From an Indirect Realist point of view, the Knowledge Argument in the philosophy of perception has been misdirected by its very title. If it can be argued that sense-fields are at their basis no more than evidence, indeed, a part of existence as brute as what is usually termed the 'external', then, if 'knowing' is not essential to sensing, that argument has to be radically reconstructed. Resistance to there being an non-epistemic or 'raw feel' basis for sensing is very (...) fashionable at the moment (e.g. in Davidson, McDowell, Harman), but the present article aims at breaking through it. Scientific facts are adduced to show that sensing can exist without perceiving. It is argued that the part played by motivation in the gathering of knowledge in a feedback system, enhanced by intersubjective linguistic correction in the human case, allows for a ready evolutionary adaptation. One can advance from this to a fresh view of knowledge and rationality which see them at base as part of a folk-psychological method of allowing for continuing disambiguation of what are identified within that method as 'entities' and 'properties'. (shrink)

IntroductionThere is an enormous amount of confusion about what relativism is. In this paper I aim to take a step toward clarifying what it is by discussing some things that it is not — that is, by distinguishing it from some other views with which it is often confused or conflated, such as nihilism and scepticism. I do this primarily because I think that the question of the character of relativism is interesting in itself. A clearer characterization of (...) relativism would also be important instrumentally, however, as before we can accurately assess relativism we must have a clear idea of what it is. The secondary aim of this paper, then, is to function as a prolegomenon to an assessment of relativism. The tertiary aim of the paper is to make a few observations about the view which most clearly stands opposed to relativism, the view which I will call ‘objectivism.’ Because relativism is often confused with views like fallibilism and pluralism, objectivism often finds itself unjustly associated with views like infallibilism and political authoritarianism. Although it is not the point of this paper to criticize relativism, I should make it clear that it began as a part of an anti-relativistic project, and, although anti-relativism is not necessarily objectivism, I should perhaps make it clear that I am more than a little sympathetic to the latter type of view. (shrink)

It Isn’t Done Taboo Among the British Islanders Archibald Lyall Originally published in 1930 "An admirably brisk attack on taboos." Observer "An amusingly provocative little essay." Bystander A witty and interesting contribution to the study of what may and may not be done in the British Isles. 90pp Stentor Or the Press of Today and Tomorrow David Ockham Originally published in 1927 "Vigorous and well-written, eminently readable." Yorkshire Post This volume analyzes the press of the early twentieth century, and (...) what actually constitutes news; to what degree public opinion is manipulated by the press, the rise of the tabloid press and the press of the future. 86pp. Nuntius, or Advertising and its Future Gilbert Russell Originally published in 1926 "Expresses the philosophy of advertising concisely and well." Observer This volume discusses the birth of modern advertising, the need for controls within the profession, the effectiveness of advertising and the economics of it. Contents include: Advertising Today: An Economic Necessity Advertising Today: A Social Service Advertising Tomorrow 90pp Cato Or the Future of Censorship William Seagle Originally published in 1930 "Packed with the most useful information and with the most interesting deductions and analysis." Time and Time "This brilliant and witty book" Times Literary Supplement This volume attacks the subject of censorship from numerous aspects. It surveys censorship in the past and analyzes the present-day situation. The author prophesizes a neo-Victorian campaign, which like its predecessors will inevitably fail. 90pp. (shrink)

Implicit God-like and ghost-in-the-machine metaphors underlie much current thinking about genomes. Although many criticisms of such views exist, none have succeeded in substituting a different, widely accepted view. Viewing the genome with its protein packaging as a brain gets rid of Gods and ghosts while plausibly integrating machine and information-based views. While the ‘wetware’ of brains and genomes are very different, many fundamental principles of how they function are similar. Eukaryotic cells are compound entities in which case the nuclear (...) genome might best be thought of more as a government than simply as a brain. (shrink)

Most versions of the knowledge argument say that, since scientists observing my brain wouldn't know what my consciousness "is like," consciousness isn't describable as a physical process. Although this argument unwarrantedly equates the physical with the empirically observable, we can conclude, not that consciousness is nonphysical but that consciousness isn't identical with anything empirically observable. But what kind of mind&endash;body relation would render possible this empirical inaccessibility of consciousness? Even if multiple realizability may allow a distinction between (...) consciousness and its physical substrata, why does this distinction make consciousness empirically unobservable? The reason must be that the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone by self-organizing processes actively appropriating and replacing needed physical substrata; we feel motivations by generating them. But all consciousness is motivated; visual cortex activation is unconscious of red unless the emotional limbic system and anterior cingulate motivatedly "look for" red. Experiencing entails executing motivations. Experimenters do know what subjects' brain events "are like" ---; but from the standpoint of the experimenter's motivational processes. (shrink)

