Chinese translation courtesy of Zhuanxu Xu. We want to know what gender is. But metaphysical approaches to this question solely have focused on the binary gender kinds men and women. By overlooking those who identify outside of the binary–the group I call ‘genderqueer’–we are left without tools for understanding these new and quickly growing gender identifications. This metaphysical gap in turn creates a conceptual lacuna that contributes to systematic misunderstanding of genderqueer persons. In this paper, I argue that to better (...) understand genderqueer identities, we must recognize a new type of gender kind: critical gender kinds, or kinds whose members collectively resist dominant gender ideology. After developing a model of critical gender kinds, I suggest that genderqueer is best modeled as a critical gender kind that stands in opposition to `the binary assumption', or the prevalent assumption that the only possible genders are the binary, discrete, exclusive, and exhaustive kinds men and women. (shrink)

In this article, Dembroff argues that the category nonbinary should not be understood in terms of presentation or psychological states, but instead in terms of how its members are politically situated with respect to the binary expectations of Western gender ideology.

Overview The debate over the semantics of proper names has, of late, heated up, focusing on the relative merits of referentialism and predicativism. Referentialists maintain that the semantic function of proper names is to designate individuals. They hold that a proper name, as it occurs in a sentence in a context of use, refers to a specific individual that is its referent and has just that individual as its semantic content, its contribution to the proposition expressed by the sentence. Furthermore, (...) a proper name contributes its referent to the proposition expressed by virtue of mechanisms of direct reference to individuals, not by virtue of expressing properties. Predicativists embrace an opposing view according to which proper names are just a special kind of common noun. Their semantic function is to designate properties of individuals. A proper name, as it occurs in a sentence in a context of use, expresses a property, and that property is its contribution to the proposition expr .. (shrink)

them. Though Aristotle does not say so, presumably the questioner who conceals in this way must be prepared, when challenged, to show that the conclusion...

Epistemic contextualists think that the truth-conditions of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions depend in part on the context in which they are uttered. But what features of context play a role in determining truth-conditions? The idea that the making salient of error possibilities is a central part of the story has often been attributed to contextualists, and a number of contextualists seem to endorse it (see Cohen (Philos Perspect, 13:57–89, 1999) and Hawthorne, (Knowledge and lotteries, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004)). In this paper (...) I argue that the focus on salience relations is a mistake. On the view I defend, the relevant features of context are facts about what error-possibilities and alternatives those in the context have a reason to consider, not facts about what error-possibilities and alternatives those in the context actually consider. As I will argue, this view has certain advantages over the standard view. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987 and re-issued in 2020 with a new Preface, this book presents and elaborates interrelated solutions to a number of problems in moral philosophy, from the location of intrinsic value and the nature of a worthwhile life, via the limits of obligation and the nature of justice, to the status of moral utterances. After developing a biocentric account of moral standing, the author locates worthwhile life in the development of the generic capacities of a creature, whether human (...) or nonhuman, and presents an account of relative intrinsic value which later generates a theory of interspecific justice. This value-theory also informs a consequentialist understanding of obligation, of moral rightness and of supererogation. The understanding thus supplied is shown to cope with the problems of integrity, of justice and of the 'Repugnant Conclusion' in population ethics. A cognitivist account of ethical conclusions such as those so far reached is then defended against non-cognitivist and relativist objections and a far-reaching naturalist theory is defended, integrating earlier conclusions with an account of the logic of the fundamental ethical concepts. This wide-ranging volume which maps the whole area of morality is thoroughly argued with reference both to contemporary philosophical developments and to classical theories. (shrink)

This fully updated and expanded textbook looks at issues including climate change, sustainable development and biodiversity preservation, and sensitively addresses global developments such as the Summits at Durban on climate and at Nagoya on biodiversity.

'With admirable clarity, Mrs Peters sums up what determines competence in spelling and the traditional and new approaches to its teaching.' -Times Literary Supplement.

