Mark Schroeder has argued that all reasonable forms of inconsistency of attitude consist of having the same attitude type towards a pair of inconsistent contents (A-type inconsistency). We suggest that he is mistaken in this, offering a number of intuitive examples of pairs of distinct attitudes types with consistent contents which are intuitively inconsistent (B-type inconsistency). We further argue that, despite the virtues of Schroeder's elegant A-type expressivist semantics, B-type inconsistency is in many ways the more natural choice in developing (...) an expressivist account of moral discourse. We close by showing how to adapt ordinary formality-based accounts of logicality to define a B-type account of logical inconsistency and distinguish it from both semantic and pragmatic inconsistency. In sum, we provide a roadmap of how to develop a successful B-type expressivism. (shrink)

This paper discusses varieties of normative phenomena, ranging from morality, to epistemic justification, to the rules of chess. It canvases a number of distinctions among these different normative phenomena. The most significant distinction is between formal and authoritative normativity. The prior is the normativity exhibited by any standard one can meet or fail to meet. The latter is the sort of normativity associated with phenomena like the "all-things-considered" ought. The paper ends with a brief discussion of reasons for skepticism about (...) authoritative normativity. (shrink)

In earlier work, I predicted that we would probably not be able to determine the colors of the dinosaurs. I lost this epistemic bet against science in dramatic fashion when scientists discovered that it is possible to draw inferences about dinosaur coloration based on the microstructure of fossil feathers (Vinther et al., 2008). This paper is an exercise in philosophical error analysis. I examine this episode with two questions in mind. First, does this case lend any support to epistemic optimism (...) about historical science? Second, under what conditions is it rational to make predictions about what questions scientists will or will not be able answer? In reply to the first question, I argue that the recent work on the colors of the dinosaurs matters less to the debate about the epistemology of historical science than it might seem. In reply to the second question, I argue that it is difficult to specify a policy that would rule out the failed bet without also being too conservative. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have offered quasi-perceptual theories of desire, according to which to desire something is roughly to “see” it as having value or providing reasons. These are offered as alternatives to the more traditional Humean Theory of Motivation, which denies that desires have a representational aspect. This paper examines the various considerations offered by advocates to motivate quasi-perceptualism. It argues that Humeanism is in fact able to explain the same data that the quasi-perceptualist can explain, and in one (...) case the Humean explanation is superior. Quasi-perceptual accounts of desire, the paper concludes, are for the most part unmotivated. (shrink)

The proponents of late modern war like to argue that it has become surgical, sensitive and scrupulous, and remotely operated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or ‘drones’ have become diagnostic instruments in contemporary debates over the conjunction of virtual and ‘virtuous’ war. Advocates for the use of Predators and Reapers in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns have emphasized their crucial role in providing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, in strengthening the legal armature of targeting, and in conducting precision-strikes. Critics claim that their use reduces (...) late modern war to a video game in which killing becomes casual. Most discussion has focused on the covert campaign waged by CIA-operated drones in Pakistan, but it is also vitally important to interrogate the role of United States Air Force-operated drones in Afghanistan. In doing so, it becomes possible to see that the problem there may not be remoteness and detachment but, rather, the sense of proximity to ground troops inculcated by the video feeds from the aerial platforms. (shrink)

Biological processes are often explained by identifying the underlying mechanisms that generate a phenomenon of interest. I characterize a basic account of mechanistic explanation and then present three challenges to this account, illustrated with examples from molecular biology. The basic mechanistic account is insufficient for explaining nonsequential and nonlinear dynamic processes, is insufficient for explaining the inherently stochastic nature of many biological mechanisms, and fails to give a proper framework for analyzing organization. I suggest that biological processes are best approached (...) as a multidimensional gradient—with some processes being paradigmatic cases of mechanisms and some being marginal cases. (shrink)

Joseph Raz and Sergio Tenenbaum argue that the Guise of the Good thesis explains both the possibility of practical reason and its unity with theoretical reason, something Humean psychological theories may be unable to do. This paper will argue, however, that Raz and Tenenbaum face a dilemma: either the version of the Guise of the Good they offer is too strong to allow for weakness of will, or it will lose its theoretical advantage in preserving the unity of reason.