Most versions of the knowledge argument say that if a scientist observing my brain does not know what my consciousness 'is like,' then consciousness is not identical with physical brain processes. This unwarrantedly equates 'physical' with 'empirically observable.' However, we can conclude only that consciousness is not identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event, what P-C relation could render C empirically unobservable? Some suggest (...) that C is a relation among Ps which is distinguishable because it is multi-realizable; that is, C could have been realized by P2 rather than P1 and still have been the same relation. C might even be a 'self-organizing' process, appropriating and replacing its own material substrata. How can this account explain the empirical unobservability of consciousness? Because the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone, by organisms. Organisms-self-organizing processes actively appropriating their needed physical substrata-feel motivations by generating them. Thus, experiencing someone's consciousness entails executing his or her motivations. (shrink)

Get the science facts, not science fiction, on the cutting-edge developments that are already changing the course of our future. Every day, scientists conduct pioneering experiments with the potential to transform how we live. Yet it isn’t every day you hear from the scientists themselves! Now, award–winning author Jim Al–Khalili and his team of top-notch experts explain how today’s earthshaking discoveries will shape our world tomorrow—and beyond. Pull back the curtain on: genomics robotics AI the “Internet of Things” synthetic biology (...) transhumanism interstellar travel colonization of the solar system teleportation and much more And find insight into big–picture questions such as: Will we find a cure to all diseases? The answer to climate change? And will bionics one day turn us into superheroes? The scientists in these pages are interested only in the truth—reality-based and speculation-free. The future they conjure is by turns tantalizing and sobering: There’s plenty to look forward to, but also plenty to dread. And undoubtedly the best way to for us to face tomorrow’s greatest challenges is to learn what the future looks like—today. Praise for What the Future Looks Like “A collection of mind-boggling essays that are just the thing for firing up your brain cells.” —Saga Magazine “The predictions and impacts are global... [and] the book contains far more fascinating information than can be covered in this review.” —Choice “This book is filled with essays from experts offering their informed opinions on what the science and technology of today will look like in the future, from smart materials to artificial intelligence to genetic editing.” —Popular Science “Fun is an understatement. This is a great collection to get the summer book season started.” —Forbes.com “The focus on sincere, factual presentation of current and future possibilities by leading experts is particularly welcome in this era of fake news and anti-science rhetoric.” —Library Journal. (shrink)

Is there progress in philosophy? A glass-half-full view is that there is some progress in philosophy. A glass-half-empty view is that there is not as much as we would like. I articulate a version of the glass-half-empty view, argue for it, and then address the crucial question of what explains it.

Studies about women’s underrepresentation in the U.S. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics academic workforce have flourished in the past decade. Much of this research focuses on institutionalized gender barriers and implicit biases, consistent with theorizing about how work organizations disproportionately benefit men, white people, and other systemically advantaged groups. But to what extent do faculty most likely disadvantaged by systematic inequities actually perceive “barriers” to equity in the context of their own work lives? What might the repercussions associated (...) with variation in perceptions about inequity be, especially within institutions of higher education actively pursuing equity agendas under such programs as the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program? Using interview data from 53 STEM women faculty working at a university that received a 5-year NSF ADVANCE IT award, we examine the range of views held among women scientists about the extent to which opportunity and success are a function of meritocratic versus nonmeritocratic processes. Findings show that almost a third of participants held the view that opportunities and advancement are primarily a function of meritocratic processes. We discuss implications of these findings for broader institutional efforts to reduce inequities in academic STEM. (shrink)

A jargon-free explanation of two central teachings of the Buddha: karma and rebirth. By now, we've all heard someone say, "It must have been his karma" or "She had bad karma." But what is karma, really? Does karmic theory say that we are helpless victims of our past? Is all karma bad, or can there be good karma too? Is reincarnation the same as the Buddhist theory of rebirth? In this short and eminently readable book, Traleg Kyabgon answers these (...) questions and more by elucidating the Buddha's teachings on karma and rebirth. He distinguishes the Buddhist view of karma and rebirth from related notions of karma and reincarnation found in the Hindu tradition, explains why the notion of karma is indispensable to the theory and practice of Buddhism, and demonstrates how karmic theory provides a foundation for morality that doesn't require belief in God. Throughout he shows how to work with karma intelligently to bring about beneficial changes in the way we relate to our thoughts, feelings, and circumstances. (shrink)

