According to Veritism, true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Epistemologists often take Veritism to entail that all other epistemic items can only have value by standing in certain instrumental relations—namely, by tending to produce a high ratio of true to false beliefs or by being products of sources with this tendency. Yet many value theorists outside epistemology deny that all derivative value is grounded in instrumental relations to fundamental value. Veritists, I believe, can and should follow suit. After (...) setting the stage in §1, I explain in §2 why Veritism should not take an Instrumentalist form. Instrumentalist Veritism faces a generalized version of the swamping problem. But this problem undermines Instrumentalism, not Veritism: granting Instrumentalism, similar problems arise for any economical epistemic axiology. I show in §3 how Veritism can take a less narrow form and solve the swamping problem. After answering some objections in §4, I consider in §5 what some would regard as a less radical alternative solution and argue that it either fails or collapses into mine. I close in §6 by taking stock and re-evaluating the overall prospects for Veritism, suggesting that it is a highly promising epistemic axiology when divorced from Instrumentalism. (shrink)

Many meta-ethicists have thought that rationality requires us to heed apparent normative reasons, not objective normative reasons. But what are apparent reasons? There are two kinds of standard answers. On de dicto views, R is an apparent reason for S to \ when it appears to S that R is an objective reason to \ . On de re views, R is an apparent reason for S to \ when R’s truth would constitute an objective reason for S to \ (...) , and it appears to S that R. De re views are currently more popular because they avoid overintellectualizing rationality. But they face problems owing to the way in which they do so. Some assume that we can escape these problems by requiring more information to be apparent or by appealing to defeat. But these strategies fail. So, I defend a new view: apparent reasons are apparent facts that agents are competently attracted to treat like objective reasons, where competence is indirectly defined in terms of objective reasons and a competence/performance distinction is honored. Since one can treat X like an F without having the concept of an F, the view does not overintellectualize rationality. But it is also strong enough to dodge the pitfalls of de re views. (shrink)

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions (...) of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. (shrink)

It is often assumed that believing that p for a normative reason consists in nothing more than (i) believing that p for a reason and (ii) that reason’s corresponding to a normative reason to believe that p, where (i) and (ii) are independent factors. This is the Composite View. In this paper, we argue against the Composite View on extensional and theoretical grounds. We advocate an alternative that we call the Prime View. On this view, believing for a normative reason (...) is a distinctive achievement that isn’t exhausted by the mere conjunction of (i) and (ii). Its being an achievement entails that (i) and (ii) are not independent when one believes for a normative reason: minimally, (i) must hold because (ii) holds. Apart from its intrinsic interest, our discussion has important upshots for central issues in epistemology, including the analysis of doxastic justification, the epistemology of perception, and the place of competence in epistemology. (shrink)

A classical work on Gestalt psychology from a member of the "Berlin School." Discusses perception in relation to the environment, along with action, learning, memory, and socieity.

Reasons fundamentalists maintain that we can analyze all derivative normative properties in terms of normative reasons. These theorists famously encounter the Wrong Kind of Reasons problem, since not all reasons for reactions seem relevant for reasons-based analyses. Some have argued that this problem is a general one for many theorists, and claim that this lightens the burden for reasons fundamentalists. We argue in this paper that the reverse is true: the generality of the problem makes life harder for reasons fundamentalists. (...) We do this in two stages. First, we show that reflection on the generality of the distinction between wrong-kind reasons and right-kind reasons shows that not all right-kind reasons are normative reasons. So, not only do reasons-based analyses require a distinction between right-kind reasons and wrong-kind reasons, they also need a distinction between normative right-kind reasons from nonnormative right-kind reasons. We call this the Right Kind of Reasons Problem. In the second stage of the paper, we argue that reasons fundamentalism places tight constraints on its proper solution: in particular, it forbids one from appealing to anything normative to distinguish normative RKRs from nonnormative RKRs. It hence seems that reasons fundamentalists can only appeal to natural facts to solve the problem, but it is unclear which ones can do the job. So, reflection on the generality of the distinction only multiplies the fundamentalist’s problems. We end by exploring several solutions to these problems, and recommend a form of constitutivism as the best. (shrink)

First English translation of revolutionary paper that established that even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system. Introduction by R. B. Braithwaite.

