The paper explicates unique events and investigates their epistemology. Explications of unique events as individuated, different, and emergent are philosophically uninteresting. Unique events are topics of why-questions that radically underdetermine all their potential explanations. Uniqueness that is relative to a level of scientific development is differentiated from absolute uniqueness. Science eliminates relative uniqueness by discovery of recurrence of events and properties, falsification of assumptions of why-questions, and methodological simplification e.g. by explanatory methodological reduction. Finally, an overview of (...) contemporary philosophical disputes that hinge on issues of uniqueness emphasizes its philosophical significance. (shrink)

A comparison is given between two conditions used to define logical constants: Belnap's uniqueness and Hacking's deducibility of identicals. It is shown that, in spite of some surface similarities, there is a deep difference between them. On the one hand, deducibility of identicals turns out to be a weaker and less demanding condition than uniqueness. On the other hand, deducibility of identicals is shown to be more faithful to the inferentialist perspective, permitting definition of genuinely proof-theoretical concepts. This (...) kind of analysis is driven by exploiting the Curry–Howard correspondence. In particular, deducibility of identicals is shown to correspond to the computational property of eta expansion, which is essential in the characterization of propositional identity. (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis holds, roughly speaking, that there is a unique rational response to any particular body of evidence. We first sketch some varieties of Uniqueness that appear in the literature. We then discuss some popular views that conflict with Uniqueness and others that require Uniqueness to be true. We then examine some arguments that have been presented in its favor and discuss why permissivists find them unconvincing. Last, we present some purported counterexamples that have been (...) raised against Uniqueness and discuss some possible reasons why proponents of Uniqueness might find these similarly unconvincing. (shrink)

We prove a uniqueness theorem showing that, subject to certain natural constraints, all 'no collapse' interpretations of quantum mechanics can be uniquely characterized and reduced to the choice of a particular preferred observable as determine (definite, sharp). We show how certain versions of the modal interpretation, Bohm's 'causal' interpretation, Bohr's complementarity interpretation, and the orthodox (Dirac-von Neumann) interpretation without the projection postulate can be recovered from the theorem. Bohr's complementarity and Einstein's realism appear as two quite different proposals for (...) selecting the preferred determinate observable--either settled pragmatically by what we choose to observe, or fixed once and for all, as the Einsteinian realist would require, in which case the preferred observable is a 'beable' in Bell's sense, as in Bohm's interpretation (where the preferred observable is position in configuration space). (shrink)

This paper discusses the Uniqueness Thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

Uniqueness appears to enhance intrinsic value. A unique stamp sells for millions of dollars; Stradivarius violins are all the more precious because they are unlike any others. This observation has not gone overlooked in the value theory literature: uniqueness plays a starring role recalibrating the dominant Moorean understanding of the nature of intrinsic value. But the thesis that uniqueness enhances intrinsic value is in tension with another deeply plausible and widely held thesis, namely the thesis that there (...) is a pro tanto reason to promote the good. It is argued that there is a second, distinct type of uniqueness that plays a more interesting and important axiological role: uniqueness imparts irreplaceable value. This gives occasion to develop the surprisingly undertheorized notion of irreplaceable value. (shrink)

It is folklore that if a continuous function on a complete metric space has approximate roots and in a uniform manner at most one root, then it actually has a root, which of course is uniquely determined. Also in Bishop's constructive mathematics with countable choice, the general setting of the present note, there is a simple method to validate this heuristic principle. The unique solution even becomes a continuous function in the parameters by a mild modification of the uniqueness (...) hypothesis. Moreover, Brouwer's fan theorem for decidable bars turns out to be equivalent to the statement that, for uniformly continuous functions on a compact metric space, the crucial uniform “at most one” condition follows from its non-uniform counterpart. This classification in the spirit of the constructive reverse mathematics, as propagated by Ishihara and others, sharpens an earlier result obtained jointly with Berger and Bridges. (shrink)

