Pairs of sentences like the following pose a problem for ontology: (1) Jupiter has four moons. (2) The number of moons of Jupiter is four. (2) is intuitively a trivial paraphrase of (1). And yet while (1) seems ontologically innocent, (2) appears to imply the existence of numbers. Thomas Hofweber proposes that we can resolve the puzzle by recognizing that sentence (2) is syntactically derived from, and has the same meaning as, sentence (1). Despite appearances, the expressions ‘the number of (...) moons of Jupiter’ and ‘four’ do not function semantically as singular terms in (2). Hofweber’s primary evidence for this proposal concerns differences in the focus-related communicative functions of (1) and (2). In this paper I raise several serious problems for Hofweber’s proposal, and for his attempt to support it by appeal to focus-related phenomena. I conclude by offering independent evidence for an alternative, purely pragmatic resolution of the ontological puzzle. (shrink)

_Lakatos: An Introduction_ provides a thorough overview of both Lakatos's thought and his place in twentieth century philosophy. It is an essential and insightful read for students and anyone interested in the philosophy of science.

Intuitively, (1)-(3) seem to express genuine claims (true or false) about what the world is like, attempts to correctly describe parts of extra-linguistic reality. By contrast, it is tempting to regard (4)-(6) as merely reflecting decisions (or conventions, or dispositions, or rules) concerning the terms in which that extra-linguistic reality is described, decisions about which things to label with 'vixen', 'bachelor' or 'cup'.

English mass noun phrases & count noun phrases differ only minimally grammatically. The basis for the difference is ascribed to a difference in the features +/-CT. These features serve the morphosyntactic function of determining the available options for the assigment of grammatical number, itself determined by the features +/-PL: +CT places no restriction on the available options, while -CT, in the unmarked case, restricts the available options to -PL. They also serve the semantic function of determining the sort of denotation (...) associated with demonstrative & quantified noun phrases. The feature -CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose sole member is the greatest aggregate of which the noun phrase or noun is true; the feature +CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose members are all & only those minimal aggregates of which the noun phrase or noun is true. At the same time, neither mass NPs nor count NPs that are arguments of a predicate have their predicate evaluated with respect to their denotations. Rather, the predicate is evaluated with respect to an aggregation, a set of aggregates constructed from the denotation of the noun phrase that is an argument of the predicate. 3 Tables, 4 Figures, 74 References. AA. (shrink)

Speakers of a natural language regularly form justified beliefs about what others are saying when they utter sentences of the language. What accounts for these justified beliefs? At one level, we already have a plausible answer: there is a perfectly good ordinary sense in which users of a language know what its sentences mean, and it is very plausible that the hearer’s knowledge of the meaning of S helps explain her justification for her belief about what is said by an (...) utterance of S. But what exactly does our knowledge of sentence meanings consist in? In this essay I advance and defend the view that we know the meanings of sentences in virtue of having a certain distinctive kind of know-how that I call inferential practical knowledge. I argue that this view provides the best explanation for the justification of our beliefs about what is said. In particular, it provides a better explanation than the more conventional and widely accepted view that we know the meaning of S in virtue of possessing the theoretical knowledge that S has such-and-such meaning. (shrink)

This book illustrates the profound implications of Gabriel Marcel's unique existentialist approach to epistemology not only for traditional themes in his work concerning ethics and the transcendent, but also for epistemological issues, concerning the objectivity of knowledge, the problem of skepticism, and the nature of non-conceptual knowledge, among others. There are also chapters of dialogue with philosophers, Jacques Maritain and Martin Buber. In focusing on these themes, the book makes a distinctive contribution to the literature on Marcel.Brendan Sweetman, a (...) native of Dublin, Ireland, is Professor of Philosophy at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO, USA. His books include Why Politics Needs Religion: The Place of Religious Arguments in the Public Square (InterVarsity, 2006) and Religion: Key Concepts in Philosophy (Continuum Books, 2007). He has coauthored or coedited several other books, including Truth and Religious Belief (M.E. Sharpe, 1998), and Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 1992). Professor Sweetman has published more than fifty articles and reviews in a variety of collections and journals, including International Philosophical Quarterly, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Faith and Philosophy, Philosophia Christi, and Review of Metaphysics. He writes regularly in the areas of continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, political philosophy and ethics. (shrink)