Previously published: Princeton University Press, 1940.

Ernest Sosa (1940-) is a central figure in contemporary epistemology. He is best known for pioneering the subfield of virtue epistemology, as well as developing across four decades his own distinctive framework in this tradition. Besides providing an overview of this work, this article offers a guide to Sosa’s other contributions to epistemology, stretching back to his first publication in 1964. The organization is as follows. §1 reviews Sosa’s distinctive brand of virtue epistemology and its development since 1980. §2 provides (...) a fuller synopsis of Sosa’s contributions to epistemology in five parts, covering his work on (i) the structure of justification and knowledge, (ii) the dawning of knowledge and understanding, (iii) skepticism and the possibility of empirical knowledge, (iv) methodology and the possibility of philosophy, and (v) the relationship between mind and world. Our aim is to encourage renewed appreciation of the full scope and depth of Sosa’s epistemology. We hope the reader will benefit from (re)exploring Sosa’s work guided by the map detailed below. (shrink)

Ordinary thought recognizes many ways of knowing. Not all are epistemologically fundamental. Nevertheless, it is standard to think there is more than one fundamental way—call this view access pluralism. Access monism opposes access pluralism. This paper defends a version of access monism I call presentationalist monism (§1), on which the sole fundamental way of knowing is presentation. I defend presentationalist monism in three stages. Firstly (§2), I suggest that it is compelling about four central ways of knowing—viz., perceiving, episodically remembering, (...) introspecting, and intuiting. Then (§3) I argue that presentationalist monism also explains ostensibly less straightforward cases, including inference, testimony, semantic memory, and practical knowledge. After working through cases in this way, I show how this enumerative argument can be secured by understanding the view as a kind of formal foundationalism about ways of knowing. I conclude by addressing an objection (§4) and considering whether presentationalism about ways of knowing supports a presentational account of knowledge, cautioning against this inference (§5). (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus within Natural Law that explains transgender identity as an “embodied misunderstanding.” The basic line of argument is that our sexual identity as male or female refers to our possible reproductive roles of begetting or conceiving. Since these two possibilities are determined early on by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, our sexual identity cannot be changed or reassigned. I develop an argument from analogy, comparing gender and language, to show that this consensus is (...) premature. Language and gender imbue our body with further social meaning and so, I conclude, that just as we can learn multiple languages, so too can we learn multiple genders. Since language and gender each constitutively contribute to our wellbeing as a “second nature,” I argue against this consensus to show that the reason people who are transgender struggle to flourish is not because of a “troubled trans psyche,” but because there are conceptual, interpersonal, and institutional obstacles stacked against them. (shrink)

Concepts from functional theories of emotions are integrated with principles of skill development to produce a theory of emotional development. The theory provides tools for predicting both the sequences of emotional development and the ways emotions shape development. Emotions are characterised in terms of three component models: (a) the process of emotion generation from event appraisal, (b) a hierarchy of emotion categories organised around a handful of basic-emotion families, and (c) a characterisation of emotions in terms of prototypic event scripts. (...) The basic emotions and the positive vs. negative hedonic components of emotions function as constraints or organisers that shape behaviour whenever an emotion is activated. Through these patterning effects, emotions shape both short-term behavioural organisation and long-term development. The skill-development component of the theory explains how, as children grow, they construct and control increasingly complex skills—which affect many aspects of emotion, from appraisal to emotional self-control. These skills can be characterised in terms of a series of developmental tiers and levels; they are not fixed traits of the child but instead are affected by assessment conditions and emotional action tendencies. The developmental process gradually moves from basic, species-specific emotions to culture-specific, subordinate-category emotions and the complexities of adult emotional experiences. The theory provides a set of conceptual and methodological tools to predict and assess emotional development. It also indicates how emotional development fits with other aspects of systematic change in the organisation of behaviour. (shrink)