The present research examines whether the perceived uniqueness of one’s thoughts and salience of uniqueness motivations can influence attitude strength and resistance. Participants who rated their thoughts as relatively unique formed attitudes that showed greater correspondence with behavioral intentions to act on the attitude (Study 1). In Study 2, participants who recalled a previous purchase motivated by the desire to be unique (versus to fit in) after generating message counterarguments were less persuaded (more resistant) and reported greater willingness (...) to act on their (negative) attitude. Moreover, attitudes mediated the effect of the purchase manipulation on intentions to act on the attitude. (shrink)

Two theses are central to recent work on the epistemology of disagreement: Conciliationism:?In a revealed peer disagreement over P, each thinker should give at least some weight to her peer's attitude. Uniqueness:?For any given proposition and total body of evidence, the evidence fully justifies exactly one level of confidence in the proposition. 1This paper is the product of full and equal collaboration between its authors. Does Conciliationism commit one to Uniqueness? Thomas Kelly 2010 has argued that it does. (...) After some scene-setting (?1), in ?2 we explain and criticize Kelly's argument, thereby defeating his larger argument that Conciliationism deserves no dialectical special treatment. But we argue further that Conciliationists are committed to a disjunction, one of whose disjuncts is Uniqueness, that amounts to an ?extremely strong and unobvious position? (??3?4). If we are correct, theorists should not treat Conciliationism as a default position in debates about the epistemic significance of disagreement. (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis, or rational uniqueness, claims that a body of evidence severely constrains one’s doxastic options. In particular, it claims that for any body of evidence E and proposition P, E justifies at most one doxastic attitude toward P. In this paper I defend this formulation of the uniqueness thesis and examine the case for its truth. I begin by clarifying my formulation of the Uniqueness Thesis and examining its close relationship to evidentialism. I proceed (...) to give some motivation for this strong epistemic claim and to defend it from several recent objections in the literature. In particular I look at objections to the Uniqueness Thesis coming from considerations of rational disagreement (can’t reasonable people disagree?), the breadth of doxastic attitudes(can’t what is justified by the evidence encompass more than one doxastic attitude?), borderline cases and caution (can’t it be rational to be cautious and suspend judgment even when the evidence slightly supports belief?), vagueness (doesn’t the vagueness of justification spell trouble for the Uniqueness Thesis?), and degrees of belief (doesn’t a finegrained doxastic picture present additional problems for the Uniqueness Thesis?). (shrink)

I defend Conciliationism: rationality requires belief revision of epistemic peers who find themselves in disagreement and lack dispute-independent reason to suspect each other of error. (Kelly 2010) argues that Conciliationists are committed to the Uniqueness Thesis: a given body of evidence rationalizes a unique degree of confidence for a given proposition. (Ballantyne & Coffman 2012) cogently critique Kelly's argument and propose an improved version. I contend that their version of the argument is unsound, and I offer some friendly amendments. (...) But I show that even this amended argument threatens only extreme versions of Conciliationism. (shrink)

Vaesen suggests that motor control is not among the primary origins of the uniqueness of human tool use. However, recent findings show that cognitive processes involved in control of human limb movements may be much more sophisticated than it was believed previously. The sophistication of movement control may substantially contribute to the uniqueness of humans in tool use.

The modal interpretation of quantum theory ascribes at each instant physical magnitudes with definite values to quantum systems. Starting from certain natural requirements, I determine unique solutions for the evolution of these possessed magnitudes in free systems and in special cases of interacting systems. The evolution is given in terms of transition probabilities that relate the values of the possessed magnitudes at one instant to the values at a second instant. I also determine a joint property ascription to a composite (...) system and its separate subsystems. Finally, I give a proof that the predictions of the modal interpretation with respect to measurement outcomes agree with the predictions of the standard interpretation. (shrink)

We consider the problem of uniqueness of certain simultaneity structures in flat spacetime. Absolute simultaneity is specifiled to be a non-trivial equivalence relation which is invariant under the automorphism group Aut of spacetime. Aut is taken to be the identity-component of either the inhomogeneous Galilei group or the inhomogeneous Lorentz group. Uniqueness of standard simultaneity in the first, and absence of any absolute simultaneity in the second case are demonstrated and related to certain group theoretic properties. Relative simultaneity (...) with respect to an additional structure X on spacetime is specified to be a non-trivial equivalence relation which is invariant under the subgroup in Aut that stabilises X. Uniqueness of standard Einstein simultaneity is proven in the Lorentzian case when X is an inertial frame. We end by discussing the relation to previous work of others. (shrink)