The virtues have been a neglected aspect of morality; only recently has reference been made to their place in professional ethics. Unfashionable as Florence Nightingale is, it is nonetheless worth noting that she was instrumental in continuing the Aristotelian tradition of being concerned with the moral character of persons. Nurses who came under Nightingale’s sphere of influence were expected to develop certain exemplary habits of behaviour. A corollary can be drawn with the current UK professional body: nurses are expected to (...) behave in certain ways and to display particular kinds of disposition. The difference lies in the fact that, while Nightingale was clear about the need for moral education, current emphasis is placed on ethical theory and ethical decision-making. (shrink)

The question "What is mental illness?" raises many issues in many contexts, personal, social, legal, and scientific. This chapter reviews mental health problems as they appear to the person with the problems, and to family and friends-before the person attends the clinic and is given a diagnosis-a time in which whether there really is a problem, as opposed to life's normal troubles and variations, is undecided, as also the nature of the problem, if such it be, and the related matter (...) what kind of expert advice should be sought. Once at the clinic, a diagnosis may be given-using criteria well-worked-out in the diagnostic manuals. The chapter discusses the conceptualizations of mental disorder in the diagnostic manuals, their rationale, and what can and cannot be reasonably expected of them. There are more position statements than definitions, and while they signal many dilemmas, they do not resolve them. Attempts to do so in the surrounding literature on the concept of mental illness are reviewed in the chapter, with conclusions favoring the features emphasized in the diagnostic manuals: distress and impairment. Finally the chapter considers how far the science may help draw boundaries around mental illness. (shrink)

Francois Recanati’s Mental Files presents a picture of the mind on which mental representations are indexical and transparent. I dispute this picture: there is no clear case for regarding mental representations as indexical, and there are counterexamples to transparency.

It has recently been alleged that expressivism cannot account for the obvious fact that normative sentences and their negations express inconsistent kinds of attitudes. I explain how the expressivist can respond to this objection. I offer an account of attitudinal inconsistency that takes it to be a combination of descriptive and normative relations. The account I offer to explain these relations relies on a combination of functionalism about normative judgments and expressivism about the norms governing them. It holds that the (...) inconsistency of normative judgments is primitive. One potential problem for this view is that the large number of normative primitives that the expressivist will allegedly need to accept will render the view grossly unparsimonious. In defending this thesis, I suggest that it is a mistake to hold the lack of normative parsimony of expressivism against its core psychological claims. (shrink)

Loosely put, colour constancy for example occurs when you experience a partly shadowed wall to be uniformly coloured, or experience your favourite shirt to be the same colour both with and without sunglasses on. Controversy ensues when one seeks to interpret ‘experience’ in these contexts, for evidence of a constant colour may be indicative a constant colour in the objective world, a judgement that a constant colour would be present were things thus and so, et cetera. My primary aim is (...) to articulate a viable conception of Present Constancy, of what occurs when a constant colour is present in experience, despite the additional presence of some experienced colour variation (e.g., correlating to a change in illumination). My proposed conception involves experienced colour layering – experiencing one opaque colour through another transparent one – and in particular requires one of those experienced layers to remain constant while the other changes. The aim is not to propose this layering conception of colour constancy as the correct interpretation of all constancy cases, but rather to develop the conception enough to demonstrate how it could and plausibly should be applied to various cases, and the virtues it has over rivals. Its virtues include a seamless application to constancy cases involving variations in filters (e.g., sunglasses) and illuminants; its ability to accommodate experiences of partial colours and error-free interpretations of difficult cases; and its broad theoretical-neutrality, allowing it to be incorporated into numerous perceptual epistemologies and ontologies. If layered constancy is prevalent, as I suspect it is, then our experiential access to colours is critically nuanced: we have been plunged into a world of colour without being told that we will rarely, if ever, look to a location and experience just one of them. (shrink)

Read in isolation, H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is seen to render a settled verdict against the sectarian anticultural type and in favour of the transformative type. But this ignores the interrelated dialectics of movement and institution, withdrawal and identification, accommodation and transformation characteristic of his critical project. It further occludes Niebuhr's variegated treatment and deployment of `the monastic' within his larger corpus, and especially in the lesser-known texts such as The Church Against the World. This essay reconsiders Christ (...) and Culture within this broader critical and textual context. It revisits the question posed in `Back to Benedict?': `It is worthwhile raising the question, therefore, whether Protestantism can and ought to continue to reject the monastic ideal out of hand'. It retrieves the full valence of hermetic, cenobitic, and mendicant forms of asceticism conflated by Niebuhr's equivocal designation of `monasticism'. In so doing, it argues for a mendicant cultural ethic which can account for the full dialectical range of Niebuhr's sectarian and transformative types within the sectarian type itself. (shrink)

First-person authority, self-regulation and the problem of confabulation In this paper we discuss the implications of confabulation studies for the everyday concept of first-person authority. We argue that the results of these studies are less problematic than they are often taken to be if we understand first-person authority in terms of a capacity for self-regulation. We discuss an example of clinical confabuluation to illustrate when confabulation does become a threat to first-person authority.