'The Rational and the Moral Order' is a significant book providing a comprehensive theory of morality. The opening chapter is simply marvellous. Baier provides a cogent response to Hume's conundrums on practical reasoning: logical entailment, he argues, is not the correct model of the relation between reasons and that for which they are reasons. Indeed, the giving of reasons is, in part, a social enterprise, and there is no necessary connection between rationality and self-interest. Just as the giving of reasons (...) is a social enterprise taught to succeeding generations, so too is the moral enterprise, for a moral order is a social order of some sort. It is a social order that encourages a critical stance toward, and permits the correction of, its mores. Moral precepts can be sound or unsound, and yet can be relative to a moral order. In the concluding chapter Baier shows how his theoretical framework can be used to confront some of the moral problems people face, problems which have also exercised contemporary philosophers. Though there are many philosophers who believe that killing is worse than letting anyone die, there are few that defend the view other than by raw intuition. Baier deploys the resources of his theory of morality in support of this widely shared but poorly defended viewpoints. "Along the way, Baier deals with virtually all the problems that have taxed moral philosophers for a very long time -- rationality, responsibility, morality's relation to law, the good life, prisoner's dilemma, moral motivation, and others. The Rational and the Moral Order is careful, insightful, and convincing." --Theodore M. Benditt, University of Alabama. (shrink)

In early German ecology, the key concept used to refer to a synecological unit was Biozönose. Taken together with the concept of the Biotop, it was also understood as an integrated higher-order unit of life, sometimes called a “Holozön”. These units were often perceived as having properties similar to those of individual organisms, and they informed the mainstream of German ecology until at least the late 1960s. Here I ask how “organismic” these concepts really were and what conceptual problems they (...) entailed. To do so, I focus on some almost forgotten dissident positions, especially those of Friedrich Simon Bodenheimer and Fritz Peus, which I contrast with the mainstream German ecology of the time. In a radical paper published in 1954 that postulated the “dissolution of the concepts of biocoenosis and biotope”, Peus in particular elicited a forceful response from many prominent German ecologists. An analysis of the ensuing debate, including especially a colloquium held in 1959 that was partly inspired by Peus’ paper, is helpful for sifting the various arguments proffered with respect to a quasi-organismic perception of the biocoenosis in German speaking ecology. Although German mainstream ecologists rejected the notion of the biocoenosis as a superorganism, ontological holism was quite common among them. Additionally, the mainstream concept of the biocoenosis was plagued by several methodological problems and much conceptual confusion, to which the “dissidents” rightly pointed. Some of these problems are still pertinent today, e.g. in connection with more modern concepts such as “ecosystem”. (shrink)

I give a semantics for a logic with two pairs of doxastic modals and an indicative conditional connective that all nest without restriction. Sentences are evaluated as accepted, rejected, or neither. Certainty is the necessity-like modality of acceptance. Inferences may proceed from premises that are certain, or merely accepted, or a mix of both. This semantic setup yields some striking results. Notably, the existence of inferences that preserve certainty but not acceptance very directly implies both failure of modus ponens for (...) the indicative conditional in the logic of acceptance and failure of the deduction theorem for the material conditional in the logic of certainty. The latter failure dissolves, in the logic of certainty, the much - discussed tension between modus ponens and the law of import-export. (shrink)

Some epistemologists and philosophers of mind hold that the non-epistemic perceptual relation of which feature-seeing and object-seeing are special cases is the foundation of perceptual knowledge. This paper argues that such relations are best understood as having only a technological role in explaining perceptual knowledge. After introducing the opposing view in §1, §2 considers why its defenders deny that some cases in which one has perceptual knowledge without the relevant acquaintance relations are counterexamples, detailing their case for lurking inferential epistemology. (...) §§3-4 suggest that this strategy fails in many other cases. While there is a computational tale that might be deemed ‘inferential’ in these cases, there is no corresponding tale in epistemic structure, not even if one rejects what Siegel (2017) calls the ‘Reckoning Model’ of inference. §5 offers a more fundamental dilemma. §6 concludes that there is only a technological role for non-epistemic perception in grounding perceptual knowledge, but allows that it might play a more-than-technological role elsewhere. (shrink)

Past research has found that mere in‐group/out‐group categorizations are sufficient to elicit biases in face memory. The current research yields novel evidence that mere social categorization is also sufficient to modulate processes underlying face perception, even for faces for which we have strong perceptual expertise: same‐race (SR) faces. Using the composite face paradigm, we find that SR faces categorized as in‐group members (i.e., fellow university students) are processed more holistically than are SR faces categorized as out‐group members (i.e., students at (...) another university). Hence, holding perceptual expertise with faces constant, categorizing an SR target as an out‐group member debilitates the strong holistic processing typically observed for SR faces. (shrink)

