1. Tan'gun sinhwa ŭi wŏnhyŏngjŏk segyegwan kwa p'ungnyu chŏngsin -- 2. Wŏnhyo ŭi hwajaeng sasang kwa muaehaeng ŭi silch'ŏn -- 3. Ŭisang ŭi 'Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkyedo' e nat'anan Hwaŏm sasang -- 4. Chinul ŭi Tono chŏmsu wa Chŏnghye ssangsu sasang -- 5. Sambong Chŏng To-jŏn ŭi Pulgyo paech'ŏk ŭi naeyong kwa sŏngkyŏk -- 6. T'oegye Yi Hwang ŭi ch'ŏrhakchŏk ipchang kwa 'Kyŏng' sasang -- 7. Kobong Ki Tae-sŭng ŭi hangmun chŏngsin kwa ch'ŏrhak sasang -- 8. Ugye Sŏng Hon ŭi Tohakchŏk (...) sam kwa hangmun yŏnwŏn -- 9. Yulgok Yi I ŭi Taedong sahoeron kwa ch'ŏrhakchŏk chihyang -- 10. Sŏgye Pak Se-dang ŭi Sirhakchŏk sayu ŭi kich'o -- 11. Namdang Han Wŏn-jin ŭi yŏksa insik kwa Chosŏn chunghwajuŭi -- 12. Sŏngdam Song Hwan-gi ŭi 'T'aegŭk tosŏl' haesŏk ŭi kibon ipchang -- 13. Kanjŏng Yi Nŭng-hwa 'Chosŏn Togyosa' ŭi haksulsachŏk ŭiŭi wa han'gye -- 14. Manhae Han Yong-un i pon chuch'e ŭi munje wa minjok chagyŏl ŭi wŏnch'ik. (shrink)

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

The distinction between perception and cognition frames countless debates in philosophy and cognitive science. But what, if anything, does this distinction actually amount to? In this introductory article, we summarize recent work on this question. We first briefly consider the possibility that a perception-cognition border should be eliminated from our scientific ontology, and then introduce and critically examine five positive approaches to marking a perception–cognition border, framed in terms of phenomenology, revisability, modularity, format, and stimulus-dependence.

Standard approaches to counterfactuals in the philosophy of explanation are geared toward causal explanation. We show how to extend the counterfactual theory of explanation to non-causal cases, involving extra-mathematical explanation: the explanation of physical facts by mathematical facts. Using a structural equation framework, we model impossible perturbations to mathematics and the resulting differences made to physical explananda in two important cases of extra-mathematical explanation. We address some objections to our approach.

Taking their motivation from the perceived failure of the reductive physicalist project concerning consciousness, panpsychists ascribe subjectivity to fundamental material entities in order to account for macro-consciousness. But there exists an unresolved tension within the mainstream panpsychist position, the seriousness of which has yet to be appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer advice to panpsychists on how to resolve it. The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature phenomenal properties, plus micro-subjects to (...) whom these properties belong. However, it is impossible to explain the generation of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, as I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of giving up her explanatory ambitions, or of giving up the claim that the ultimates are subjects. I argue that the latter option is preferable, leading to neutral monism, on which phenomenal qualities are irreducible but subjects are reducible. So panpsychists should be neutral monists. (shrink)

The theoretical virtue of parsimony values the minimizing of theoretical commitments, but theoretical commitments come in two kinds : ontological and ideological. While the ontological commitments of a theory are the entities it posits, a theory’s ideological commitments are the primitive concepts it employs. Here, I show how we can extend the distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony, commonly drawn regarding ontological commitments, to the domain of ideological commitments. I then argue that qualitative ideological parsimony is a theoretical virtue. My (...) defense proceeds by demonstrating the merits of qualitative ideological parsimony and by showing how the qualitative conception of ideological parsimony undermines two notable arguments from ideological parsimony: David Lewis’ defense of modal realism and Ted Sider’s defense of mereological nihilism. (shrink)

Inquiry aims at knowledge. Your inquiry into a question succeeds just in case you come to know the answer. However, combined with a common picture on which misleading evidence can lead knowledge to be lost, this view threatens to recommend a novel form of dogmatism. At least in some cases, individuals who know the answer to a question appear required to avoid evidence bearing on it. In this paper, we’ll aim to do two things. First, we’ll present an argument for (...) this novel form of dogmatism and show that it presents a substantive challenge. Second, we’ll consider a way those who take knowledge to be the aim of inquiry can mount a response. In the course of doing so, we’ll try to get clearer on the normative connections between inquiry, knowledge and evidence gathering. (shrink)

