What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

Trust is a topic of longstanding philosophical interest. It is indispensable to every kind of coordinated human activity, from sport to scientific research. Even more, trust is necessary for the successful dissemination of knowledge, and by extension, for nearly any form of practical deliberation and planning. Without trust, we could achieve few of our goals and would know very little. Despite trust’s fundamental importance in human life, there is substantial philosophical disagreement about what trust is, and further, how trusting is (...) normatively constrained and best theorized about in relation to other things we value. This entry is divided into three sections, which explore key (and sometimes interconnected) ethical and epistemological themes in the philosophy of trust: (1) The Nature of Trust; (2) The Normativity of Trust, and (3) The Value of Trust. (shrink)

Where does consciousness come from and how does it work? Is it a purely biological thing? Where does the brain leave off and the mind begin? These questions, once viewed as ethereal and impossible to study empirically, are now being addressed by science in bold and startling new ways.In Consciousness, world-renowned neuropsychiatrist J. Allan Hobson presents a witty and introspective consideration of this mysterious concept, connecting it to specific areas of the brain and their chemical and physical states. Hobson guides (...) his readers through the various states of waking, dreaming, and nonconsciousness using the theories and data of neuroscience, psychiatry, and neurophysiology. Although his ideas are based in science, his imaginative approach keeps us in touch with the mysterious and seductive nature of his subject.Richly woven, with references to literature, philosophy, and the author's personal experiences, Consciousness is a delightful and compact introduction to a concept central to the human experience. (shrink)

The majority of our linguistic exchanges, such as everyday conversations, are divided into turns; one party usually talks at a time, with only relatively rare occurrences of brief overlaps in which there are two simultaneous speakers. Moreover, conversational turn-taking tends to be very fast. We typically start producing our responses before the previous turn has finished, i.e., before we are confronted with the full content of our interlocutor’s utterance. This raises interesting questions about the nature of linguistic understanding. Philosophical theories (...) typically focus on linguistic understanding characterized either as an ability to grasp the contents of utterances in a given language or as outputs of this ability—mental states of one type or another. In this paper, I supplement these theories by developing an account of the process of understanding. I argue that it enables us to capture the dynamic and temporal aspect of understanding and reconcile philosophical investigations with empirical research on language comprehension. (shrink)

A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist’s ‘knowledge = apt belief’ template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised at the collective level in a way that is structurally analogous, on a telic theory of epistemic normativity (e.g., Sosa 2020), to how it is realised at the individual level—viz., through a (collective) intentional attempt to get it right aptly (whether p) by alethically (...) affirming that p. An advantage of the proposal developed is that it is shown to be compatible with competing views—viz., joint acceptance accounts and social-distributive accounts—of how group members must interact in order to materially realise a group belief. I conclude by showing how the proposed judgment-focused collective (telic) virtue epistemology has important advantages over a rival version of collective virtue epistemology defended in recent work by Jesper Kallestrup (2016). (shrink)

In the management and business ethics literatures, stakeholder engagement has been demonstrated to lead to more ethical management practices. However, there may be limits on the extent to which stakeholder engagement can, as currently conceptualized, resolve some of the more difficult ethical challenges faced by managers. In this paper we argue that stakeholder engagement, when seen as a way of reducing five types of knowledge problems—risk, ambiguity, complexity, equivocality, and a priori irreducible uncertainty—can aid managers in resolving such ethical challenges. (...) Using a practical illustration of the ethical challenges surrounding the development and application of genetic modification technologies, we demonstrate how stakeholder engagement enables managers to better address these knowledge problems, thereby to manage more ethically. In this way, we suggest that stakeholder engagement has an even more crucial role to play in business ethics research and practice. (shrink)

The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-nineteenth century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether’s theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there (...) is nothing for minds to violate. This paper is motivated by two ideas. First, one might take seriously the fact that GR formally has an infinity of rigid symmetries of the action and hence, by Noether’s first theorem, an infinity of conserved energies-momenta. Second, Sean Carroll has asked how one should modify the Dirac–Maxwell–Einstein equations to describe mental causation. This paper uses the generalized Bianchi identities to show that General Relativity tends to exclude, not facilitate, such Cartesian mental causation. In the simplest case, Cartesian mental influence must be spatio-temporally constant, and hence 0. The difficulty may diminish for more complicated models. Its persuasiveness is also affected by larger world-view considerations. The new general relativistic objection provides some support for realism about gravitational energy-momentum in GR. Such realism also might help to answer an objection to theories of causation involving conserved quantities, because energies-momenta would be conserved even in GR. (shrink)

