A central task of comparative constitutional law scholarship is categorization and classification of constitutions. Recent scholarship, no doubt informed by the populist tide, has sought to develop the concept of a mixed constitution. Broadly speaking, a mixed constitution is a constitution that integrates liberal and illiberal elements, elements that are usually separate and not found under the same constitution. The study of “mixed constitutions” encompasses both descriptive and normative aspects. First, an attempt to ascertain what, exactly, makes a constitution “mixed.” (...) Second, an attempt to analyze either the desirability of such a system or an attempt to figure out how to harness mixed constitutions in the service of particular normative goals, for example the protection of human rights. This article has two goals. First, an inquiry into the descriptive aspect of mixed constitutions. My aim is to show that given the seeming consensus of what constitutes a mixed constitution, the category itself might encompass many more constitutions than is often acknowledged, to the point that many constitutions are likely to be mixed to a certain extent. My second goal is to demonstrate that given this definitional consensus, what makes a constitution mixed is not necessarily because the constitution itself is mixed, but because sub-constitutional norms shape our constitutional understanding. Put differently, the meaning of a constitution is not determined exclusively through an analysis of the constitution, but also by shifts in sub-constitutional understandings. If this is correct, then it turns out that the universe of mixed constitutions is much larger than thought, which casts doubt on the utility of the category of mixed constitutions. (shrink)

Quite likely the most sacrosanct principle in epistemology, it is near-universally accepted that knowledge is factive: knowing that p entails p. Recently, however, Bricker, Buckwalter, and Turri have all argued that we can and often do know approximations that are strictly speaking false. My goal with this paper is to advance this nascent non-factive project in two key ways. First, I provide a critical review of these recent arguments against the factivity of knowledge, allowing us to observe that elements of (...) these arguments mutually reinforce respective weaknesses, thereby offering the non-factive project a much stronger foundation than when these arguments were isolated. Next, I argue tentatively in favor of Bricker’s truthlikeness framework over the representational adequacy account favored by Buckwalter and Turri. Taken together, while none of this constitutes a knock-down argument against factivity, it does allow us to quiet some of the more immediate worries surrounding the non-factive project. (shrink)

I address three interrelated issues concerning the contents of experiences. First, I address the preliminary issue of what it means to say that experiences have contents. Then I address the issue of why we should believe that experiences have contents. Finally, I address the issue of what the contents of experiences are.

Naive observers viewed a sequence of colored Mondrian patterns, simulated on a color monitor. Each pattern was presented twice in succession, first under one daylight illuminant with a correlated color temperature of either 16,000 or 4,000 K and then under the other, to test for color constancy. The observers compared the central square of the pattern across illuminants, either rating it for sameness of material appearance or sameness of hue and saturation or judging an objective property—that is, whether its change (...) of color originated from a change in material or only from a change in illumination. Average color constancy indices were high for material appearance ratings and binary judgments of origin and low for hue–saturation ratings. Individuals’ performance varied, but judgments of material and of hue and saturation remained demarcated. Observers seem able to separate phenomenal percepts from their ontological projections of mental appearance onto physical phenomena; thus, even when a chromatic change alters perceived hue and saturation, observers can reliably infer the cause, the constancy of the underlying surface spectral reflectance. (shrink)

The quest for freedom from hunger and repression has triggered in recent years a dramatic, worldwide reform of political and economic systems. Never have so many people enjoyed, or at least experimented with democratic institutions. However, many strategies for economic development in Eastern Europe and Latin America have failed with the result that entire economic systems on both continents are being transformed. This major book analyzes recent transitions to democracy and market-oriented economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Drawing (...) in a quite distinctive way on models derived from political philosophy, economics, and game theory, Professor Przeworski also considers specific data on individual countries. Among the questions raised by the book are: What should we expect from these experiments in democracy and market economy? What new economic systems will emerge? Will these transitions result in new democracies or old dictatorships? (shrink)

[t. 1.] 1750-1830 -- [t. 2.] 1831-1864 -- [t. 3.] 1865-1895 -- [t. 4., zesz. 1.-2.] 1896-1918.