Panpsychism, an increasingly popular competitor to physicalism as a theory of mind, faces a famous difficulty, the ‘combination problem’. This is the difficulty of understanding the composition of a conscious mind by parts which are themselves taken to be phenomenally qualitied. I examine the combination problem, and I attempt to solve it. There are a few distinct difficulties under the banner of ‘the combination problem’, and not all of them need worry panpsychists. After homing in on the genuine worries, I (...) identify some disputable assumptions that underlie them. Doing away with these assumptions allows us to make a start on a working conception of phenomenal combination. (shrink)

Potentialism is the view that the universe of sets is inherently potential. It comes in two main flavours: height-potentialism and width-potentialism. It is natural to think that height and width potentialism are just aspects of a broader phenomenon of potentialism, that they might both be true. The main result of this paper is that this is mistaken: height and width potentialism are jointly inconsistent. Indeed, I will argue that height potentialism is independently committed to an ultimate background universe of sets, (...) an ultimate V, up to its height. (shrink)

The counterfactual approach to explainable AI (XAI) seeks to provide understanding of AI systems through the provision of counterfactual explanations. In a recent systematic review, Chou et al. (Inform Fus 81:59–83, 2022) argue that the counterfactual approach does not clearly provide causal understanding. They diagnose the problem in terms of the underlying framework within which the counterfactual approach has been developed. To date, the counterfactual approach has not been developed in concert with the approach for specifying causes developed by Pearl (...) (Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Woodward (Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press, 2003). In this paper, I build on Chou et al.’s work by applying the Pearl-Woodward approach. I argue that the standard counterfactual approach to XAI is capable of delivering causal understanding, but that there are limitations on its capacity to do so. I suggest a way to overcome these limitations. (shrink)

I give a new argument for the moral difference between lying and misleading. First, following David Lewis, I hold that conventions of truthfulness and trust fix the meanings of our language. These conventions generate fair play obligations. Thus, to fail to conform to the conventions of truthfulness and trust is unfair. Second, I argue that the liar, but not the misleader, fails to conform to truthfulness. So the liar, but not the misleader, does something unfair. This account entails that bald-faced (...) lies are wrong, that we can lie nonlinguistically, and that linguistic innovation is morally significant. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued in favour of extended simples on the grounds that they are needed by fundamental physics. The arguments typically appeal to theories of quantum gravity. To date, the argument in favour of extended simples has ignored the fact that the very existence of spacetime is put under pressure by quantum gravity. We thus consider the case for extended simples in the context of different views on the existence of spacetime. We show that the case for (...) extended simples based on physics is far more complex than has been previously thought. We present and then map this complexity, in order to present a much more textured picture of the argument for extended simples. (shrink)

Mathematics appears to play a genuine explanatory role in science. But how do mathematical explanations work? Recently, a counterfactual approach to mathematical explanation has been suggested. I argue that such a view fails to differentiate the explanatory uses of mathematics within science from the non-explanatory uses. I go on to offer a solution to this problem by combining elements of the counterfactual theory of explanation with elements of a unification theory of explanation. The result is a theory according to which (...) a counterfactual is explanatory when it is an instance of a generalized counterfactual scheme. (shrink)

1. Hyŏndae munmyŏng i majuhan saengmyŏng wigi -- 2. Sarang kwa konggam ŭi Kongja Yuhak -- 3. Tolbom kwa haengbok ŭi Maengja Yuhak -- 4. Sangsaeng kwa kongsaeng ŭi Yugyo -- 5. Wang Yang-myŏng ŭi tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi sam, 1 -- 6. Wang Yang-myŏng ŭi tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi sam, 2 -- 7. Ch'ŏnji manmul kwa in'gan i han mom in segye -- 8. Tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi ch'amdaun in'gan -- 9. Kamŭng kwa t'onggak ŭi chuch'e in yangji -- (...) 10. Tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi yangji sirhyŏn ŭi kil -- 11. Yangji sirhyŏn kwa ch'amdoen chŭlgŏum -- 12. Tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi ch'inmin chŏngch'i -- 13. Paeryŏ wa tolbom ŭi ch'amdoen chaa sirhyŏn ŭi kyoyuk -- 14. Paeryŏ wa tolbom ŭi ch'amdoen chaa sirhyŏn ŭi kyoyuk -- 15. Che 4-ch'a sanŏp hyŏngmyŏng sidae, tolbom kwa kongsaeng ŭi kil. (shrink)

Some critics argue that the types of psychiatric diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Disease are superfluous and should be abandoned. These are known as categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses. To receive a categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnosis an individual need only exhibit some, rather than all, of the symptoms on the diagnostic criteria. Consequently, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses only associate an individual with a range of symptoms rather than specify which symptoms they (...) have. Drawing on Giere’s account of scientific models, I portray categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses as abstract models that guide the building of less abstract models. These models can specify which symptoms a particular individual has. Additionally, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses can guide investigation of symptoms towards difficult to spot symptoms, guide investigation towards changing symptoms, and guide investigation towards how symptoms manifest. These important roles mean categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses should not be abandoned. (shrink)