When The Emperor of All Maladies was published in late 2010, I knew it would be near the top of my stack of books to read. Since I am a PhD student in the History of Science and Medicine, reading a notable book on the history of cancer and its treatments is a must. Sadly, at the time of its publication, my mother had just died unexpectedly at age 82 of a disease for which she had never received a prior (...) diagnosis: cancer, or acute myelogenous leukemia, to be exact. From diagnosis to death took a mere six days. So I hesitated to take this in-depth look at cancer, a disease that left my family and me stunned and grieving from such a sudden loss. I reasoned, however, that the approach of the book would be detached and scientific, perhaps similar to the tone of the academic tomes that I tackle each week. I began to read. (shrink)

The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is the latest but not the first deadly pathogen to jump from animals to humans. The history of pandemics is replete with such events. The convergence of animal health, human health, and ecosystem health is a twenty-first century reality, as human activities that drive climate change also contribute to pandemic risk. Understanding the past and future of zoonotic diseases requires new models in the way we research human-animal-environment interconnections. This bibliographic essay discusses the historical development of these (...) zoonotic diseases and incorporates sources from the history of science and medicine, environmental science, animal science, disease ecology, politics, and anthropology. Contributing to deeper understandings of zoonotic diseases, historians and anthropologists have viewed pandemics as social and biological phenomena. However, viewpoints differ whether scholars routinely examine disease links between animals and humans. These links include the ecological aspects of infectious diseases' history and the role of wildlife as vectors of zoonotic disease. In addition, challenges persist in integrating social sciences and humanities, the environmental sector, and scientific research. Ideally, historiographies of zoonotic diseases would include societies’ responses and the social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological contexts. This bibliographic essay assembles resources that would benefit such an integrated approach. (shrink)

Even today entering Neapolis, modern day Kavala, in Greece it is possible to imagine Paul stepping off a ship onto the landing. This is the craft of the author of Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostle to engage the hearer in the narrative he constructs: in Acts, the birth and mission of the church is a story in which the audience have a role. According to Acts, Paul followed a vision, a call from a certain Macedonian to 'Come (...) over to Macedonia and help us'. What would he have expected to find as he set out on a sea voyage from Asia to Macedonia, the home of Alexander the Great? Paul's landing is commemorated on a wall mosaic with ancient stone bollards and pillars slightly inland from the current promenade where the fishing boats line up around the bay. Paul's embarkation on this journey has all the hallmarks of mission. His journey will take him to Philippi and beyond. The focus here is particularly on his encounter with Lydia and the flourishing of this mission in a distinct and different place with new opportunities for the development and growth of leadership and community. In particular I will concentrate on the insights of this narrative for the engagement with new frontiers in our present day. (shrink)

John Dewey’s lifelong labor to articulate an alternative account of logic from -/- the ‘abstract thought’ predominant in discussions of logic culminates in his 1938 Logic: the -/- theory of inquiry. In this text Dewey argues that all inquiry involves the instantiation of a general -/- pattern of inquiry. Articulating the role of imagination in the general pattern of inquiry is crucial -/- to illuminating the practical character and theoretical scope of this activity. Specifically, the -/- agency of the inquirer (...) as a future-directed, project-oriented organism highlights the imaginative -/- dimension to problem solving. In addition, Dewey’s theory of concepts as hypotheses whose -/- meaning is practically and experimentally tested and reconstructed is deeply indebted to -/- imagination. This is due to the fact that ideas, concepts, and meanings are not understood from -/- the perspective of speculative or theoretical reason, but rather circumscribed within the practical -/- problem solving context, what Dewey calls ‘the situation’ , in which all activity of human -/- being takes place. The meaning of our concepts and scientific achievements is then constantly -/- available for revision. This revision is a practical affair, giving the pragmatic version of ‘the -/- primacy of practical reason’ an overarching scope to intellectual activity. -/- This paper extends these insights regarding the general pattern of inquiry -/- into Dewey’s comments on social science in the penultimate chapter of the 1938 Logic, ‘Social -/- Inquiry’. The result is that Dewey’s pragmatic reconstruction of imagination is fundamental -/- to inquiry, agency, and understanding human agency. The consequences for a pragmatic -/- philosophy of social science will be sketched briefly in conclusion. (shrink)