"[An] important essay by a philosopher who more convincingly than any other I can think of demonstrates the continuing significance of his vocation in the life of our culture."—Karsten Harries, _The New York Times Book Review_ With _The Presence of Myth_, Kolakowski demonstrates that no matter how hard man strives for purely rational thought, there has always been-and always will be-a reservoir of mythical images that lend "being" and "consciousness" a specifically human meaning. "Kolakowski undertakes a philosophy of culture which (...) extends to all realms of human intercourse—intellectual, artistic, scientific, and emotional.... [His] book has real significance for today, and may well become a classic in the philosophy of culture."—_Anglican Theological Review_. (shrink)

In On the People’s Terms, Philip Pettit incorporates the Sieyèsian notion of constituent power into his constitutional theory of non-domination. In this article, I argue that Emmanuel Sieyès’s understanding of liberty precludes such an appropriation. While a republican, his conceptualisation of liberty in the face of commercial society stood apart from theories of civic vigilance, preferring instead to disentangle individuals from politics and maximise what he understood to be their non-political freedoms. Sieyès saw that liberty was heightened through relations of (...) representation and commercial dependency. This conception of liberty was pivotal to the identity of the nation, and so allowed Sieyès to assess forms of collective injustice committed by the French nobility. It also provided the normative foundation of his theory of constituent power. For Sieyès, constituent power guarded against legislative excess in a decidedly minimal sense, intending instead to separate citizens from the political sphere so they were not burdened with ongoing participation or public vigilance. (shrink)

This article discusses the desirability and feasibility of modeling precedents with multiple interpretations within factor-based models of precedential constraint. The main idea is that allowing multiple reasonable interpretations of cases and modeling precedential constraint as a function of what all reasonable interpretations compel may be advantageous. The article explains the potential benefits of extending the models in this way with a focus on incorporating a theory of vertical precedent in U.S. federal appellate courts. It also considers the costs of extending (...) the models in this way, such as the significant increase in the functional size of the case base and the need to provide some kind of ordering on interpretations to select a “best” interpretation. Finally, the article suggests partially incorporating multiple interpretations of dimensions as a realistic starting point for incorporating interpretations generally, and shows how doing so can help address difficulties with dimensions. The conclusion remarks on the use of interpretations to deal with inconsistent precedents. (shrink)

When it comes to evaluating our own abilities and prospects, most people are subject to a distorting bias. We think that we are better – friendlier, more well-liked, better leaders, and better drivers – than we really are. Once we learn about this bias, we should ratchet down our self-evaluations to correct for it. But we don’t. That leaves us with an uncomfortable tension in our beliefs: we knowingly allow our beliefs to differ from the ones that we think are (...) supported by our evidence. We can mitigate the tension by waffling between two belief states: a reflective state that has been recalibrated to take into account our tendency to overrate ourselves, and a non-reflective state that has not. (shrink)

The most apparent obstacles to a just, enlightened and peaceful social world are also, according to Kant, nature’s way of compelling us to realize those and other morally good ends. Echoing Adam Smith’s idea of the ‘invisible hand’, Kant thinks that selfishness, rivalry, quarrelsomeness, vanity, jealousy and self-conceit, along with the oppressive social inequalities they tend to produce, drive us to perfect our talents, develop culture, approach enlightenment and, through the strife and instability caused by our unsocial sociability, push (...) us towards justice, political equality and the highest good. What are we to make of these arguments, which seem to rely on questionable empirical assumptions, invoke dubious claims about natural teleology and sit uncomfortably with fundamental aspects of Kant’s ethical framework? I suggest that the arguments reveal one of Kant’s deep and important insights about the moral life by partially describing what a good and virtuous person reasonably hopes for. (shrink)

Joshua Knobe (2003a) has discovered that the perceived goodness or badness of side effects of actions influences people's ascriptions of intentionality to those side effects. I present the paradigmatic cases that elicit what has been called the Knobe effect and offer some explanations of the Knobe effect. I put these explanations into two broad groups. One explains the Knobe effect by referring to our concept of intentional action. The other explains the Knobe effect without referring to our concept of intentional (...) action. I discuss some problems with these explanations and conclude with some possible avenues for future research. (shrink)

Three children try to catch an escaped cat.