Skow ([2007]), and much more recently Callender ([2017]), argue that time can be distinguished from space due to the special role it plays in our laws of nature: our laws determine the behaviour of physical systems across time, but not across space. In this work we assess the claim that the laws of nature might provide the basis for distinguishing time from space. We find that there is an obvious reason to be sceptical of the argument Skow submits for distinguishing (...) time from space: Skow fails to pay sufficient attention to the relationship between the dynamical laws and the antecedent conditions required to establish a complete solution from the laws. Callender’s more sophisticated arguments in favour of distinguishing time from space by virtue of the laws of nature presents a much stronger basis to draw the distinction. By developing a radical reading of Callender’s view we propose a novel approach to differentiating time and space that we call temporal perspectivalism. This is the view according to which the difference between time and space is a function of the agentive perspective. (shrink)

The experience of temporal flow is, for many, the central—if not the only—reason for believing an A-theory of time. Recently, however, B-theorists have argued that experience does not, in fact, favor the A-theory. Call such an argument: a debunking argument. The goal of the present paper is to defend the A-theory against two prominent versions of the debunking argument.

The main goal of this paper is to explore the forcefulness of the adoption challenge to procreative parenting. After framing the challenge, I consider two of the most developed attempts to respond to it, due to Luara Ferracioli and Elizabeth Brake. I argue that neither strategy is a promising way to vindicate the permissibility of procreative parenting. I then present several reasons to value procreative parenting that are underappreciated in the recent literature. Though these considerations deserve more philosophical attention, I’m (...) agnostic about whether they are strong enough to overcome the adoption challenge. I explain why this agnosticism is reasonable, and the debate about permissibility arguably intractable, in the context of prevailing deontological assumptions structuring discussions of procreation. I conclude by arguing that an independently interesting metaethical thesis, which I call deontic fictionalism, may give us some perspective on this debate and others like it. (shrink)

A recent empirical study claims to show that the answer to Molyneux’s question is negative, but, as John Schwenkler points out, its findings are inconclusive: Subjects tested in this study probably lacked the visual acuity required for a fair assessment of the question. Schwenkler is undeterred. He argues that the study could be improved by lowering the visual demands placed on subjects, a suggestion later endorsed and developed by Kevin Connolly. I suggest that Connolly and Schwenkler both underestimate the difficulties (...) involved in rectifying the study they seek to fix. The problem is that the experimental paradigm under consideration fails to account for the role that rational inference plays in newly sighted subjects’ ability or inability to recognize spatial properties across modalities. Since answering Molyneux’s question requires establishing whether spatial properties can be recognized, across modalities, by newly sighted subjects without recourse to rational inference, this is a problem. Indeed, it is a problem that may be worsened by Schwenkler and Connolly’s suggestions regarding the lowering of visual demands on subjects in cross-modal matching tasks. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and defend an explication of content in terms of the mathematical notion of information. In its most general formulation, the theory says that two states have the same content just in case they carry the same information, relative to a communication network. My account reifies content (it is the discrete counterpart to continuous information) and supports the idea that agents have internal means of comparing the contents of two thoughts. Further, it makes sense to say (...) that agents have communicated successfully when they coordinate on content in this sense; they have transmitted information without loss. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 413-449, Fall 2023.

Our ordinary judgments and our metaphysical theories share a common commitment to facts about resemblance. The nature of resemblance is, however, a matter of no small controversy. This essay examines some of the pressing questions that arise regarding the status and structure of resemblance. Among those to be discussed in what follows: what kinds of resemblance relations are there? Can resemblance be analyzed in terms of the sharing of properties? Is resemblance an objective or subjective matter? What, if any, resemblance (...) facts are fundamental? How does resemblance relate to naturalness? (shrink)

Recently, nominalists have made a case against the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument for mathematical Platonism by taking issue with Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. In this paper I propose and defend an indispensability argument founded on an alternative criterion of ontological commitment: that advocated by David Armstrong. By defending such an argument I place the burden back onto the nominalist to defend her favourite criterion of ontological commitment and, furthermore, show that criterion cannot be used to formulate a plausible form of (...) the indispensability argument. (shrink)

We know a lot about what the world is like. We know less, it seems, about what we know about what the world is like. According to a common thought, it is easier for us to come to know about the state of the world than to come to know about the state of our own knowledge. What explains this gap? An attractively simple hypothesis is that our ignorance about what we know is explained by our ignorance about the world. (...) There are things we fail to know about what we know about the world because there are things we fail to know about the world. This hypothesis is often motivated by the idea that knowledge requires a margin‐for‐error. In this paper, I'll argue that this simple hypothesis is inadequate. Not all our ignorance of our knowledge can be explained by our ignorance about the world. In this sense, at least some of our ignorance about what we know is brute. (shrink)