It's an achievement of the last couple of decades that people who work in linguistic semantics and people who work in the philosophy of language have arrived at a friendly, de facto agreement as to their respective job descriptions. The terms of this agreement are that the semanticists do the work and the philosophers do the worrying. The semanticists try to construct actual theories of meaning (or truth theories, or model theories, or whatever) for one or another kind of expression (...) in one or another natural language; for example, they try to figure out how the temperature could be rising compatibly with the substitutivity of identicals. The philosophers, by contrast, keep an eye on the large, foundational issues, such as: what's the relation between sense and denotation; what's the relation between thought and language; whether translation is determinate; and whether life is like a fountain. Every now and then the philosophers and the semanticists are supposed to get together and compare notes on their respective progress. Or lack thereof. (shrink)

In their recent work, Kok et al propose a theoretical framework for the evaluation of clinical ethical case interventions, in particular moral case deliberation (MCD).1 According to the authors, this framework provides ‘empirically accessible hypothesis that describe the relationship between MCD and care quality at the organisational level’.1 Evaluation of ethical interventions in healthcare is an important topic. As Donabedian has noted, evaluation can be understood as defining reasonable quality expectations and to check by means of empirical research whether and (...) to what extent these expectations have been met.2 If suitable for ethical interventions like MCDs, the carefully compiled framework by Kok et al would surely present a major step towards satisfying the requirements outlined by Donabedian. However, caution is in order whether this holds true. The authors start by observing that most of the recent research regarding the evaluation of MCD tends to follow a paradigm that can be outlined by two premises. First, focusing on quality is justified by the need to provide a rationale for an intervention’s consumption of resources.3 Second, this implies research that is usually centred around the quality …. (shrink)

The last decade and a half has seen an ardent development of self-organised criticality, a new approach to complex systems, which has become important in many domains of natural as well as social science, such as geology, biology, astronomy, and economics, to mention just a few. This has led many to adopt a generalist stance towards SOC, which is now repeatedly claimed to be a universal theory of complex behaviour. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I provide a (...) brief and non-technical introduction to SOC. Second, I critically discuss the various bold claims that have been made in connection with it. Throughout, I will adopt a rather sober attitude and argue that some people have been too readily carried away by fancy contentions. My overall conclusion will be that none of these bold claims can be maintained. Nevertheless, stripped of exaggerated expectations and daring assertions, many SOC models are interesting vehicles for promising scientific research.Author Keywords: Self-organised criticality; Scaling law; Models; Formal analogy. (shrink)

The words ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ have become so overused that they nowconstitute obstacles to understanding and interracial dialogue about racial matters. Insteadof the current practice of referring to virtually anything that goes wrong or amiss withrespect to race as ‘racism,’ we should recognize a much broader moral vocabulary forcharacterizing racial ills – racial insensitivity, racial ignorance, racial injustice, racialdiscomfort, racial exclusion. At the same time, we should fix on a definition of ‘racism’ thatis continuous with its historical usage, and avoids (...) conceptual inflation. I suggest two basic,and distinct, forms of racism that meet this condition – antipathy racism and inferiorizingracism. We should also recognize that not all racially objectionable actions are done froma racist motive, and that not all racial stereotypes are racist. (shrink)

It is a common refrain amongst phenomenologists, disability theorists, and feminist legal theorists that medical practice pays insufficient attention to people’s embodiment. The complaint that we take insufficient account of people’s embodiment isn’t limited to the clinical interaction. It has also been directed at healthcare regulation and welfare policy. In this paper, I examine the arguments for taking embodiment seriously in both medical practice and welfare policy, concluding we have good reasons to take better account of people’s embodiment. I then (...) set out two challenges to taking embodiment seriously in public policy. First, given the amount of variation in how people are embodied, there is strong possibility that adjusting policy to benefit particular individuals based on an appreciation of their embodied experiences could be detrimental towards other individuals. The second challenge concerns how to ensure that people’s testimony about their first-person embodied experience is subject to adequate scrutiny without this resulting in epistemic injustice. I argue that the solution to both of these challenges is to devise a just procedure for soliciting people’s testimony and taking it into account in the policy development process. As such, I also provide an outline of what a just procedure should look like. (shrink)

The theory presented in my book, Natural Beauty , is syncretic in that it denies the exclusivity of any one model of aesthetic appreciation of natural objects and instead insists: (1) that there is a tight, reciprocating connection between talents of perception that we develop in relation to arts and to natural objects; and (2) that the appreciation of natural beauty is intimately connected to the appreciation of other social values, including ethical values. In this paper, I respond to criticisms (...) of my syncretic approach---chiefly that it fails to reconcile objective and subjective elements in aesthetic judgment, that it fails to marshal its many modes of judgment into rational consistency, and that it fails to take proper stock of the role of scientific knowledge in these judgments---offered by Arnold Berleant, Stephanie Ross, and Glenn Parsons. (shrink)