This book argues that external world skepticism is false for straightforward reasons. To make this case it develops and defends a neglected methodological approach involving a distinctive process of first-person reflection. We begin within the practices, procedures, and commitments of ordinary life and science. We then seek some reason to think skepticism true, carefully scrutinizing all the most important arguments. Finding no reason to think it true and decisive reasons to think it false, we reject it. As the book shows, (...) this is a fully satisfactory refutation. No epistemological theorizing is needed. The book begins by exploring and defending this method in seminal works of G. E. Moore and J. L. Austin. Turning to contemporary epistemology, it asks why we shouldn't appeal to considerations about the world when responding to skeptical argumentation. No good reason is found, despite exploration of a wide range of central issues in recent epistemology. To the contrary, perfectly ordinary examples indicate that it is correct to reject the skeptical scenarios - the dreaming worry, Descartes' evil demon, the brain-in-a-vat - by appealing to things we know about the world. Likewise, considerations about sensory perception do not provide any reason to think our evidence excludes considerations about the world. Along the way, methodological lessons are drawn from consideration of the most important skeptical arguments in the contemporary literature. The book concludes by defending the satisfactoriness of its approach. What emerges is a new understanding of what philosophical illumination might look like in relation to core epistemological issues. (shrink)

If p is false, it isn't evidence for anything. This view is central in one important response to a familiar sceptical argument. I consider and reject various motivations for refusing to accept this view – proposals arising from, e.g., our practice of providing rationalising explanations of people's beliefs, various locutions appearing to relativise evidence to persons, the significance of people's mental states for attributions of reasons to them, and the role of evidence in epistemic principles and requirements. I close by (...) considering responses to the ‘New Evil Demon Argument’. What emerges is an affirmation of the principle that p doesn't provide evidence unless it is true, a response to an important version of the Evil Demon argument for scepticism, and also a deeper interpretation of our epistemic practice. (shrink)

Answering in negative a question of M. Hrušák, we construct a Borel ideal not extendable to any \(F_\sigma \) ideal and such that it is not Katětov above the ideal \(\mathrm {conv}\).

Most accounts of “logical empiricism in America” take logical empiricism to be a monolithic, or at least a one-dimensional, philosophical group. This picture of logical empiricism has come under well-reasoned attack during the past two decades, but some of the relevant conclusions for the reception-history of the movement were not drawn, or were not drawn as thoroughly as they could have been. Thus, if we want to understand the reception of logical empiricism, we should not talk about the reception of (...) logical empiricism as such; rather, we should provide a more stratified and differently balanced account. This article aims to draw the contours of one more stratified account by pointing out differences in the reception-history of logical empiricism with respect to pragmatism in particular. Namely, I will examine and defend an account according to which the more pragmatist-naturalist wing of logical empiricism was welcomed by the majority of American pragmatists while the more technical wing came immediately under pragmatist attack from various sides. (shrink)