Abstract. The concept of human uniqueness has long played a central role within key interpretations of the hominid fossil record and within numerous theological understandings of the imago Dei. More recently, the status of humans as evolutionarily unique has come under strong criticism owing to the discovery of certain nonhuman hominids who, as language and culture-bearing beings, lived as contemporaries with early anatomically modern humans. Nevertheless, many scholars, including those in the field of religion and science, continue to interpret (...) the remains of these other hominids in light of empirically ungrounded implicit assumptions about human uniqueness, which the author calls “anthropocentrism of the gaps.” This paper argues that “anthropocentrism of the gaps” is philosophically unwarranted and thus should not be assumed by scholars in religion and science when evaluating contemporary findings in paleoanthropology. (shrink)

In this essay, I present a straightforward counterexample to the Uniqueness Thesis, which holds, roughly speaking, that there is a unique rational response to any particular body of evidence.

Hardin’s empirically-grounded argument for color eliminativism has defined the color realism debate for the last 30 years. By Hardin’s own estimation, phenomenal structure—the unique/binary hue distinction in particular—poses the greatest problem for color realism. Examination of relevant empirical findings shows that claims about the unique hues which play a central role in the argument from phenomenal structure should be rejected. Chiefly, contrary to widespread belief amongst philosophers and scientists, the unique hues do not play a fundamental role in determining all (...) color appearances. Among the consequences of this result is that greater attention should be paid to certain proposals for putting the structure of phenomenal color into principled correspondence with surface reflectance properties. While color realism is not fully vindicated, it has much greater empirical plausibility than previously thought. (shrink)

This paper discusses the uniqueness thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

A response is given here to Benacerraf's (1965) non-uniqueness (or multiple-reductions) objection to mathematical platonism. It is argued that non-uniqueness is simply not a problem for platonism; more specifically, it is argued that platonists can simply embrace non-uniqueness—i.e., that one can endorse the thesis that our mathematical theories truly describe collections of abstract mathematical objects while rejecting the thesis that such theories truly describe unique collections of such objects. I also argue that part of the motivation for (...) this stance is that it dovetails with the correct response to Benacerraf's other objection to platonism, i.e., his (1973) epistemological objection. (shrink)

Le Principe Unique (la constitution-conception de la Vie et de l'Univers de l'Extreme-Orient) n'est, en realite, qu'une methode de classification dialectique pratique et universelle, accessible a tout le monde, qui embrasse tout ce qui existe dans l'univers et l'Univers lui-meme. (Georges Ohsawa).

By taking the practical relevance of coordinated epistemic standards into account, Dogramaci and Horowitz (2016) as well as Greco and Hedden (2016) offer a new perspective on epistemic permissiveness. However, in its current state, their argument appears to be inconclusive. I will offer two reasons why this argument does not support interpersonal uniqueness in general. First, such an argument leaves open the possibility that distinct closed societies come to incompatible epistemic standards. Second, some epistemic practices like the promotion of (...) methodological heterogeneity in epistemic communities could be best explained by epistemic permissiveness. (shrink)

Firms possessing a unique competency to rescue the victims of a human catastrophe have a minimum moral obligation to devote substantial resources toward best efforts to aid the victims. The minimum amount that firms should devote to rescue is the largest sum of their most recent year’s investment in social initiatives, their five-year trend, their industry’s average, or the national average. Financial exigency may justify a lower level of investment. Alternative social investments may be continued if they have an equally (...) compelling rationale. These duties apply to the global pharmaceutical companies in the context of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)