Creativity is a popular but heterogeneous word in educational parlance these days. By looking at a selection of recent discourses that refer to creativity to sustain their positions, the paper suggests that two key themes emerge, both with questionable assumptions. Romantic individualists would return us to a naïve bygone age of authentic self-expression, while politicians and economists would use the term instrumentally by binding it to the future needs of the workforce without questioning substantive issues. Cultural theories of creativity indicate (...) pathways out. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage with Law’s paper ‘Evil Pleasure Is Good For You!’ I argue that, although his criticism of hedonistic utilitarianism may hold some weight, his analysis of the goodness of pleasure is overly simplistic. I highlight some troubling results which would follow from his analysis and then outline a new account which then remedies these problems. Ultimately, I distinguish between Law’s ‘evil pleasures’ and, what I call, ‘virtuous pleasures’ and show how we can accept the goodness (...) of virtuous pleasures without being obliged to say that evil pleasures are also good for us. (shrink)

This is an article written for the news website The Conversation. It provides the history that led up to the development of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as well as its most central beliefs. This was written in 2021 to help counteract much of the disinformation that occurred in the drafting of anti-critical race theory legislation. It is a neutral article designed largely to inform about the history and tenets of CRT.

On the other side of the ledger there seem to be equally powerful reasons for countenancing negative events and states. The first and foremost reason is that since every true proposition about the world supposedly corresponds with some event, there must be a negative event corresponding to every true negative proposition about the world. Second, there can be no determinate reality without negative facts, since something can be a definite individual only if it has finite boundaries, which require that it (...) is not the same as everything else. Third, change requires temporal passage consisting in the shift of the present to ever later times; however, this requires that there be a past and future, which are the no-longer and the not-yet. Fourth, we seem to perceive negative things such as lacks and absences, but whatever we perceive must exist. Fifth, for those who believe in real essences or substantial natures, there are objective teleological negations consisting in a certain kind of object not realizing all of its natural functions. And, finally, it seems to be inconsistent to say that there are no negative facts, for supposedly there will be at least one negative fact consisting in there not being any negative facts. (shrink)

Organ trafficking is officially banned in several countries and by the main Nephrology Societies. However, this practice is widespread and is allowed or tolerated in many countries, hence, in the absence of a universal law, the caregiver may be asked for advice, placing him/her in a difficult balance between legal aspects, moral principles and ethical judgments.In spite of the Istanbul declaration, which is a widely shared position statement against organ trafficking, the controversy on mercenary organ donation is still open and (...) some experts argue against taking a negative stance. In the absence of clear evidence showing the clinical disadvantages of mercenary transplantation compared to chronic dialysis, self-determination of the patient may conflict with other ethical principles, first of all non-maleficence. The present paper was drawn up with the participation of the students, as part of the ethics course at our medical school. It discusses the situation in which the physician acts as a counselor for the patient in the way of a sort of “reverse” informed consent, in which the patient asks advice regarding a complex personal decision, and includes a peculiar application of the four principles to the donor and recipient parties. (shrink)

Krueger & Funder (K&F) correctly identify work on conformity, obedience, bystander (non)intervention, and social cognition as among social psychology's most memorable contributions, but they incorrectly portray that work as stemming from a “negative research orientation.” Instead, the work they cite stimulates compassion for the human actor by revealing the enormous complexity involved in deciding what to think and do in difficult, uncertain situations.

Environmental protection isn't what it used to be. During the 1960s and 1970s, environmentalists enacted a legislative agenda that seems like a dream today: statutes like the Clean Air and Clean Wa...

This volume addresses the relationship between irony and popular culture and the role of the consumer in determining and disseminating meaning. Arguing that in a cultural climate largely characterised by fractious communications and perilous linguistic exchanges, the very role of irony in popular culture needs to come under greater scrutiny, it focuses on the many uses, abuses, and misunderstandings of irony in contemporary popular culture, and explores the troubling political populism at the heart of many supposedly satirical and (apparently) non-satirical (...) texts. In an environment in which irony is frequently claimed as a defence for material and behaviour judged controversial, how do we, as a society entrenched in forms of popular culture and media, interpret work that is intended as satire but which reads as unironic? How do we accurately decode works of popular film, literature, television, music, and other cultural forms which sell themselves as bitingly ironic commentaries on current society, but which are also problematic celebrations of the very issues they purport to critique? And what happens when texts intended and received in one manner are themselves ironically recontextualised in another? Bringing together studies across a range of cultural texts including popular music, film and television, Isn't it Ironic? will appeal to scholars of the social sciences and humanities with interests in cultural studies, media studies, popular culture, literary studies and sociology. (shrink)