Are racial slurs always offensive and are racial stereotypes always negative? How, if at all, are racial slurs and stereotypes different and unequal for members of different races? Questions like these and others about slurs and stereotypes have been the focus of much research and hot debate lately, and in a recent article Embrick and Henricks (2013) aimed to address some of the aforementioned questions by investigating the use of racial slurs and stereotypes in the workplace. Embrick and Henricks (2013) (...) drew upon the empirical data they collected at a baked goods company in the southwestern United States to argue that racial slurs and stereotypes function as symbolic resources that exclude minorities but not whites from opportunities or resources and that racial slurs and stereotypes are necessarily considered as negative or derogatory irrespective of their particular context of use (pp. 197–202). They thus proposed an account of slurs and stereotypes that supports the context-insensitive position of Fitten (1993) and Hedger (2013) yet challenges the context-sensitive position of Kennedy (2002) and Croom (2011). In this article I explicate the account of racial slurs and stereotypes provided by Embrick and Henricks (2013), outline 8 of their main claims, and then critically evaluate these claims by drawing upon recent empirical evidence on racial slurs (both in-group and out-group uses) and stereotypes (for both whites and blacks) to point out both strengths and weaknesses of their analysis. Implications of the present analysis for future work on slurs and stereotypes will also be discussed. (shrink)

In these essays, we are concerned with virtue in journalism and the media but are mindful of the tension between the commercial foundations of publishing and broadcasting, on the one hand, and journalism's democratic obligations on the other. Adam outlines, first, a moral vision of journalism focusing on individualistic concepts of authorship and craft. Next, Craft attempts to bridge individual and organizational concerns by examining the obligations of organizations to the individuals working within them. Finally, Cohen discusses the importance (...) of resisting the powerful corporate logic that pervades the news media in the United States and calls on journalists to be courageous. (shrink)

In their major work, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow expressed the opinion of presumably many working physicists, philosophers of physics and even educated laymen when they said, "philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge." Their examples of the fields that have been conquered by physicists include most of the perennial philosophical questions: "what is the (...) nature of the world", "how can we understand the world," "where did we come from," "how did the universe come into existence."Due to numerous disruptions that shocked the... (shrink)

The articles by Bernat, Busch, Dudzinski et al., and Derse illustrate the difficulties with reconciling normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) with the dead donor rule (DDR) (Bernat forthcoming; Busch forthcoming; Dudzinski et al. forthcoming; Derse forthcoming). I appreciate their arguments because they help illuminate the issues that generate a dilemma: either reject NRP or the DDR. I am convinced that the dilemma is unavoidable because the procurement team is involved with determining and securing the death of the donor when circulation restarts. (...) Evidence for this is found in the reasons and recommendations given for blocking blood flow to the brain, both of which betray a lack of certainty over the donor’s vital status. The surgical activity in NRP therefore conflicts with the values the DDR protects: respect for the donor’s life and avoidance of conflict of interest. (shrink)

The resemblance is plain to see between Kripke’s Wittgenstein introducing bizarre rules such as quaddition (in illustrating the sceptical paradox against theories of meaning) and Goodman’s introducing the equally bizarre grue (in generating the new riddle of induction). But the two sorts of bizarre cases also differ in interesting respects. For those familiar with Goodman’s case, this similarity sparks a strong temptation to enlist to the meaning sceptic’s cause key elements of Goodman’s new riddle, which are missing from Kripke’s case. (...) In this essay, I characterize a natural way of doing just this, which targets dispositionalist solutions to the sceptical paradox. I also show that, despite initial appearances, this new objection to dispositionalism (the symmetry problem) is not nearly as worrisome as originally thought. The solution offered on behalf of semantic dispositionalists does require a trade-off, though, from the severe form of indeterminacy advanced by the meaning sceptic to a much milder thesis. (shrink)

a collection of articles by philosophers of mathematics on themes associated with the work of Paul Benacceraf.