P. Bernays has pointed out that, in order to prove the consistency of classical number theory, it is necessary to extend Hilbert's finitary standpoint by admitting certain abstract concepts in addition to the combinatorial concepts referring to symbols. The abstract concepts that so far have been used for this purpose are those of the constructive theory of ordinals and those of intuitionistic logic. It is shown that the concept of a computable function of finite simple type over the integers can (...) be used instead, where no other procedures of constructing such functions are necessary except simple recursion by an integral variable and substitution of functions in each other (starting with trivial functions). (shrink)

The semantics Vann McGee gives for his 1989 conditional logic is based on Stalnaker’s 1968 semantics but replaces the familiar concept of truth at a world with the novel concept of truth under a hypothesis. Developed here is a semantics of the standard type, in which sentences are true at worlds, only with additional constraints imposed on the accessibility relation and the selection function. McGee conditionals of the form A ⇒ X are translated into Stalnaker conditionals of the form \A (...) > X. An interpretation of the semantics is provided, and a few implications for the theory of indicative conditionals and their probabilities are noted. (shrink)

Leaders, particularly new leaders, seek to establish high levels of trust, as it has been associated with higher levels of effectiveness and group outcomes. This study is designed to understand how trust changes and develops for leaders in a new role and the implications of that change. Although calls for research on trust over time have been made for the past 2 decades, our knowledge of this phenomenon is still quite limited. The findings indicate that leader and unit performance is (...) a function not only of absolute trust level, but is also affected by the direction and magnitude of change in trust across time periods, with the highest levels of effectiveness being associated with leaders who exhibited an increase in trust from the group over time. The data also suggest that the direction and rate at which trust grew was determined by initial expectations and transformational leadership behaviors. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the ‘It's OK to be White’ Senate motion made by Australian far-right politician Pauline Hanson in 2018. Deliberately innocuous, the ‘It's OK to be white’ slogan was designed by online white supremacist groups with the intention of ‘triggering liberals’ and provoking outrage. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, I demonstrate that Hanson's ‘It's OK to be white’ motion was an act of calculated ambivalence, which served to address multiple audiences simultaneously. I argue that the motion provided Hanson (...) with a novel way to discuss so-called ‘anti-white’ or ‘reverse’ racism which succeeded in generating the desired controversy and media attention. I further argue that the success of the motion exposed the Australian media's illiteracy on contemporary alt-right/white supremacist tactics and discourses. I also critically examine the implications of the motion and Hanson's promotion of white victimhood narratives. Despite its innocuous framing, the ‘It's OK to be white’ motion represented the successful co-optation of a racist white supremacist political project, the implications of which should not be understated. This research furthers our understanding of the strategies and tactics employed by the far-right, as well as the interrelationship between the populist radical right and online white supremacist groups. (shrink)

Front Cover -- Impressum -- Inhalt -- Vorwort -- Abkürzungen -- Erster Teil. 1945-1947: Ansätze -- I. Prolog im Ratskeller -- II. 1945: Anfang -- III. 1946: Atommoral -- IV. 1947: Der Wert des Scheins - Pascal -- Zweiter Teil. 1947-1950: Zwischen Husserl und Heidegger -- V. 1947: Ontologie -- VI. 1948-1950: Die ontologische Distanz -- VII. 1949: Fragen der Zeit -- Dritter Teil. 1950-1960: Neue Themen -- VIII. Um 1950 -- IX. 1951-1953: Natur - Technik - Wahrheit -- X. (...) Methode -- XI. 1954: Kant und die Frage nach dem gnädigen Gott -- XII. 1954: Logik der Theologie -- XIII. 1957-1959: Natur - Kunst - Technisierung -- XIV. 1957-1962: Religionsphilosophie -- Vierter Teil. 1960-1966: Neuzeit -- XV. 1960: Metaphern -- XVI. 1957: Cusanus -- XVII. 1957-1965: Kopernikus -- XVIII. 1965: Galilei -- XIX. 1963-1966: Poetik -- XX. 1966: Die Legitimität der Neuzeit -- XXI. Diskussionen -- XXII. Gegenlesen -- Bibliographische Hinweise -- Dank -- Personenregister -- Sachregister. (shrink)