My goal in this lecture is to continue the adventure of feminist thought about religion that has been going on for over 30 years now. It's a discursive adventure, isn't it? A bit like hiking through new terrain—we explore how far we can go today so that others who come after us can go even farther. Or, more optimistically, so that tomorrow we ourselves can go farther still in our own lifetimes. Of course, a metaphor like hiking breaks (...) down over this point: when we hike we don't create the terrain—although we might change it just by passing through. The land has a thereness that our activities in discourse do not—or, rather, the thereness of discourse is of a different order. Our adventure as feminist theorists is one in which we have a large part in creating that which we explore. (shrink)

In the first book to argue for the benefits of boredom, Peter Toohey dispels the myth that it's simply a childish emotion or an existential malaise like Jean-Paul Sartre's nausea. He shows how boredom is, in fact, one of our most common and constructive emotions and is an essential part of the human experience. This informative and entertaining investigation of boredom—what it is and what it isn't, its uses and its dangers—spans more than 3,000 years of history (...) and takes readers through fascinating neurological and psychological theories of emotion, as well as recent scientific investigations, to illustrate its role in our lives. There are Australian aboriginals and bored Romans, Jeffrey Archer and caged cockatoos, Camus and the early Christians, Dürer and Degas. Toohey also explores the important role that boredom plays in popular and highbrow culture and how over the centuries it has proven to be a stimulus for art and literature. Toohey shows that boredom is a universal emotion experienced by humans throughout history and he explains its place, and value, in today's world. _Boredom: A Lively History _is vital reading for anyone interested in what goes on when supposedly nothing happens. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘What it is like’ is a popular philosophical locution to talk about conscious experiences, but how it manages to refer to conscious experiences is still under investigation. What’s remarkable about ‘what it is like’ is that its literal meaning doesn’t concern consciousness; nevertheless this phrase is popular in discourses about consciousness. Understanding ‘what it is like’ thus requires investigation into the contextual factors that guide the interpretation of ‘what it is like’, (...) which have not been sufficiently explored. This paper aims at understanding the context of ‘what it is like’, based on a revised property account of its semantics. After criticising Stoljar’s account in terms of ‘stereotypical contexts’, I consider several contextual factors that can be discerned in Stoljar’s interpretation of Nagel’s definition of consciousness. Then, I consider and criticise Mehta’s proposal that the meaning of ‘what it is like’ is fixed by mentioning the hard problems of consciousness. Eventually, I propose that the meaning of ‘what it is like’ is fixed by Phenomenal Thinking Context, in which the audience is made to think in the way in which one typically thinks about experiences. I also argue that Phenomenal Thinking Context explains the popularity of ‘what it is like’. (shrink)

Chapter 7 concluded with the claim that the Classical Argument for possible non‐existent objects depends on both the possibility of singular negative existentials and the Ontological Principle. The Ontological Principle is the principle that any world in which a singular proposition is true is one in which there is such a thing as its subject, or in which its subject has being if not existence. In this chapter, I show that the Ontological Principle is false and that whatever plausibility it (...) enjoys is explained by the truth of a similar principle, namely, the Restricted Ontological Principle. Thus, the Classical Argument fails. Moreover, I give an account of how fictional names function in order to show that statements about fictional subjects, for example, ‘Othello is a Moor’, do not express predicative singular propositions. (shrink)

When Andre Bazin's most important essays on film were collected together in a single volume and titled What is Cinema? they raised a question that Bazin did not answer. Nor did he intend to. Nor has it been answered by any of the other theorists who have written what now seem to be the major works on film theory and who now seem the most influential spokesmen for the art. Rudolf Arnheim, Andre Bazin, Stanley Cavell, S. M. Einstein, (...) Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Metz, Hugo Munsterberg, Erwin Panofsky, and Gene Youngblood have failed to define what cinema essentially is.1 Unlike Ionesco's comically methodical Logician, they have been less than careful about posing the problem correctly. As a result they have been less than successful and less than precise with a deceptively difficult and complicated issue. They have defined some kinds of cinema, they have defined some of the qualities unique to those kinds of cinema, they have defined the characteristics and devices they find most valuable in some of those kinds of cinema, they simply have not defined cinema. · 1. Relevant sections of all these theorists can be found in Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings . Gerald Mast, associate professor of humanities at Richmond College of the City University of New York, has written A Short History of the Movies, The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies, Filmguide to the Rules of the Game, and Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings . This article is part of a forthcoming book, What Isn't Cinema? He has also contributed "Kracauer's Two Tendencies and the Early History of Film Narrative" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