This article aims to present a brief historical overview of interpretative theories and methods relevant to those books that are included in either the Protestant Apocrypha or the Catholic Deuterocanonical in the LXX (Septuagint) for the period 1891–2020. The aim of the article is not to give a complete description of all research on apocryphal/deuterocanonical books. The author’s journey with the relevant literature commenced in 2006, when he was appointed as one of the translators of apocryphal texts for a new (...) edition of the new Afrikaans Bible (2020). Initially, he felt trapped as if in a maze. However, as his research progressed and as he met and talked to LXX experts at that stage, the road began to seem less of an obstacle and more like a challenge. One of the important aspects that he discovered was that not every text in the LXX has a so-called Hebrew Vorlage. Although the author describes different approaches used to interpret LXX material, for example historical-grammatical methods, his focus is on South African LXX research that has made a unique contribution to the previous and existing research, especially by the researchers of the North-West University. Contribution: The article briefly discusses several researchers who have made unique contributions to the LXX apocryphal/deuterocanonical research during the last decade. These scholars utilised different methods to interpret the LXX texts – methods that were not previously employed regularly if at all, for example narratology and narrative theory, cognitive linguistics, cultural anthropology, semiotic theory, rhetorical theory and performance theory. (shrink)

We prove that in IST, Nelson's internal set theory, the Uniqueness and Collection principles, hold for all (including external) formulas. A corollary of the Collection theorem shows that in IST there are no definable mappings of a set X onto a set Y of greater (not equal) cardinality unless both sets are finite and #(Y) ≤ n #(X) for some standard n. Proofs are based on a rather general technique which may be applied to other nonstandard structures. In particular (...) we prove that in a nonstandard model of PA, Peano arithmetic, every hyperinteger uniquely definable by a formula of the PA language extended by the predicate of standardness, can be defined also by a pure PA formula. (shrink)

We defend Uniqueness, the claim that given a body of total evidence, there is a uniquely rational doxastic state that it is rational for one to be in. Epistemic rationality doesn't give you any leeway in forming your beliefs. To this end, we bring in two metaepistemological pictures about the roles played by rational evaluations. Rational evaluative terms serve to guide our practices of deference to the opinions of others, and also to help us formulate contingency plans about what (...) to believe in various situations. We argue that Uniqueness vindicates these two roles for rational evaluations, while Permissivism clashes with them. (shrink)

Saunders & van Brakel argue, inter alia, that there is for the claim that there are four unique hues (red, green, blue, and yellow), and that there are two corresponding opponent processes. We argue that this is quite mistaken.

We prove the following main theorem: Let be an abstract elementary class satisfying the joint embedding and the amalgamation properties with no maximal models of cardinality μ. Let μ be a cardinal above the the Löwenheim‐Skolem number of the class. If is μ‐Galois‐stable, has no μ‐Vaughtian Pairs, does not have long splitting chains, and satisfies locality of splitting, then any two ‐limits over M, for, are isomorphic over M.

In this paper I will show the problems that are encountered when dealing with uniqueness of connectives in a bilateralist setting within the larger framework of proof-theoretic semantics and suggest a solution. Therefore, the logic 2Int is suitable, for which I introduce a sequent calculus system, displaying - just like the corresponding natural deduction system - a consequence relation for provability as well as one dual to provability. I will propose a modified characterization of uniqueness incorporating such a (...) duality of consequence relations, with which we can maintain uniqueness in a bilateralist setting. (shrink)

There is a divide in epistemology between those who think that, for any hypothesis and set of total evidence, there is a unique rational credence in that hypothesis, and those who think that there can be many rational credences. Schultheis offers a novel and potentially devastating objection to Permissivism, on the grounds that Permissivism permits dominated credences. I will argue that Permissivists can plausibly block Schultheis' argument. The issue turns on getting clear about whether we should be certain whether our (...) credences are rational. (shrink)

A distinction is made between moral indoctrination and instruction in ethics. It is argued that the legitimate and important field of computer ethics should not be permitted to become mere moral indoctrination. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right with unique ethical issues that would not have existed if computer technology had not been invented. Several example issues are presented to illustrate this point. The failure to find satisfactory non-computer analogies testifies to the uniqueness of computer (...) ethics. Lack of an effective analogy forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues presented to us. For all of these reasons, the kind of issues presented deserve to be addressed separately from others that might at first appear similar. At the very least, they have been so transformed by computing technology that their altered form demands special attention. (shrink)

