each patient on my notepad, learning to distinguish which aspects of each patient were important to carry into this next shift for good continuity of care. For one patient, my note read: "aspiration, sepsis, hospice."My resident and I walked into each room and introduced ourselves, confirmed their story, and updated them on the next steps that we would be working on. The 4th patient on our list was the one I noted above—an 87-year-old male who was brought in after repeated bouts of emesis (vomiting) and choking. This was his fifth hospital visit this year for similar chief complaints, two of which resulted in ICU stays. Hours earlier, his two sons and two daughters had made the decision to place him on hospice.Upon entering the room, I saw an elderly patient lying on a stretcher with his eyes closed, grimacing and breathing rapidly. There was a younger man at his bedside staring at the patient while drumming his fingers on a coffee cup from a gas station next to the hospital. He didn't notice us walk in and was startled as we began to introduce ourselves. He identified himself as the patient's son, telling us he had just arrived at the hospital but had been on a conference call with his other siblings and palliative care earlier. His eyes darted between us and his father's rapid, shallow breaths.We updated him on his father's condition, explaining that we'd been making him comfortable with morphine and benzodiazepines. We talked about his blood lactic acid, his electrolytes, and his feeding tube. He continued drumming his fingers on the cup and nodding as we discussed trying to find an inpatient bed for his father. We informed him about the unpredictability of how much longer he would be alive and the unlikelihood of discharge. We asked if we could answer any questions for him, and he shook his head, but as we opened the door to leave, he asked: "So, the morphine is shutting down his body, right?" We clarified the purpose of the morphine, explaining that the morphine was making him comfortable and pain-free, but that his body was shutting down on its own."But in a way I'm still killing him?" he asked. My chest squeezed tight at that question. My goal for this patient immediately changed from getting him a bed in the inpatient unit to convincing his son that he was not harming his father. We started from the beginning and explained the lab markers and prognosis once again and asked if he'd like to speak to palliative care in person. He simply nodded as we exited to give him privacy.Leaving that room, it was barely 7:00 am. We still had 19 other patients to check on. My chest was still tight, but I could not allow my mind to remain in that room while the other patients were still pending exams, workups, and admissions. I acknowledged to myself that reflection would have to occur later, and yet, as we walked to the next [End Page e16] room, I wondered if the resident I was with had lost anyone in his life as I have in mine. Seeing the son trying to process and understand the situation in real time triggered my memories of past times... (shrink)

We investigate what it means for a (Hausdorff, second-countable) topological group to be computable. We compare several potential definitions based on classical notions in the literature. We relate these notions with the well-established definitions of effective presentability for discrete and profinite groups, and compare our results with similar results in computable topology.

Plausibly, agents act freely iff their actions are responses to reasons. But what sort of relationship between reason and action is required for the action to count as a response? The overwhelmingly dominant answer to this question is modalist. It holds that responses are actions that share a modally robust or secure relationship with the relevant reasons. This thesis offers a new alternative answer. It argues that responses are actions that can be explained by reasons in the right way. This (...) explanationist answer comes apart from the modalist answer. For it holds that actions are responses to reasons if they are explained by those reasons even if they don’t share a modally robust relationship. Explanationism thus offers a novel way of vindicating the intuition that alternative possibilities don’t matter to responding to reasons and (consequently) free agency. The key dialectical position the thesis develops is that both modalism and explanationism constitute attempts to capture he core type of relationship encoded by the notion of a response. Responses to reasons, at core, involve a non-accidental relationship between reason and action. We can either understand non-accidentality as a modal phenomenon – as a modally robust tracking between two facts. Or we can understand non-accidentality as an explanatory phenomenon – as a special explanatory relationship between two facts. According to my rival explanationist proposal, two facts share a non-accidental relationship iff we can give a unified explanation of why both obtain. Unified explanations are explanations of why [p&q] that cannot be decomposed into two (or more) separate independent explanations of p and of q. Consequently, according to explanationism about responding to reasons, actions are responses to reasons iff those reasons offer a rational explanation of the action that cannot be decomposed into separate independent components. (shrink)