When one takes an intersectional perspective on patterns of oppression and domination, it becomes clear that familiar forms of systemic injustice, such as misogyny and anti-Black racism, are inseparable. Some feminist theorists conclude, from this, that the systems behind these injustices cannot be individuated—for example, that there isn’t patriarchy and white supremacy, but instead only white supremacist patriarchy. This chapter offers a different perspective. Philosophers have long observed that a statue and a lump of clay can be individuated although inseparable, (...) and that statues and lumps of clay do different explanatory and predictive work for the same causal outcomes. This chapter suggests that the same is true of systems such as patriarchy and white supremacy. These systems, like the injustices they produce, are inseparable. But they can be individuated, and when they are individuated, they do different explanatory and predictive work. (shrink)

Science is not a great way to make money, or these days, even a job. But there are great riches in it, and in this book too. Tim Bradford, 'New Scientist'.

The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is an outstanding, comprehensive and accessible guide to the major themes, thinkers, and issues in metaphysics. The Companion features over fifty specially commissioned chapters from international scholars which are organized into three clear parts: History of Metaphysics Ontology Metaphysics and Science. Each section features an introduction which places the range of essays in context, while an extensive glossary allows easy reference to key terms and definitions. The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is essential reading for students (...) of philosophy and anyone interested in surveying the central topics and problems in metaphysics from causation to vagueness and from Plato and Aristotle to the present-day. (shrink)

While many of the phenomenological currents in philosophy allegedly utilize a peculiar method, the type under consideration here is characterized by Franz Brentano s ambition to make philosophy scientific by adopting no other method but that of natural science. Brentano became particularly influential in teaching his students (such as Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Alexius Meinong, and Edmund Husserl) his descriptive psychology, which is concerned with mind as intentionally directed at objects. As Brentano and his students continued in their investigations in (...) descriptive psychology, another side of Austrian phenomenology, namely object theory, became more and more prominent. The philosophical orientation under consideration in this collection of essays is accordingly a two-sided discipline, concerned with both mind and objects, and applicable to various areas of philosophy such as epistemology, philosophy of language, value theory, and ontology.". (shrink)

Policy disputes arise at all scales of governance: in clubs, non-profits, firms, nations, and alliances of nations. Both the means and ends of policy are disputed. While many, perhaps most, policy disputes arise from conflicting ends, important disputes also arise from differing beliefs on how to achieve shared ends. In fact, according to many experts in economics and development, governments often choose policies that are “inefficient” in the sense that most everyone could expect to gain from other feasible policies. Many (...) other kinds of experts also see existing policies as often clearly inferior to known alternatives. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes has recently been cast as one of the forefathers of political realism. This article evaluates his place in the realist tradition by focusing on three key themes: the priority of legit...

This paper is an argument against Truthmaker Necessitarianism—the doctrine that the existence of a truthmaker necessitates the truth of the proposition it makes true. Armstrong’s sufficiency argument for necessitarianism is examined and shown to be question begging. It is then argued in detail that truthmaking is a matter of grounding truth and that grounding is a dependency relation that neither entails nor reduces to necessitation.

There is no doubt that a person's gender could make a difference to their role in Greek sacrifices. But did it normally make a difference in Greece? And why did it make a difference? Two inscriptions from the island of Thasos neatly illustrate the problem. First, one dated to around 440 and found in the sanctuary of Herakles: [ρα]κλε Θασωι [αγ]α ο θμισ, ο– [δ] χορον οδ γ– [υ]ναικ; θμισ ο– [δ]' νατεεται ο– δ γρα τμνετα– ι οσ' θλται1.