The protection of species ranks highly among environmentalist priorities, and many environmentalists expect the public to respect and support efforts to protect and rehabilitate endangered species. There are a range of instrumental and anthropocentric justifications for these attitudes, yet some environmentalists want more. It is unclear that more is to be had. In particular, it is challenging to justify some environmentalist attitudes without appealing to some version of the claim that species are intrinsically valuable. However, this has been a notoriously (...) difficult thesis to defend, and it is clearly not available to those who doubt the existence of species. In this paper, I show how a number of environmentalist commitments that appear to be about the value of species can be interpreted and defended in a way that is compatible with antirealism about species. According to my proposal, the proper target of environmentalists’ evaluative concern is the irreplaceable design that is embodied by the individuals that make up a (putative) species. This approach can capture and justify many environmentalist attitudes about the value of biological variety without attributing intrinsic value to species, or even requiring a place for species in our ontology. This enables environmentalists to effectively sidestep a number of puzzling issues surrounding the nature and value of species. (shrink)

What accounts for the capacity of ordinary speakers to comprehend utterances of their language? The phenomenology of hearing speech in one’s own language makes it tempting to many epistemologists to look to perception for an answer to this question. That is, just as a visual experience as of a red square is often taken to give the perceiver immediate justification for believing that there is a red square in front of her, perhaps an auditory experience as of the speaker asserting (...) that p gives the competent hearer immediate justification for believing that the speaker has asserted that p. My aim here is to offer reasons for resisting this temptation. I argue that the perceptual model cannot adequately account for the hearer’s justification in many cases. The arguments here also allow us to draw certain further morals about the role of phenomenology in the epistemology of perception. (shrink)

Mechanistic philosophy of science views a large part of scientific activity as engaged in modelling mechanisms. While science textbooks tend to offer qualitative models of mechanisms, there is increasing demand for models from which one can draw quantitative predictions and explanations. Casini et al. (Theoria 26(1):5–33, 2011) put forward the Recursive Bayesian Networks (RBN) formalism as well suited to this end. The RBN formalism is an extension of the standard Bayesian net formalism, an extension that allows for modelling the hierarchical (...) nature of mechanisms. Like the standard Bayesian net formalism, it models causal relationships using directed acyclic graphs. Given this appeal to acyclicity, causal cycles pose a prima facie problem for the RBN approach. This paper argues that the problem is a significant one given the ubiquity of causal cycles in mechanisms, but that the problem can be solved by combining two sorts of solution strategy in a judicious way. (shrink)

Brendan Wilson leads the reader through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revealing a new clarity, singleness of purpose and contemporary relevance in this acknowledged masterpiece.