Despite their centrality to medicine, drugs are not easily defined. We introduce two desiderata for a basic definition of medical drugs. It should: (a) capture everything considered to be a drug in medical contexts and (b) rule out anything that is not considered to be a drug. After canvassing a range of options, we find that no single definition of drugs can satisfy both desiderata. We conclude with three responses to our exploration of the drug concept: maintain a monistic concept, (...) or choose one of two pluralistic outcomes. Notably, the distinction between drugs and other substances is placed under pressure by the most plausible of the options available. (shrink)

Delusional misidentification is commonly understood as the product of an inference on the basis of evidence present in the subject's experience. For example, in the Capgras delusion, the patient sees someone who looks like a loved one, but who feels unfamiliar, so they infer that they must not be the loved one. I question this by presenting a distinction between “recognition” and “identification.” Identification does not always require recognition for its epistemic justification, nor does it need recognition for its psychological (...) functioning. Judgments of identification are often the product of a non-inferential mechanism. Delusional misidentification arises as the product of this mechanism malfunctioning. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that all propositions have modal profiles and therefore bear their truth-values either contingently or necessarily. I argue against this commonly assumed view and in defence of amodalism, according to which certain true propositions are neither necessarily nor contingently true, but only true simpliciter. I consider three arguments against ‘possible-worlds theories’, which hold that modal concepts are to be analysed in terms of possible worlds. Although each of these arguments targets a different version of possible-worlds theory, these (...) versions jointly exhaust the entire range of possible-worlds theories. After showing that each argument is naturally addressed by adopting amodalism, I argue that all defenders of possible-worlds theory ought to accept amodalism. (shrink)

Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection to presentism employ a fundamentally tensed account of the relationship between truth and being. On this view, the truth of a proposition concerning the past supervenes on how things are, in the present, along with how things were, in the past. This tensed approach to truthmaking arises in response to pressure placed on presentists to abandon the standard response to the truthmaker objection, whereby one invokes presently existing entities as the supervenience base for (...) the truth of past-directed propositions. In this paper, I argue that a fundamentally tensed approach to truthmaking is implausible because it requires the existence of cross-temporal supervenience relations, which are anathema to presentism. (shrink)

This study explored how historians with different background knowledge read a series of primary source documents. Two university-based historians thought aloud as they read documents about Abraham Lincoln and the question of slavery, with the broad goal of understanding Lincoln's views on race. The first historian brought detailed content knowledge to the documents; the second historian was familiar with some of the themes in the documents but quickly became confused in the details. After much cognitive flailing, the second historian was (...) able to piece together an interpretative structure that brought him by the task's end to where his more knowledgeable colleague began. Data analysis focused on how, lacking detailed content knowledge, this historian was able to regain his intellectual footing, work through confusion, and resist the urge to simplify. Implications of this work for cognitive analyses in history and education are discussed. (shrink)

Eleaticism ties ontology to causality by denying the impossibility of causally inert entities. This paper examines some challenges regarding the proper formulation and general plausibility of Eleaticism. After suggesting how Eleatics ought to respond to these challenges, I consider the prospects for extending Eleaticism from ontology to ideology by requiring all primitive ideology to be causal in nature. Surprisingly enough, the resulting view delivers an eternalist and possibilist metaphysical picture in the neighborhood of Lewisian modal realism.

This paper critically analyses realist evaluation, focussing on its primary analytical concepts: mechanisms, contexts, and outcomes. Noting that nursing investigators have had difficulty in operationalizing the concepts of mechanism and context, it is argued that their confusion is at least partially the result of ambiguities, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the realist evaluation model. Problematic issues include the adoption of empiricist and idealist positions, oscillation between determinism and voluntarism, subsumption of agency under structure, and categorical confusion between context and mechanism. In (...) relation to outcomes, it is argued that realist evaluation's adoption of the fact/value distinction prevents it from taking into account the concerns of those affected by interventions. The aim of the paper is to use these immanent critiques of realist evaluation to construct an internally consistent realist approach to evaluation that is more amenable to being operationalized by nursing researchers. (shrink)

This paper examines Florence Nightingale's realist philosophy of science by comparing it to the contemporaneously dominant philosophy of positivism. It starts by adumbrating the tenets of positivism and continues by assessing the degree to which Nightingale accepted or rejected those tenets. It is argued that while she accepted much of positivism, on realist grounds she opposed its belief in phenomenalism, its rejection of speculative philosophy, its separation of fact and value, and its rejection of religion. Following an examination of how (...) Nightingale's philosophy impinged on her approach to nursing and health care, the paper concludes with a comparison of her ideas with those of modern realism and a discussion of the contemporary salience of her ideas. It is argued that while some aspects of her approach may no longer provide an appropriate basis for modern nursing, her environmental approach, her transcendental realism, and her adherence to caring values may still be of use to contemporary nurses. (shrink)