How do I handle difficult family members? What do I do if I can’t control my emotions? When do I correct others, and when do I hold my tongue? Too often we are late in realizing that we mishandled a situation, causing both resentment and frustration. But what if you could approach every situation with the mind of Christ? Distilled from his decades of experience as a clinical psychologist and a practicing Catholic, Dr. Ray Guarendi, popular radio and (...) TV host, offers here dozens of bite-sized reflections that combine sound spiritual advice with the best of modern psychology. Dr. Ray will help you address countless daily problems and create a plan of action for your most common troubles. With his trademark frankness and humor, Dr. Ray tackles all the topics that too often bring confusion and heartache, including: What to do when you’re easily offendedCommon excuses parents make for bad behavior in their children—and themselvesThe difference between speaking your mind and losing your emotions.The fine line between being a confident evangelist and being a jerk?What you should do when emotions overwhelm you?How to hold your children to high standards without causing resentmentThe difference between making an excuse and justifying an actionHow to tell people you’re angry without being nasty about it.What true humility is – and isn’t. Thinking Like Jesus is more than a self-help book. It will place you firmly into the mindset of a disciple of Christ so you can focus your attention on God and, ultimately, what it will take to spend eternity with Him in heaven. (shrink)

Define teleology as the view that requirements hold in virtue of facts about value or goodness. Teleological views are quite popular, and in fact some philosophers (e.g. Dreier, Smith) argue that all (plausible) moral theories can be understood teleologically. I argue, however, that certain well-known cases show that the teleologist must at minimum assume that there are certain facts that an agent ought to know, and that this means that requirements can't, in general, hold in virtue of facts about value (...) or goodness. I then show that even if we grant those 'ought's teleology still runs into problems. A positive justification of teleology looks like it will require an argument of this form: O(X); if X, then O(Y); therefore O(Y). But this form of argument isn't in general valid. I conclude by offering two positive suggestions for those attracted to a teleological outlook. (shrink)

The intuitive view that memories are characterized by a feeling of pastness, perceptions by a feeling of presence, while imagination lacks either faces challenges from two sides. Some researchers complain that the “feeling of pastness” is either unclear, irrelevant or isn’t a real feature. Others point out that there are cases of memory without the feeling of pastness, perception without presence, and other cross-cutting cases. Here we argue that the feeling of pastness is indeed a real, useful feature, and although (...) this feeling does not define memory ontologically, it is a characteristic marker which helps us easily categorise a mental state first-personally. We outline several cognitive features that underlie this experience, including the feeling of past accessibility, ergonomic significance, immersion, objectivity and mental strength. Our account is distinctly phenomenal, rather than doxastic, although our web of beliefs may contribute to this experience. (shrink)

The #metoo movement has forced many fans to consider what they should do when they learn that a beloved artist has acted immorally. One natural thought is that fans ought to give up the artworks of immoral artists. In Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists, Mary Beth Willard argues for a more nuanced view. Enjoying art is part of a well-lived life, so we need good reasons to give it up. And it turns out good (...) reasons are hard to find. Willard show that it's reasonable to believe that most boycotts of artists won't succeed, so most of the time there's no ethical reason to join in. Someone who manages to separate the art from the artist isn't making an ethical mistake by buying and enjoying their art. She then considers the ethical dimensions of canceling artists and so-called "cancel culture," arguing that canceling is ethically risky because it encourages moral grandstanding. Willard concludes by arguing that the popular debate has overlooked the power of art to change our lives for the good. It's of course OK to decide to give up the artwork of immoral artists, but--as Willard shows in this provocative little volume--it's OK to continue to enjoy their art, as well. Key Features Offers accessible discussions of complicated philosophical topics like aesthetic value, collective action problems, and epistemic justice Provides a unique perspective and underexplored argument on the popular issue of cancellation Explores the role of aesthetic value in our lives, including its relation to our ethical decisions and our well being. (shrink)