David Enoch has recently proposed that the deliberative indispensability of irreducibly normative facts suffices to support their inclusion in our ontology, even if they are not necessary for the explanation of any observable phenomena. He challenges dissenters to point to a relevant asymmetry between explanation and deliberation that shows why explanatory indispensability, but not deliberative indispensability, is a legitimate guide to ontology. In this paper, I aim to do just that. Given that an entity figures in the actual explanation of (...) some phenomenon, it is not an open question whether that entity exists. Thus, if you can manage to find actual explanations, you can find answers to ontological questions. In contrast, even if some entity is indispensable to deliberation, it still might not exist. For example, even if some form of libertarian free will is deliberatively indispensable, we still might not have libertarian free will. So even if you manage to discover the indispensable commitments of deliberation, there is still more work to do to get to the bottom of things. That additional work is explanatory work, and so deliberative indispensability is not an independent guide to what there is. (shrink)

According to current hierarchies of evidence for EBM, evidence of correlation (e.g., from RCTs) is always more important than evidence of mechanisms when evaluating and establishing causal claims. We argue that evidence of mechanisms needs to be treated alongside evidence of correlation. This is for three reasons. First, correlation is always a fallible indicator of causation, subject in particular to the problem of confounding; evidence of mechanisms can in some cases be more important than evidence of correlation when assessing a (...) causal claim. Second, evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to obtain evidence of correlation (for example, in order to set up and evaluate RCTs). Third, evidence of mechanisms is often required in order to generalise and apply causal claims. While the EBM movement has been enormously successful in making explicit and critically examining one aspect of our evidential practice, i.e., evidence of correlation, we wish to extend this line of work to make explicit and critically examine a second aspect of our evidential practices: evidence of mechanisms. (shrink)

Notice that each of (1)–(4) is an instance of a more general pattern. For example, we could replace ‘black’ in (1) with any of a wide range of other adjectives such as ‘furry’ or ‘hungry’ or ‘three-legged’, without rendering the entailment invalid or any less obvious. Similarly, there are a number of verbs that occur in entailments parallel to (3): ‘Moe boiled the water; so the water boiled’; ‘Bart blew up the school; so the school blew up’; ‘Homer sank the (...) boat; so the boat sank’ and so on. (shrink)

Naturalism is sometimes cast as the claim that there is nothing supernatural, nothing ‘spooky’ in the world. One can see that naturalism has two aspects: it makes claims about what there is, and it makes claims about knowledge and explanation. This chapter considers the ontological aspect first, so that one can see what is at stake when comes to the second, epistemological, aspect. The great advantage of methodological naturalism is that it leaves open the question of whether full‐strength, unconditional naturalism (...) is true. The essentials of humanism have two aspects: a rejection of magical views of the universe in favour of some sort of naturalism, and a rejection of nihilism. The first aspect is relatively easy; the history and current successes of the natural sciences make an irresistible case for it. The subtle part, for humanists, is to establish a naturalism that is compatible with the anti‐nihilist aspect. (shrink)

Frequency effects are pervasive in studies of language, with higher frequency words being recognized faster than lower frequency words. However, the exact nature of frequency effects has recently been questioned, with some studies finding that contextual information provides a better fit to lexical decision and naming data than word frequency ( Adelman et al., 2006 ). Recent work has cemented the importance of these results by demonstrating that a measure of the semantic diversity of the contexts that a word occurs (...) in provides a powerful measure to account for variability in word recognition latency ( Johns et al., 2012, 2015 ; Jones et al., 2012 ). The goal of the current study is to extend this measure to examine bilingualism and aging, where multiple theories use frequency of occurrence of linguistic constructs as central to accounting for empirical results ( Gollan et al., 2008 ; Ramscar et al., 2014 ). A lexical decision experiment was conducted with four groups of subjects: younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals. Consistent with past results, a semantic diversity variable accounted for the greatest amount of variance in the latency data. In addition, the pattern of fits of semantic diversity across multiple corpora suggests that bilinguals and older adults are more sensitive to semantic diversity information than younger monolinguals. (shrink)

This paper argues that promises are proposals in joint practical deliberation, the activity of deciding together what to do. More precisely: to promise to ϕ is to propose (in a particular way) to decide together with your addressee(s) that you will ϕ. I defend this deliberative theory by showing that the activity of joint practical deliberation naturally gives rise to a speech act with exactly the same properties as promises. A certain kind of proposal to make a joint decision regarding (...) one's own actions turns out to have the very same normative effects, under the very same conditions, as a promise. I submit that this cannot be a coincidence: we should conclude that promises and the relevant kind of proposals in joint practical deliberation are one and the same. (shrink)