For contractarians, justice is the result of a rational bargain. The goal is to show that the rules of justice are consistent with rationality. The two most important bargaining theories of justice are David Gauthier’s and those that use the Nash’s bargaining solution. I argue that both of these approaches are fatally undermined by their reliance on a symmetry condition. Symmetry is a substantive constraint, not an implication of rationality. I argue that using symmetry to generate uniqueness undermines the (...) goal of bargaining theories of justice. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide some genetic perspectives on the question “Just How Special Are Humans—Really?” It begins with an introduction to how genetic variation can provide information about the past. It continues by discussing two ways in which genetic analyses has, on multiple occasions, shown that humans are less unique than we thought we are. We have a cognitive bias to toward thinking we are special. Our species has colonized an ecological niche not exploited by any other species on (...) our earth, but how much of our adaptation to that niche is cultural rather than genetic? (shrink)

paper, abstract, revised handout, original handoutto appear in the Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 12 (Oslo, 2007). The paper argues that the variability of the uniqueness effects exhibited by Hindi and Romanian correlatives is due to their mixed referential and quantificational nature. The account involves an articulated notion of quantification, independently motivated by donkey anaphora and quantificational subordination and consisting of both (discourse) referential components and non-referential components (dynamic operators over plural info states). The variable uniqueness effects emerge (...) out of the interaction between: (i) the semantics of wh-indefinites, singular anaphors and habitual morphology and (ii) the pragmatics of quantification, which allows for the selection of different levels of ‘zoom-in’ on the quantified-over objects. (shrink)

There exists a model in a countable language having a unique element which is not definable in $\scr{L}_{\omega _{1},\omega}$.

We show that a finite orthomodular poset with a strong section Δ of states (probability measures) is distributive if and only if Δ has the unique Jordan-Hahn decomposition property(UJHDP). That this result does not extend to infinite orthomodular posets is shown by the projection lattices of von Neumann algebras without direct summand of typeI 2, for which the set of completely additive states is strong and has theUJHDP. There also exist nondistributive σ-classes for which the set of countably additive states (...) has theUJHDP. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 361 ing should gravitate, it is no wonder that many say: " There are no clear answers." Finally, I wonder if casuistry can even deal with the most significant ethical issue facing medicine in the immediate future: The construction of a system in the United States which will provide adequate health care for all citizens. Director, Center for Health Care Ethics Saint Louis University Medical Center KEVIN (...) O'ROURKE, O.P. Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. Edited By GAVIN D'CosTA. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1990. Pp. xii + 218. $16.95 (paper). There are two ways of reading ·this remarkably stimulating collection of essays. At one level it is a vigorous rebuttal of an earlier book in the "Faith Meets Faith Series" entitled The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edited by John Hick and Paul Knitter; D'Costa's sub-title, "The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions," is a conscious polemical riposte. On the second level it purports to propose an alternative theology of religions which would on the one hand retain the claim of Christian uniqueness but on the other be not exclusivistic but genuinely pluralistic and, therefore, fruitful for interreligious dialogue. In my judgment, the book achieves its first objective well, furnishing an impressive array of counter-arguments to the pluralistic thesis. Indeed, like a swarm of tacklers ganging up on the hapless quarterback, so many contributors attack the same points of the pluralistic proposal that readers must have the impression of witnessing an overkill. On the other hand, the book's positive construction of a theology of religions suffers from vagueness and even internal contradictions. It is a classical case of people banding together because they know what they are against (in this case, the proposal to regard all religions as equally valid ways of salvation, with none allowed to claim superiority and exclusiveness) but not yet able to determine what they are for (except to retain the claim of Christian uniqueness). The volume contains 14 essays divided into three groups. The first three discuss the implications of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity for interreligious dialogue (Rowan Williams, Gavin D'Costa, and Christoph Schwobel); the next five explore the relevance of christology in the context of religious pluralism (M. M. Thomas, Francis X. Clooney, John B. Cobb, Jr., Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Monika Hell- 362 BOOK REVIEWS wig) ; the last six examine the epistemological and hermeneutical issues of religious pluralism (J. A. DiNoia, Lesslie Newbigin, Jurgen Moltmann, Paul J. Griffith, John Milbank, and Kenneth Surin). The editor has done an excellent job of summarizing the main points of each essay; it is therefore unnecessary to replicate his effort. My intention in this review is not to examine each essay individually; space would not permit such an undertaking. Rather I shall list the major criticisms made by the contributors against the pluralistic thesis and then examine their rather diverse positive proposals. Before doing so, however, it would be useful to describe briefly the essential thesis of The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, which is under attack. Its contributors argue that due to the rise of historical consciousness, the nature of God as Absolute Mystery, and the obligation to promote peace and justice, the Christian claim to uniqueness and superiority as a way to salvation should be abandoned. Instead of the exclusivist and inclusivist theologies of religions, they propose the pluralist position that Christianity is one among the many religions, equally valid and mutually complementary. What do the contributors to Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered find wrong with this pluralist thesis? A complete list of their objections cannot be furnished here, but these are some of the more important ones. First, the pluralists are as imperialistic as the exclusivists and inclusivists they denounce because they impose their (Western) notions of religion, dialogue, social justice, and so on, on other religionists (D'Costa, Newbigin, Griffiths). Hence the pluralist thesis is logically incoherent. Secondly, the pluralists wrongly presume that there is such a thing as a common core of religious experience which functions as a genus of the different species of religions (Newbigin, Milbank, Cobb). Thirdly, pluralists neglect the... (shrink)