For every finite n ≥ 4 there is a logically valid sentence φ n with the following properties: φ n contains only 3 variables (each of which occurs many times); φ n contains exactly one nonlogical binary relation symbol (no function symbols, no constants, and no equality symbol): φ n has a proof in first-order logic with equality that contains exactly n variables, but no proof containing only n - 1 variables. This result was first proved using the machinery of (...) algebraic logic developed in several research monographs and papers. Here we replicate the result and its proof entirely within the realm of (elementary) first-order binary predicate logic with equality. We need the usual syntax, axioms, and rules of inference to show that φ n has a proof with only n variables. To show that φ n has no proof with only n - 1 variables we use alternative semantics in place of the usual, standard, set-theoretical semantics of first-order logic. (shrink)

Role morality can be defined as “claim(ing) a moral permission to harm others in ways that, if not for the role, would be wrong” (A. Applbaum: 1999, Ethics for Adversaries: The Morality of Roles in Public and Professional Life (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ) p. 3). Adversarial situations resulting in role morality occur most frequently in the fields of law, business, and government. Within the realm of accounting, professional obligations may place the accountant in a situation where he/she is susceptible (...) to the pressures of role morality. If the accountant engages in acts consistent with role morality, significant harm to others may result. The current study represents an initial investigation into role morality in accounting and includes survey data from three samples of professionals: accountants, physicians, and attorneys. Results suggest that accountants generally do not agree that role morality is acceptable. Additionally, when compared to the groups of physicians and attorneys, physicians agree the least with role morality, while attorneys agree the most. Implications for practicing accountants and suggestions for future research into the theory of role morality are offered. (shrink)

Department of Economics, George Mason University, MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030, USA E-mail: [email protected] (http://hanson.gmu.edu).

Despite the striking similarities between Pyrrhonian skepticism and Madhyamaka Buddhism, few lessons have been drawn from the parallels between the two traditions. Here, it is argued that Madhyamaka Buddhism verifies the livability of Pyrrhonian skepticism. After establishing that Pyrrhonism and Madhyamaka can be understood as undertaking the same project, it is shown that Madhyamaka philosophy is able to refute objections to the viability of Pyrrhonism. Finally, it is demonstrated that Madhyamaka is still a lived practice in Tibetan Buddhism, and it (...) is argued that this constitutes empirical support for the livability of Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

We prove, for each 4⩽ n ω , that S Ra CA n+1 cannot be defined, using only finitely many first-order axioms, relative to S Ra CA n . The construction also shows that for 5⩽n S Ra CA n is not finitely axiomatisable over RA n , and that for 3⩽m S Nr m CA n+1 is not finitely axiomatisable over S Nr m CA n . In consequence, for a certain standard n -variable first-order proof system ⊢ m (...) , n of m -variable formulas, there is no finite set of m -variable schemata whose m -variable instances, when added to ⊢ m , n as axioms, yield ⊢ m , n +1. (shrink)

This book brings together for the first time the political and related writings of R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943), the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist. Including a great deal of previously unpublished or inaccessible material, the writings place political action in the context of action as a whole and addresses substantive social and political issues, particularly Nazism and Fascism, which Collingwood recognized as a threat to European civilization.

Engineers’ love of technology often gets in the way of their being useful. Consider Post-it Notes or, better yet, plain paper notepads. These probably seemed like trivial ideas, but they turned out to be terribly useful. Why? Because the marvel that is the human brain has a horrible short-term memory, which means that dumb-as-dirt memory aids can make people substantially smarter.

In this paper, I explore the ways that phenomenological concepts like intercorporeality and mutual incorporation offer new tools in trying to make sense of human experiences via mediating systems. In particular, I think about how the COVID-19 pandemic hastened a large population into mediated interactions, and what is lost, perhaps contingently or perhaps intrinsically, when human experiences are mediated in this way. I look to research in presence, skillful interaction, and enactive social cognition to argue that there remains something ineffable (...) or at least extremely hard to pin down about intercorporeality, and embodied togetherness has not yet been replicated in the mediating systems we currently embrace. (shrink)