We would like to thank Dolega and Dewhurst for a thought-provoking and informed deconstruction of our article, which we take as applause from valued members of our audience. In brief, we fully concur with the theatre-free formulation offered by Dolega and Dewhurst and take the opportunity to explain why we used the Cartesian theatre metaphor. We do this by drawing an analogy between consciousness and evolution. This analogy is used to emphasize the circular causality inherent in the free energy principle. (...) We conclude with a comment on the special forms of active inference that may be associated with selfawareness and how they may be especially informed by dream states. (shrink)

Given classical (2 valued) structures and and a homomorphism h of onto , it is shown how to construct a (non-degenerate) 3-valued counterpart of . Classical sentences that are true in are non-false in . Applications to number theory and type theory (with axiom of infinity) produce finite 3-valued models in which all classically true sentences of these theories are non-false. Connections to relevant logic give absolute consistency proofs for versions of these theories formulated in relevant logic (the proof for (...) number theory was obtained earlier by R. K. Meyer and suggested the present abstract development). (shrink)

Libertarianism—and classical liberalism generally—entails (or presupposes) a specific, but implicit, conception of liberty. Imagine two lists of property-rights: one list is all those that currently appear to be libertarian (self-ownership, property acquired by use of natural resources, property acquired by consensual exchange, etc.); the other list is all those that currently appear not to be libertarian (aggressively imposed slavery, property acquired by theft or fraud, property acquired by coerced transfers due to welfare claims, etc.). What determines into which list a (...) property-right is to be assigned? If libertarianism is really about liberty, then the determining factor must be whether the property-right somehow fits what liberty is in a more abstract sense than property. It greatly clarifies matters to have an explicit theory of this entailed conception of abstract liberty and how it relates to its practical application and to morality. (shrink)

An important role of the philosopher is to critically reflect on what is often taken for granted, using the tools of argument and analysis. This article engages with six different papers that offer critical reflections on conventional concepts and beliefs in bioethics regarding informed consent, continuous deep sedation, traditional moral theories underlying bioethical thinking, the definition of mental disease, and codes of ethics for particular medical specialties.

Prominent philosophers have argued that contradictions contain either too much or too little information to be useful. We dispute this with what we call the “Paradox of the Two Firefighters.” Suppose you are awakened in your hotel room by a fire alarm. You open the door. You see three possible ways out: left, right, straight ahead. You see two firefighters. One says there is exactly one safe route and it is to your left. The other says there is exactly one (...) safe route and it is to your right. While the two firemen are giving you contradictory information, they are also both giving you the perhaps useful information that there is a safe way out and it is not straight ahead. We give two analyses. The first uses the “Opinion Tetrahedron,” introduced by Dunn as a generalization of Audun Jøsang’s “Opinion Triangle.” The Opinion Tetrahedron in effect embeds the values of the “Belnap-Dunn 4-valued Logic” into a context of subjective probability generalized to allow for degrees of belief, disbelief, and two kinds of uncertainty—that in which the reasoner has too little information and that in which the reasoner has too much information. Jøsang had only a single value for uncertainty. We also present an alternative solution, again based on subjective probability but of a more standard type. This solution builds upon “linear opinion pooling.” Kiefer had already developed apparatus for assessing risk using expert opinion, and this influences the second solution. Finally, we discuss how these solutions might apply to “Big Data” and the World Wide Web. (shrink)

I present a decision problem in which causal decision theory appears to violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and normal-form extensive-form equivalence (NEE). I show that these violations lead to exploitable behavior and long-run poverty. These consequences appear damning, but I urge caution. This decision should lead causalists to a better understanding of what it takes for a decision between some collection of options to count as a subdecision of a decision between a larger collection of options. And with (...) this better understanding of subdecisions in hand, causalists will not violate the IIA or the NEE. This decision will also teach causalists that, in sequential decisions, a rational agent may be led to make a series of choices which are causally dominated by some other sequence of choices they could have made instead. I will encourage causalists to recognise this as an intrapersonal tragedy of the commons. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish that Sorites reasoning, a fundamental part of Parfit's work, is more destructive that he intends. I establish the form that Parfit's arguments take and then substitute premises whose acceptability to Parfit I show. The new argument demonstrates an eliminativism or immaterialism concerning persons which Parfit must find repugnant.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Isaac Newton's closest approach to a system of the world in the critical period 1681–84 is provided in a set of untitled propositions concerning comets. They drastically revise his position maintained against Flamsteed in 1681 and may signal his adoption of a single comet solution for the appearances of 1680/1. Points of agreement and difference with the key pre-Principia texts of 1684–85 are analysed. He shows substantial control of the phenomena of tails which change very little in mechanical detail throughout (...) his subsequent work. An emerging theory of gravitation brings planets, their satellites, and comets under the same laws of motion, yet retains a celestial vortex and includes a singular proposition in lieu of the usual formulation of Keplers area law. The analysis raises questions on a number of issues of recent Newtonian scholarship ranging from his achievement following his correspondence with Robert Hooke in 1679 to his veneration of the wisdom of the ancients. (shrink)

