We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

Dialectical egalitarianism holds that every asserted proposition requires defence when challenged by an interlocutor. This view apparently generates a vicious 'regress of justifications', since an interlocutor can challenge the premises through which a speaker defends her original assertion, and so on ad infinitum . To halt the regress, dialectical foundationalists such as Adler, Brandom, Leite, and Williams propose that some propositions require no defence in the light of mere requests for justification. I argue that the putative regress is not worrisome (...) and that egalitarianism can handle it quite satisfactorily. I also defend a positive view that combines an anti-foundationalist conception of dialectical interaction with a foundationalist conception of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Intuitionism can be seen as a verificationism restricted to mathematical discourse. An attempt to generalize intuitionism to empirical discourse presents various challenges. One of those concerns the logical and semantical behavior of what has been called ' empirical negation'. An extension of intuitionistic logic with empirical negation was given by Michael De and a labelled tableaux system was there shown sound and complete. However, a Hilbert-style axiom system that is sound and complete was missing. In this paper we provide (...) the missing axiom system which is shown sound and complete with respect to its intended semantics. Along the way we consider some further applications of empirical negation. (shrink)

[This editorial is part of the 50th celebration issue that explored ‘what comes after postmodernism in educational theory. The special issue is being published as a monograph and this is our group...

: Debates on precedent autonomy and some forms of paternalistic interventions, which are related to questions of personal identity, are analyzed. The discussion is based on the distinction between personal identity as persistence and as biographical identity. It first is shown that categorical objections to advance directives and "Ulysses contracts" are based on false assumptions about personal identity that conflate persistence and biographical identity. Therefore, advance directives and "Ulysses contracts" are ethically acceptable tools for prolonging one's autonomy. The notions of (...) personality and biographical identity are used to analyze the ethically relevant features. Thereby, it is shown that these concepts are operative in and useful for thinking in biomedical ethics. The overall conclusion is that categorical arguments against precedent autonomy or "Ulysses contracts" are based on misleading theories of personal identity and that advance directives are an ethically respectable tool for prolonging individuals' autonomy in cases of dementia and mental illness. (shrink)

Computational complexity theory is a branch of computer science dedicated to classifying computational problems in terms of their difficulty. While computability theory tells us what we can compute in principle, complexity theory informs us regarding our practical limits. In this chapter I argue that the science of \emph{quantum computing} illuminates complexity theory by emphasising that its fundamental concepts are not model-independent, but that this does not, as some suggest, force us to radically revise the foundations of the theory. For model-independence (...) never has been essential to those foundations. The fundamental aim of complexity theory is to describe what is achievable in practice under various models of computation for our various practical purposes. Reflecting on quantum computing illuminates complexity theory by reminding us of this, too often under-emphasised, fact. (shrink)

Virtually everyone agrees that there is a strong moral presumption against the use of coercion. There is, however, considerably less agreement about the nature of coercion. For example, each of the following claims has been the subject of considerable controversy: 1. coercion is an essentially normative concept whose ‘conditions of application contain an ineliminable reference to moral rightness or wrongness’; 2. it is possible to coerce someone by means of an especially enticing offer as well as by means of a (...) threat; 3. coercion sometimes consists in nothing more than the direct application of physical force; and 4. exploitation is a form of coercion. In this essay I shall propose and defend an explication of the concept of coercion which will entail the falsity of each of these claims. Such an analysis, although it will naturally start from and be guided by our intuitions about the subject, will not be bound rigidly by them. My primary objective will be to provide a reasonably precise and systematic way of describing a category of human behavior only the paradigm examples of which are clearly circumscribed by ordinary usage. (shrink)

Epistemic and moral certainities like ' This is a hand' or 'Killing people is evil' will be interpreted as constitutive rules of language games, such that they are unjustifiable, undeniable and serving as obliging standards of truth, goodness and rationality for members of a community engaging in the respective practices.

Against arealist background, the paper starts by demonstrating the horror of the very popular doctrine, “Worldmaking”, according to which a known world is partly constructed by our imposition of concepts. The rest of the paper aims to make worldmaking hard. (i) It rejects the usual episternological and semantic paths to Worldmaking arguing that they use the wrong methodology and proceed in the wrong direction. (ii) It considers the relation between Worldmaking and the response-dependency theory of concepts. Philip Pettit has proposed (...) a global version of that theory: all our concepts are response-dependent. The paper argues that this theory provides an example of the semantic path to Worldmaking and for that reason alone should be rejected. (shrink)

Chapter 1 presents BS, a basic syllogistic system based on Aristotle's logic, in natural deduction form. Chapters 2 and 3 treat the metatheory of BS: consitency, soundness, independence, and completeness. Chapter 4 and 5 deal with syllogistic and, in turn, propositional and predicate logic, chapter 6 is on existential import, chapter 7 on subject and predicate and chapter 8 on classes. Chapter 9 adds negative variables to BS, and proves its soundness and completeness.