DeRose appeals to ordinary English usage to support his contextualist semantics for "know"-attributions. A common objection holds that though the relevant assertions are both appropriate and seemingly true, their seeming truth arises merely from their appropriateness. This Warranted Assertability Maneuver (WAM) aims to provide a stand-alone objection by providing a reason not to take the ordinary language data at face-value. However, there is no plausible model or mechanism for the pragmatic phenomena WAMmers must postulate. Given what the WAM requires, it (...) is doubtful it could work out in detail. (shrink)

Almost four decades ago, Kathleen Pearson examined deceptive practices in sport using a distinction between strategic and definitional deception. However, the complexity and dynamic nature of sport is not limited to this dual-categorization of deceptive acts and there are other features of deception in sport unaccounted for in Pearson's constructs. By employing Torres’s elucidation of the structure of skills and Suits's concept of the lusory-attitude, a more thorough taxonomy of in-contest sport deception will be presented. Despite the ubiquitous presence of (...) deception in sport, few scholars have examined this concept in the sport philosophy literature since Pearson’s contribution. This paper hopes to advance a deeper understanding of deceptive practices in competitive sport and also comment on the ethical permissibility of certain sport skills from a moral perspective. (shrink)

Donnellan makes a convincing case for two distinct uses ofdefinite descriptions. But does the difference between the usesreflects an ambiguity in the semantics of descriptions? This paperapplies a linguistic test for ambiguity to argue that the differencebetween the uses is not semantically significant.

This paper considers the possibility that ‘epistemic hypocrisy’ could be relevant to our blaming practices. It argues that agents who culpably violate an epistemic norm can lack the standing to blame other agents who culpably violate similar norms. After disentangling our criticism of epistemic hypocrites from various other fitting responses, and the different ways some norms can bear on the legitimacy of our blame, I argue that a commitment account of standing to blame allows us to understand our objections to (...) epistemic hypocrisy. Agents lack the epistemic standing to blame when they are not sufficiently committed to the epistemic norms they are blaming others for violating. This not only gives us a convincing account of epistemic standing to blame, it leaves us with a unified account of moral and epistemic standing. (shrink)

In this work, we explore the epistemic import of the value-ladenness of Neyman-Pearson’s Theory of Testing Hypotheses by reconstructing and extending Daniel Steel’s argument for the legitimate influence of pragmatic values on scientific inference. We focus on how to properly understand N-P’s pragmatic value-ladenness and the epistemic reliability of N-P. We develop an account of the twofold influence of pragmatic values on N-P’s epistemic reliability and replicability. We refer to these two distinguished aspects as “direct” and “indirect”. We discuss the (...) replicability of experiments in terms of the indirect aspect and the replicability of outcomes in terms of the direct aspect. We argue that the influence of pragmatic values is beneficial to N-P’s epistemic reliability and replicability indirectly. We show that while the direct influence of pragmatic values can be beneficial, its negative effects on reliability and replicability are also unavoidable in some cases, with the direct and indirect aspects possibly being incongruent. (shrink)

Relates Eastern concepts to Western religion, art, and modern science, and suggests their relevance to the reader.

The article reviews the book Podglądanie Wszechświata [Peeping of the Universe], by Michał Heller.

It is a widely shared view among philosophers of science that the theory-dependence (or theory-ladenness) of observations is worrying, because it can bias empirical tests in favour of the tested theories. These doubts are taken to be dispelled if an observation is influenced by a theory independent of the tested theory and thus circularity is avoided, while (partially) circular tests are taken to require special attention. Contrary to this consensus, it is argued that the epistemic value of theory-dependent tests has (...) nothing to do with the circularity or non-circularity of the test, but is instead based on the minimal empiricality and reliability of observations. Since theory-dependence does not in general prevent observations fulfilling these requirements, it should not be regarded as a phenomenon that is basically detrimental, but as neutral with respect to successful scientific knowledge gathering. (shrink)

This study places Nāgārjuna and Plato in dialogue regarding how both seek to orient philosophy in the face of indeterminacy observed at the elemental level of existence, specifically, the indeterminacy of fire’s light. Looking to the elemental within Chōra and Śūnyatā, a directive becomes discernible for calibrating philosophy to this indeterminacy, and crucial limitations are disclosed, which expand philosophy by enabling a productive relation to the non-philosophical. What emerges are directives for language, which serve to modify philosophy’s violence towards the (...) world by striking a middle way between the binaries of reification and nihilism, speech and silence. (shrink)