This essay argues that dominant responses to the COVID-19 pandemic redouble disparities in vulnerability to harms because these responses simply attempt to return to conditions prior to the outbreak of the virus. Although the widespread impact of COVID-19 has made interdependence more vivid, the underlying sociocultural devaluation of vulnerability, relationality, and dependency has intensified structural inequalities. People who were already disempowered and disadvantaged have been consigned to even more precarious conditions. A feminist ethical perspective avows vulnerability, relationality, and dependency as (...) conditions that are both unavoidable and central to life. Such a perspective thus provides insight into why some dominant responses to the virus are unjust and what more ethical and more socially just responses to the pandemic, which foster social health as well as physical health, might look like. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 41-46 [Access article in PDF] On What There Really Is to Our Notion of Ownership of a Thought Annalisa Coliva JOHN CAMPBELL'S REPLY to my paper aims at reestablishing the point that there are two strands to our notion of ownership of a thought. There are two ways of cashing out this idea. 1 First, one could say that A is the (...) owner of a thought if and only if both the following two independent conditions apply 2 : (1) X is introspectively aware of a token thought and (2) X is the person who formed that token thought. Second, one may hold that there are twodifferent and independent notions of ownership of a thought, call it O1 and O2, corresponding to (1) and (2), respectively. For brevity, I will refer only to the first interpretation. But what I will be saying will apply, mutatis mutandis, to both.On this view, thought insertion would be a case in which someone thinks that (1) is satisfied, while (2) is not and, therefore, denies that the thought she is introspectively aware of is her own. 3 Campbell's explanation of thought insertion is quite clear: the subject has prima facie reasons to think that she is not the person who formed that token thought—maybe because she does not experience that thought as formed by herself—and, therefore, has prima facie reasons to deny that she is its owner, but she is mistaken in identifying the producer of the thought and what she says is false, yet reasonable. 4 Notice, however, an important consequence of Campbell's model. If (1) and (2) are independent conditions, then one could obtain without the other. Hence, it must be conceivable that one is introspectively aware of a thought that one has not produced. Indeed, cases of multiple personality, if taken literally, might be taken as examples of this kind of situation: person A and person B inhabit the same body, A can have access to B's thoughts, yet B remains their producer. So A could actually say something like "I'm thinking (i.e. I am immediately aware) that p, but this is not my thought (it is not the thought I produced), it's B's (the thought that B produced)" and what she would be saying would in fact be true.Yet, a simple-minded reaction one may have toward this line of explanation is this: If the subject is either saying something false, but reasonable, or, indeed, something altogether true, when she says "I'm thinking 'Kill God,' but this isn't my thought, it's Chris'," why should we consider her report as an expression of some kind of cognitive illusion, 5 which we take as a symptom of mental illness, as opposed to, at most, a possible mistake in identifying the producer of the thought? And, connectedly, why should we try to cure her, rather than just, at most, correct her? [End Page 41]Hence, the whole dispute between Campbell and me hinges on whether it is logically possible for one to be introspectively aware of a thought and yet not be its producer. Campbell claims that it is, whereas I deny that this is a genuine possibility. He holds that these are two independent conditions and that the one can obtain without the other, whereas I hold that they are not independent and that they stand or fall together. Campbell is fully aware of being making a surprising claim because, as he points out, "[The two strands in the ordinary notion of ownership of a thought] do not ordinarily even seem to come apart" (Campbell 2002, italics mine). Yet he offers in its support no more than an analogy between being the person who produced a certain signature and being the person who produced a given token thought. Let us look at it closer.Consider the following situation: a person NN looks at a piece of paper with NN written on it and wonders whether she is the... (shrink)