Offers a critical evaluation of the foundational assumptions and claims, scriptural, theological and philosophical, of John Hick's theocentric critique of the Christian affirmation of Jesus' uniqueness.

A distinction is made between moral indoctrination and instruction in ethics. It is argued that the legitimate and important field of computer ethics should not be permitted to become mere moral indoctrination. Computer ethics is an academic field in its own right with unique ethical issues that would not have existed if computer technology had not been invented. Several example issues are presented to illustrate this point. The failure to find satisfactory non-computer analogies testifies to the uniqueness of computer (...) ethics. Lack of an effective analogy forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues presented to us. For all of these reasons, the kind of issues presented deserve to be addressed separately from others that might at first appear similar. At the very least, they have been so transformed by computing technology that their altered form demands special attention. (shrink)

Originally published in 1957, The Uniqueness of the Individual is a collection of 9 essays published from the ten years preceding publication. The essays deal with some of the central problems of biology. These are among the questions put and answered from the standpoint of modern experimental biology. What is ageing and how is it measured? What theories have been held to account for it, and with what success? Did ageing evolve, and if so how? Is Lamarckism and adequate (...) explanation of evolutionary process? Does evolution sometimes go wrong? Do human beings evolve in a way peculiar to themselves? Other essays touch upon the problems of scientific method and of growth and transformation. This book will be of interest to natural historians, evolutionists and anthropologists. (shrink)

Locke & Bogin (L&B) propose that humans are unique in possessing stages of childhood and adolescence. Arguments to the contrary include evidence for a similar and adaptive juvenile period in simians of slow growth, intense play and learning, and provisioning with solid food by adults. Likewise, simians as well as humans undergo a compensatory growth spurt during puberty.

In this paper, I offer a defense of what I dub “religious rationality pluralism”—that is, that people of various religions can be rational in holding a variety of religious perspectives. I distinguish two arguments against this position: the Uniqueness argument and the Disagreement argument. The aims of this essay are to argue that the Uniqueness thesis is ambiguous between two readings, that while one version of the thesis is quite plausible, it cannot be successfully used to argue against (...) rationality pluralism, and the version of the thesis that would support the argument is false. (shrink)

White, Christensen, and Feldman have recently endorsed uniqueness, the thesis that given the same total evidence, two rational subjects cannot hold different views. Kelly, Schoenfield, and Meacham argue that White and others have at best only supported the weaker, merely intrapersonal view that, given the total evidence, there are no two views which a single rational agent could take. Here, we give a new argument for uniqueness, an argument with deliberate focus on the interpersonal element of the thesis. (...) Our argument is that the best explanation of the value of promoting rationality is an explanation that entails uniqueness. (shrink)