This interview took place through email during October-November, 2019. Michael: It’s a real pleasure to engage you in conversation. You were a foundation member of PESA and someone who in the pre-I...

What does the growing tide of displaced persons today teach us about the ongoing paradoxes of human rights regimes, which rely on the particular sovereignty of nation-states for their constitution and application but are framed and normatively justified as universal? Working with Arendt’s defense of ‘the right to have rights’ in response to the problem of statelessness which is the practical lynchpin of these historical and theoretical tensions, I specify that and why any person on earth, regardless of their legal (...) status as a national or resident or non-resident alien, can legitimately expect two things from the political community in which they reside: hospitality and membership. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology distinguishes differences in survival and reproduction rates due to selection from those due to drift. The distinction is usually thought to be founded in probabilistic facts: a difference in (say) two variants' average lifespans over some period of time that is due to selection is explained by differences in the probabilities relevant to survival; in the purest cases of drift, by contrast, the survival probabilities are equal and the difference in lifespans is a matter of chance. When there (...) is a difference in actual average lifespans there is always a difference in causal histories, but in drift, the causal differences make no contribution to the relevant probabilities. Some writers have claimed that the framework that determines which causes contribute to the probabilities, and so the framework that determines when the relevant probabilities differ and when they are equal, is imposed by modelers rather than being an objective fact of nature, and so that the distinction between selection and drift, however practically useful, is unreal. This paper uses my work on biological probabilities (Bigger than Chaos) and probabilistic explanation (Depth) to argue for the objectivity of, and the importance of the objectivity of, the distinction between selection and drift. (shrink)

The practice of research is full of ethical challenges, many of which might be addressed through the teaching of responsible conduct of research . Although such training is increasingly required, there is no clear consensus about either the goals or content of an RCR curriculum. The present study was designed to assess community standards in three domains of research practice: authorship, collaboration, and data management. A survey, developed through advice from content matter experts, focus groups, and interviews, was distributed in (...) November 2010 to U.S. faculty from 50 graduate programs for each of four different disciplines: microbiology, neuroscience, nursing, and psychology. The survey addressed practices and perceived standards, as well as perceptions about teaching and learning. Over 1,300 responses yielded statistically significant differences in responses to nearly all questions. However the magnitude of these differences was typically small, leaving little reason to argue for community consensus on standards. For nearly all questions asked, the clear finding was that there was nothing approaching consensus. These results may be useful not so much to teach what the standards are, but to increase student awareness of the diversity of those standards in reported practice. (shrink)

For many years now, much of BonJour’s work has focused on ways of developing a dilemma he finds in the work of Wilfred Sellars. In his earlier work, BonJour argued against internalist foundationalism using this Sellarsian dilemma. But he has since switched his allegiance and now wants to offer a solution to this dilemma on behalf of internalist foundationalism. He believes that if his solution fails, internalist foundationalism is in serious trouble. I agree with that conditional and my aim in (...) sections 1-3 will be to argue that his solution does fail. In the final section, I will briefly defend externalism against one of BonJour’s objections to it. (shrink)

One of the most foundational and continually contested questions in the cognitive sciences is the degree to which the functional organization of the brain can be understood as modular. In its classic formulation, a module was defined as a cognitive sub-system with nine specific properties; the classic module is, among other things, domain specific, encapsulated, and implemented in dedicated neural substrates. Most of the examinations—and especially the criticisms—of the modularity thesis have focused on these properties individually, for instance by finding (...) counterexamples in which otherwise good candidates for cognitive modules are shown to lack domain specificity or encapsulation. The current paper goes beyond the usual approach by asking what some of the broad architectural implications of the modularity thesis might be, and attempting to test for these. The evidence does not favor a modular architecture for the cortex. Moreover, the evidence suggests that best way to approach the understanding of cognition is not by analyzing and modelling different functional domains in isolation from the others, but rather by looking for points of overlap in their neural implementations, and exploiting these to guide the analysis and decomposition of the functions in question. This has significant implications for the question of how to approach the design and implementation of intelligent artifacts in general, and language-using robots in particular. (shrink)

Written by well-known professor and author Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice is an accessible examination of the moral and normative underpinnings of ...

Examines the dialogues from Plato's early and middle periods and illustrates the similarities and differences between Plators"s concept of craft knowledge and ...