Just as contemporary metaphysics, in general, is marked by an interest in ground, contemporary social metaphysics, in particular, is marked by an interest in social construction. It’s no surprise, then, that some contemporary metaphysicians have come to understand social construction in terms of ground. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake. In particular, I argue that any otherwise plausible account of construction as ground is objectionably revisionary. First, I discuss an argument for the view that construction is (...) ground that is endorsed by its proponents, and identify its weaknesses. I then consider, and dispense with, different versions of the view that construction is ground, and argue that these either overgeneralize, undergeneralize, or both. After responding to the objection that my arguments presuppose monism with respect to construction, I conclude that though ground is relevant to construction, extant ground-theoretic accounts of its relevance fail to capture it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 32.1 (2002) 49-62 [Access article in PDF] "What I Want Back is What I Was" Consolation's Retrospect Denise Riley "If a horse in its elation should say 'I am beautiful' it would be bearable" [Epictetus 289]. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, doesn't go on to say that if a human were to utter the same sentiment, it would be unbearable: only that the horse's owner shouldn't try (...) to take credit himself for the gratuitous beauty of his animal, or try to bask in those equine good looks which, if owned by him, aren't his. The horse, though, in its jubilation can get away with boasting.There's a noticeable awkwardness in any mention of human physical beauty; its embarrassment can include a fear of lapsing into that vanity deplored alike by the Old Testament and by some feminisms. This hesitation isn't simply the wish to steer clear of laying arrogant claims to distinction; for someone can say, not boastfully but in the spirit of mentioning a contingent fact, "I used to be a strong swimmer," without the same sheepishness. But there does seem to be something especially stubborn, unmentionable, about beauty's independence. The fact that, as a lost thing, it was never owned isn't enough to characterize faded beauty's discursive peculiarities. For the same holds true, for instance, of youth. It's extremely difficult to feel yourself to be young at the actual time when you are. Certainly I was never a child.These pages skip all but one small aspect of this matter of who or what can claim beauty. They'll look only at an extremely common sentence of regret for lost physical beauty: at the strange bending of time implicit in saying inwardly, "Yes, I suppose in the past I must have been beautiful, as people used to say, although at the time I never saw it." To meditate on this very ordinary thought is by no means to despise it; and it would be foolish to tut over such retrospective self-shaping. This is how the language of self-characterization often operates backwards.1It would be vacuous to condemn our attempts at a little distraction from the approach of death with sentences like "After all, I suppose I must have been something of a beauty when I was young," or at least, where you know you can't make such a claim, the ever-reliable lament "Compared to what I am now, they should have seen me then!" (Indeed such slipping into the retrospective-fantastic mood may be positively benign in another content: for instance, a compensating refusal to treat anyone now as harshly as I was myself treated then. And there could be far riskier contents to a sentence of retrospective "realization" than mere vanity, such as revelation and enlightenment: "now I see that all along I was a favored son of God, though formerly I was blind to this shining truth.") Meanwhile timor mortis is ever at hand, and will only intensify: [End Page 49]The wrinkles which thy glass will truly showOf mouthèd graves will give thee memory.2Still, there's something of a taboo or an unnameability about the gradual erosion of whatever we feel we once had by way of beauty, a silence which, unsurprisingly, persists irrespective of the enormous new industries of repair and regeneration. This anxiety over the eclipse of your looks is exhaustively catered to (and, in the process, magnified) yet is itself a dread scarcely mentioned. How beauty's ordinary loss is silently spoken is a point at which the consolations of illusion meet and fortify the illusions of consolation. If their encounter produces a blankness liable to sink into depressive shame, arguably this adds to an unvoiced vertigo of the everyday; but what more might thinking aloud about it do? 1 The Sentence of Retrospect For the purposes of illustrating this grammar of concessive retrospect, let's imagine a puppet (for the purposes of argument here, a caricature will have to do) oddly equipped with... (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether we can know on the basis of folk intuitions that we have character traits. I answer in the negative, arguing that on any of the primary theories of knowledge, our intuitions about traits do not amount to knowledge. For instance, because we would attribute traits to one another regardless of whether we actually possessed such metaphysically robust dispositions, Nozickian sensitivity theory disqualifies our intuitions about traits from being knowledge. Yet we do think we know (...) that we have traits, so I am advancing an error theory, which means that I owe an account of why we fall into error. Why do we feel so comfortable navigating the language of traits if we lack knowledge of them? To answer this question, I refer to a slew of heuristics and biases. Some, like the fundamental attribution error, the false consensus effect, and the power of construal, pertain directly to trait attributions. Others are more general cognitive heuristics and biases whose relevance to trait attributions requires explanation and can be classed under the headings of input heuristics and biases and processing heuristics and biases. Input heuristics and biases include selection bias, availability bias, availability cascade, and anchoring. Processing heuristics and biases include disregard of base rates, disregard of regression to the mean, and confirmation bias. (shrink)

Philosophers of the life sciences have devoted considerably more attention to evolutionary theory and genetics than to the various sub-disciplines of ecology, but recent work in the philosophy of ecology suggests reflects a growing interest in this area (Cooper 2003; Ginzburg and Colyvan 2004). However, philosophers of biology and ecology have focused almost entirely on conceptual and methodological issues in population and community ecology; conspicuously absent are foundational investigations in ecosystem ecology. This situation is regrettable. Ecosystem concepts play a central (...) role in many branches of theoretical and applied ecology, and in environmental literature generally. Indeed, for some historians, the division of ecological theory into population-community and ecosystem research traditions, and the methodological and conceptual debates that have arisen between workers in these respective camps, is the distinguishing feature of 20th century ecological science (Hagen 1992). These include debates over, among others: reductionistic vs. holistic research methodologies; the existence and metaphysics of ecological “kinds”; the relationship between evolutionary mechanisms and ecosystem phenomena; and the nature and scope of ecological science and its relationship to other branches of natural and social science. Philosophers of ecology have written on all these topics, but almost exclusively from the theoretical perspective of population, community or evolutionary ecology. Philosophical attention to these issues from the perspective of ecosystem ecology is long overdue. It would be misleading to assert that philosophers in general have ignored ecosystem ecology. Environmental philosophers, including environmental ethicists so-called “radical” environmental philosophers (deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, etc.), and policy theorists, have had a long-standing interest in ecosystem ecology (e.g. Callicott 1986; Cahen 1988; Warren and Cheney 1993; Westra 1994; Sagoff 1997; Fitzsimmons 1999).. (shrink)