The paper examines the notion, widespread in the contemporary color science, that there are certain hues, specifically focal red, yellow, green and blue, that are unique or privileged in human prelinguistic color perception, all other chromatic hues being perceptually composed of these. I successively consider and reject all motivations that have been provided for this opinion; namely the linguistic, “phenomenological”, and some minor or historical motivations. I conclude that, contrary to the standard opinion, there is no solid reason to claim (...) that the RYGB hues are unique among colors in a sense that would allow for direct neurophysiological explanation. The notion also has no relevance for the construction of perceptual color spaces and is not defensible as an explanatory principle with respect to the existing crosslinguistic patterns of color categorization. (shrink)

Conciliationism holds that disagreement of apparent epistemic peers often substantially undermines rational confidence in our opinions. Uniqueness principles say that there is at most one maximally rational doxastic response to any given batch of total evidence. The two views are often thought to be tightly connected. This paper distinguishes two ways of motivating conciliationism, and two ways that conciliationism may be undermined by permissive accounts of rationality. It shows how conciliationism can flourish under certain strongly permissive accounts of rationality. (...) This occurs when the motivation for conciliationism does not come from taking disagreement as evidence of one's own rational failings. However, divorcing the motive for conciliating from worries about rationality does not remove a feature of conciliationism that some find troubling: that conciliationism can lead to cases of “rational toxicity,” in which the most rational response to one's evidence involves violating some rational ideal. (shrink)

In contrast to Anglophone debates on personal identity initially formed by John Locke’s investigation of personal identity in the sense of personal continuity or persistence through time, the Continental tradition focuses on what constitutes ipseity in the sense of individuality or uniqueness of the human being “constituted” by its continuous transformation through changing experience. In this study, I claim that contemporary phenomenological research in France—especially the “phenomenology of the event” as represented by Henri Maldiney and Claude Romano—contributes to this (...) Continental discussion in a significant way: it formulates the conditions of personal uniqueness or distinctiveness with regard to other persons, conditions not to be found in Heidegger’s existential conception of selfhood in Being and Time. More precisely, Maldiney and Romano allow us to answer the principal questions of this study: In what does the personal uniqueness consist? What exactly individualizes the first-person selfhood disclosed in Dasein’s relation to death? In my three-stage analysis, I first deal with Heidegger’s conception of selfhood in Being and Time and its limits with respect to the question of personal uniqueness. Next, I analyse Maldiney’s conception of “eventful selfhood” in which he “completes” Heidegger’s conception of selfhood by describing Dasein’s openness to ontical, and yet fully authentic events. Finally, I develop the argumentation by presenting Romano’s even more radical conception of the “happening subjectivity”, which allows us to return to the second major feature of personal identity: personal persistence. Nonetheless, I conclude that the connection between personal uniqueness and persistence is not sufficiently examined in the phenomenology of the event, which opens the path towards another related inquiry into the following problem: What is the proper subjective dimension or the “underlying thing” in the background of personal persistence which somehow resists events? (shrink)

It is widely agreed that hypocrisy can undermine one’s moral standing to blame. According to the Nonhypocrisy Condition on standing, R has the standing to blame some other agent S for a violation of some norm N only if R is not hypocritical with respect to blame for violations of N. Yet this condition is seldom argued for. Macalester Bell points out that the fact that hypocrisy is a moral fault does not yet explain why hypocritical blame is standingless blame. (...) She raises a challenge: one must explain what is distinct about hypocritical blame such that the hypocritical blamer lacks the standing to blame, even if the arrogant or petty blamer does not. Of those writing on hypocrisy, only we offer a direct response to Bell’s challenge. Recently, however, our account has come under criticism. We argue here that (1) our account can handle these criticisms and that (2) no other rival account adequately addresses Bell’s challenge of explaining what is uniquely objectionable about hypocritical blame. Because answering Bell’s challenge is a necessary component of any plausible account of the relationship between hypocrisy and standing, our account remains the best on offer. (shrink)