Was leistete der Gedanke der selbstandigen Auswahl (Eklektik) in der Geschichte der Philosophie von Aristoteles bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, wo liegen die Anwendungsgebiete, wo seine Grenzen und warum kam der Begriff der Eklektik schon im 18. Jahrhundert zur Bezeichnung unselbstandiger Vermischung herunter? Der Schwerpunkt der umfangreichen Arbeit liegt in der Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts; sie reicht aber bis zur eklektischen Psychotherapie der Gegenwart.

This paper begins the development of a pragmatics of emotion based on the pragma-dialectical programme, Externalization, Socialization, Functionalization, and Dialectification, applied to the emotional mode of argumentation. The first step points out a systematic equivocation within pragma-dialectics between the notion of argument and that of 'dialectics.' With this cleared, it is shown that each of the first three main assumptions can be altered to accommodate a non-logical mode of communication. However, dialectification, insofar as it is actually defining of the dialectical (...) mode, must be created anew. A defining assumption for emotionality is presented as a replacement for dialectification. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 58-81.

Through autobiography, I explain why I cannot accept conventional Christianity or any other form of religious belief. I sketch how, through modern evolutionary theory, I try to find an alternative world‐picture, one which is, however, essentially agnostic about ultimate meanings. I characterize my position as being that of “David Hume brought up‐to‐date by Charles Darwin.” I express sad skepticism about ever realizing the hopes on which Zygon was founded.

Starting from an analogy with Quine’s two dogmas of empiricism, I offer a critique of two dogmas of analytic historiography: the belief in a cleavage between the justification of a ph...

Peter Klein has taken Aristotle’s regress argument for foundationalism as a point of departure for developing a view he calls ‘infinitism’. In this paper, I offer a critique of Klein’s view. I argue for three main conclusions. First, Klein’s response to the regress argument for foundationalism is neither infinitism nor foundationalism but a distinct position I call the “unjustified foundations” view. Second, Klein’s “unjustified foundations” view is subject to some serious problems that make it inferior to foundationalism. Third, Klein’s objections (...) to foundationalism fail to knock it from its place of superiority over the “unjustified foundations” view. Before defending these three conclusions in sections 3-5, I begin with an account of the regress argument for foundationalism in section 1 and with a brief presentation of Klein’s views in section 2. (shrink)

The history of building automated theorem provers for higher-order logic is almost as old as the field of deduction systems itself. The first successful attempts to mechanize and implement higher-order logic were those of Huet [13] and Jensen and Pietrzykowski [17]. They combine the resolution principle for higher-order logic (first studied in [1]) with higher-order unification. The unification problem in typed λ-calculi is much more complex than that for first-order terms, since it has to take the theory of αβη-equality into (...) account. As a consequence, the higher-order unification problem is undecidable and sets of solutions need not even always have most general elements that represent them. Thus the mentioned calculi for higher-order logic have take special measures to circumvent the problems posed by the theoretical complexity of higher-order unification. In this paper, we will exemplify the methods and proof- and model-theoretic tools needed for extending first-order automated theorem proving to higherorder logic. For the sake of simplicity take the tableau method as a basis (for a general introduction to first-order tableaux see part I.1) and discuss the higherorder tableau calculi HT and HTE first presented in [19]. The methods in this paper also apply to higher-order resolution calculi [1, 13, 6] or the higher-order matings method of Peter [3], which extend their first-order counterparts in much the same way. Since higher-order calculi cannot be complete for the standard semantics by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem [11], only the weaker notion of Henkin models [12] leads to a meaningful notion of completeness in higher-order logic. It turns out that the calculi in [1, 13, 3, 19] are not Henkin-complete, since they fail to capture the extensionality principles of higher-order logic. We will characterize the deductive power of our calculus HT (which is roughly equivalent to these calculi) by the semantics of functional Σ-models. To arrive at a calculus that is complete with respect to Henkin models, we build on ideas from [6] and augment HT with tableau construction rules that use the extensionality principles in a goal-oriented way.. (shrink)

Joachim Renn argues that Schutz fails to integrate two fundamental strands in his work: phenomenology and pragmatism. Gaps between separated consciousnesses block synchronization and access to others, and objective symbol schemes, absorbed within the egological outlook, cannot bridge these gaps. Renn, however, construes phenomenology as practicing a solipsistic withdrawal of a self cut off from its environs, denies that contents correlative to individual intentional acts can be objective and common, and overlooks the intricacies of Schutz’s descriptive methodology. Furthermore, for Renn, (...) Schutz’s distinctions between inner and outer time and ego and alter congeal into hardened dualisms. Renn expects more than Schutz’s methodology can deliver, but correctly points to problems of the social world that need to be addressed by several philosophical strategies, including pragmatism and Schutzian phenomenology. (shrink)