It is widely held that moral obligations to non-human beings do not involve considerations of justice. For such a view, nonhuman interests are always prone to be trumped by human interests. Rawlsian contractarianism comprises an example of such a view. Through analysis of such theories, this essay highlights the problem of reconciling the claim that humans have obligations to non-humans with the claim that our treatment of the latter is not a matter of justice. We argue that if it is (...) granted that the basic interests of non-human beings sometimes count for more than the peripheral interests of humans, then our understandings of obligation and of justice must be aligned, so that what we say about obligation is not countered by assumptions about the invariable priority of humans in matters of justice. We further consider whether such a conclusion can be endorsed by those who adopt certain alternative theories to contractarianism. We conclude that adherents of a range of theories including sentientism and biocentrism must accept that human interests can sometimes be superseded by animal interests, and that this applies not least in matters of justice. (shrink)

D‐amino acids are being recognized as functionally important molecules in mammals. We recently identified endogenous D‐cysteine in mammalian brain. D‐cysteine is present in neonatal brain in substantial amounts (mM) and decreases with postnatal development. D‐cysteine binds to MARCKS and a host of proteins implicated in cell division and neurodevelopmental disorders. D‐cysteine decreases phosphorylation of MARCKS in neural progenitor cells (NPCs) affecting its translocation. D‐cysteine controls NPC proliferation by inhibiting AKT signaling. Exogenous D‐cysteine inhibits AKT phosphorylation at Thr 308 and Ser (...) 473 in NPCs. D‐cysteine treatment of NPCs led to 50% reduction in phosphorylation of Foxo1 at Ser 256 and Foxo3a at Ser 253. We hypothesize that in the developing brain endogenous D‐cysteine is as a physiologic regulator of NPC proliferation by inhibiting AKT signaling mediated by Foxo1 and Foxo3a. Endogenous D‐cysteine may regulate mammalian neurodevelopment with roles in schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease (AD). (shrink)

This essay argues that moral self-cultivation as described in the Confucian tradition involves the cultivation of the body. Preparing the body in certain ways, perhaps by making it healthy, is a necessary part of moral self-cultivation. This claim includes: (a) nourishing the body in a proper way is a first step in moral self-cultivation, and the bodily care is instrumentally valuable to one’s flourishing life; (b) making and keeping a healthy body is partly constitutive of a moral well-being and hence (...) bodily care is also intrinsically valuable to a flourishing life. This perspective on embodied virtue is established through a discussion of qi. The body as the storehouse of qi is not only a passive reservoir of knowledge that serves as moral guidance, but also actively plays an indispensable and integral role in activities related to one’s moral transformation. A well-cared for body provides a moral agent with the temporal and spatial possibility for moral refinement and an enhanced good life. (shrink)

El interes de Collingwood por las cuestiones esteticas fue uno de los mas persistentes a lo largo de toda su obra. Asi pues, todo lo expuesto en este libro tiene una aplicacion practica, directa o indirectamente, a la condicion del arte en la actualidad.

“Political epistemology” has recently emerged as an area of analytic epistemology. While it may not be an entirely new area, and its precise boundaries are up for negotiation, recent political events in the UK (e.g. Brexit) and the US (e.g. the election of Donald Trump) played a key role in its rise to prominence within contemporary analytic epistemology. Further, political epistemology is an inter-disciplinary field, drawing on relevant work in political science, political psychology, and science communication that is often equally (...) focused on the UK and US. Political epistemology is therefore parochial, though it is the kind of parochialism that is not always conscious of itself as parochial. In this talk I adopt a critical stance towards parochialism in political epistemology. But my aim is not just to point out the mistakes that can result from a parochial concern with political events in one’s own country. I suggest that we can view political epistemology as interested in certain fundamental problems and tensions, which political epistemologists may then seek to identify and address within the political context in which they are working. (shrink)

This paper argues that theism and related axiarchic hypotheses provide the only promising solution to the problems of cosmic coincidence and induction raised by necessitarians against the regularity view of the laws of nature. Hence, it is argued, the fundamental order of the world provides significant support for theism and these related hypotheses.