Cheating and deception are terms often used but rarely defined. They summon up unpleasant connotations; even those deeply involved with cheating and deception rationalize why they have been driven to it. Particularly for Americans and much of Western civilization, official cheating, government duplicity, cheating as policy, and conscious, contrived deception, are all unacceptable except as a last resort in response to threat of extinction. As a distasteful tool, deception is rarely used to achieve national interests, unless in relation to the (...) deployment of military force. As an area of study, it has by and large been ignored.Intrigued by attitudes toward cheating and deception, the authors decided to analyze its roots, structure, and process. They asked fundamental questions: are there categories of deception, general steps in the process of deception, and ways to evaluate its results across time and in different modes? The book that results is a typology of kinds of deception, beginning with military deception, but extending into other categories and stages.In his introduction to this new edition, Bell outlines how the book came to be written, describes the mixed emotions toward the subject displayed by govenmental and nongovernmental funding sources, and speculates about its critical and commercial reception. He discusses widespread new interest in the subject, the research that has been undertaken since this book was first published, and its limitations.This book provides a general overview of this complex subject, creating a framework for analysis of specific instances of cheating or deception. It will be of particular interest to political scientists, those interested in military affairs and strategy, and psychologists. The general reader will find the book written with a light touch, drawing examples of cheating and deception in the pursuit of love and money. The specialist reader will be intrigued by its broad-ranging examples drawn from policy and politics, wars and rumors of wars. (shrink)

First published in 1952, British Empirical Philosophers is a comprehensive picture of one of the most important movements in the history of philosophic thought. In his introduction, Professor A. J. Ayer distinguishes the main problems of empiricism and gives a critical account of the ways in which the philosophers whose writings are included in this volume attempted to solve them. Editors Ayer and Raymond Winch bring together an authoritative abridgement of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding ; Bishop George Berkeley’s (...) Principles of Human Knowledge ; almost the entire first book of David Hume’s Treatise Concerning Human Nature ; and extracts from Thomas Reid’s Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man and John Stuart Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On 19 July 2019, Agnes Heller died whilst swimming in Lake Balaton outside Budapest. With her passing, the culture of humanity lost one of its most remarkable representatives. So too, contemporary critique lost a philosophical sensibility that is, today, within the neoliberal university, increasingly rare. It is this philosophical sensibility with which this essay is concerned. Through a critical reconstruction of Heller’s reading of three key figures from the philosophical tradition (Marx, Pascal and Kierkegaard), this essay both charts the (...) changes and continuities in Heller’s philosophy of concrete subjectivity and makes a case for its continuing relevance to the cultural project of philosophy. (shrink)

Hailing from the American South, I was a slow student, awakened by Plato in high school and introduced to philosophy in college. Alienated from analytic trivia and minutia, I did graduate work in Greek philosophy at Syracuse University. My first academic job at Memphis State University involved me in the Southern Civil Rights Movement; my second at the Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point involved me in the environmental movement and inspired me to create first environmental ethics and then, in collaboration with (...) Roger Ames, comparative environmental philosophy. In the face of unprecedented challenges, such as global climate change, academic philosophy must abandon its preoccupation with arcane puzzles and its studied intellectual isolation and work collaboratively with the natural and social sciences if it is to survive in the competitive and accountable academic climate of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

FRANTZEN: KRIT. B. Z. FISCHARTS ÜBERS. RABELAIS' AST 3.

Cognitive science-informed approaches have gained considerable influence in education in the UK and internationally, but not much is known about how teachers perceive cognitive science-informed strategies or enact them within the contexts of their everyday classrooms. In this paper, we discuss the perceptions and experiences of cognitive science-informed strategies of 13 teachers in England. The paper critically explores how the teachers understood and used cognitive science-informed strategies in their teaching, their views of the benefits and challenges for different subjects and (...) groups of learners, and their reflections on supporting factors and barriers for adopting the strategies in their schools. The teachers’ accounts illustrate some of the many complexities of adopting cognitive science-informed approaches in real-life educational settings. Drawing on their narratives, the paper emphasises the importance of acknowledging different contextual dimensions and the dynamic interactions between them to understand when and how teachers enact cognitive science-informed approaches in their classrooms. (shrink)