Recent developments in public economics have largely been in the direction of reaffirming the limits of the market and of establishing new ones. The possible existence of fundamental non-convexities, imperfect and asymmetric information, incentive compatibility, imperfect competition, strategic complementarity, and scale economies led to the conclusion that a large set of market failures exist; such situations also imply government failure. Acocella, considers this complicated picture and provides a discussion of the different approaches to establishing social 'rankings' of the possible situations (...) and the underlying principles. The arguments for and against different institutions are then analysed at a micro and macroeconomic level. The market and the government are recognised as imperfect, and thus complementary, institutions. Specific policy targets and instruments are considered in the areas of micro and macro-economic policy. Special attention is devoted to questions of policy management in an open economy. Finally, problems of domestic and international policy co-ordination are considered. (shrink)

Presents a convincing argument as to why religion should be mixed with politics, ascertaining that certain religious beliefs should be made public and ...

Purcell, Brendan The Focolare Movement is officially known as the Work of Mary, and since it is primarily a lay movement, it falls under the authority of the Congregation for the Laity. Its founder, Chiara Lubich, was born in Trent in 1920, the second of four children, into a close-knit family. Her mother was a devout daily Massgoing Catholic, her father, a socialist, uninterested in religion, but a man of principle, whose refusal to join the Fascist party lost him (...) any chance of a regular job after the 1929 Depression. (shrink)

This paper explores the dominant rational approach to informed consent and challenges the appropriateness of this approach to ethical decision‐making with people with dementia. In dementia care a dominant assumption exists that people are not autonomous because of their inability to make decisions and exercise freedom of choice. The rational understanding of autonomy being the capacity to exercise freedom of choice means that health and social care professionals feel justified in making decisions on behalf of the person with dementia. If (...) a person cannot consent to an intervention then a proxy is used to make the decision. This paper argues that such an approach reinforces the mind‐body dualism that dominates health and social care discourse. Whilst acknowledging the place of proxy decision‐making, it is argued that there is a need to hear the voice of the person with dementia that goes beyond rational understandings of what is heard and that does not reinforce separation of the mind and body. An understanding of the person through their ‘narrative identity’ is proposed and illustrated through a case example. Drawing on the philosophy of Ricoeur it is argued that an individual's narrative identity can be developed and used to underpin informed consent decisions. Using a case example it is argued that paying attention to an individual's narrative identity provides a way of respecting the autonomy of the individual with dementia in a way that is consistent with their overall life plan. (shrink)

The stance espoused in the target article confounds cultural symbolic achievements with individual cognitive competences. With no explicit role for learning, the core rationale for claiming a major functional discontinuity between humans and other species rests on a hybrid formal model LISA (Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies) now overtaken by new models of cognitive growth and new empirical studies within an embodied systems stance.

After the publication of The structure of scientific revolutions, Kuhn attempted to fend off accusations of extremism by explaining that his allegedly “relativist” theory is little more than the mundane analytical apparatus common to most historians. The appearance of radicalism is due to the novelty of applying this machinery to the history of science. This defence fails, but it provides an important clue. The claim of this paper is that Kuhn inadvertently allowed features of his procedure and experience as an (...) historian to pass over into his general account of science. Kuhn’s familiar claims, that science is directed in part by extra-scientific influences; that the history of science is divided by revolutionary breaks into periods that cannot be easily compared; that there is no ahistorical standard of rationality by which past episodes may be judged; and that science cannot be shown to be heading towards the Truth—these now appear as methodological commitments rather than historico–philosophical theses.Author Keywords: Kuhn; Koyré; Butterfield; Historicism; Revolution. (shrink)