This paper argues that, with certain provisos, predicting one's future actions is incompatible with rationally deliberating about whether to perform those actions. It follows that fully rational omniscient agents are impossible, since an omniscient being could never rationally deliberate about what to do . Consequently, theories that explain practical reasons in terms of the choices of a perfectly rational omniscient agent must fail. The paper considers several ways of defending the possibility of an omniscient agent, and concludes that while some (...) of these may work, they are inconsistent with the aim of explaining practical normativity by appeal to such an agent. (shrink)

The discovery of traces of a blood meal in the abdomen of a 50‐million‐year‐old mosquito reminds us of the insights that the chemistry of fossils can provide. Ancient DNA is the best known fossil molecule. It is less well known that new fossil targets and a growing database of ancient gene sequences are paralleled by discoveries on other classes of organic molecules. New analytical tools, such as the synchrotron, reveal traces of the original composition of arthropod cuticles that are more (...) than 400 my old. Pigments such as melanin are readily fossilized, surviving virtually unaltered for ∼200 my. Other biomarkers provide evidence of microbial processes in ancient sediments, and have been used to reveal the presence of demosponges, for example, more than 635 mya, long before their spicules appear in the fossil record. Ancient biomolecules are a powerful complement to fossil remains in revealing the history of life. (shrink)

I am going to assume, in what follows, that when we engage with a fiction we are participating in a game of make-believe; that is, that we are engaging in an imaginative effort. In this paper I shall attempt to identify the kind of game we are playing. I begin with two words of caution. First, identifying the kind of game will be a matter of finding a game whose structure best reflects the facts about our engagement with fiction. The (...) fit, however, will not be exact. In a game of mud pies, the fact that the cardboard box holds a maximum of six globs of mud may make it true in the game that the oven holds a maximum of six pies, but the fact that the box has "Fyffes bananas" written on the side of it will probably not make it true in the game that the oven has the same. Second the variety of works of fiction makes it unwise to assume that one kind of game will cover all cases. These two provisos might be thought to vitiate my project before it begins. In the face of an objection to my first proviso, namely, that the kind of make-believe I maintain we play with fiction does not mirror the facts of our relations with fiction, I can reply that the structure is not isomorphic in that particular respect. In reply to the claim that in some particular instance we do not play the game of make-believe that I suggest we do, I can simply agree and count it as one of the many exceptions to the rule. (shrink)

The distinction between idiographic science, which aims to reconstruct sequences of particular events, and nomothetic science, which aims to discover laws and regularities, is crucial for understanding the paleobiological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Stephen Jay Gould at times seemed conflicted about whether to say (a) that idiographic science is fine as it is or (b) that paleontology would have more credibility if it were more nomothetic. Ironically, one of the lasting results of the paleobiological revolution was a new (...) way of doing historical science that defies categorization as idiographic or nomothetic. Yet the tension between (a) and (b) persists in some recent work in the philosophy of science, with Carol Cleland defending a version of (a) and Dan McShea and Robert Brandon defending a version of (b). In placing Cleland's work into conversation with that of McShea and Brandon, this paper defends a third (c) synthetic approach that emphasizes the blending of idiographic and nomothetic work. (shrink)

It is shown that (a) the conscious observer plays no essential part in the measurement process, and (b) environmental perturbations of whatever kind fail to account for the evolution of systems into “mixtures” or “dynamically decoupled” systems.

Allan Gibbard () argues that the term ‘meaning’ expresses a normative concept, primarily on the basis of arguments that parallel Moore's famous Open Question Argument. In this paper I argue that Gibbard's evidence for normativity rests on idiosyncrasies of the Open Question Argument, and that when we use related thought experiments designed to bring out unusual semantic intuitions associated with normative terms we fail to find such evidence. These thought experiments, moreover, strongly suggest there are basic requirements for a theory (...) of meaning incompatible with Gibbard's ultimate goal of providing an expressivist account of meaning-related concepts. I conclude by considering a possible way in which meaning could be normative, consistent with the intuitions about disagreement; but this form of normativism about meaning appears incompatible with Gibbard's expressivism. (shrink)

An account of the challenges and potential in thinking about and with animals. Provides a discussion of theoretical approaches to animals in modern and contemporary philosophy. Offers a guide to concepts in animal theory. Intervenes in current debates by engaging with theoretical issues and suggesting new ways to consider human-animal relations.

In this paper I challenge the currently fashionable view that we should assess the basic premises of an argument for acceptability rather than for truth, and argue in favour of recognizing premise-truth as a criterion of argument goodness in one important sense and premise-acceptability as a criterion of argument goodness in another important sense.

Air is an immersive substance that envelopes us and binds us together, yet it has dominantly been taken for granted and left out of educational and other theorizations. This article develops a conceptualization of the pneumatic common in order to address this gap. The specific intervention staged is within recent educational literature on the common by Noah De Lissovoy, Tyson E. Lewis, and Alexander Means. This literature is surveyed and analyzed in relation to educational theory, curriculum, pedagogy, and policy. Claiming (...) that the air is a central feature of and paradigm for the common, I then concentrate on making the air conditions of the educational common explicit. I do this through a theoretical, historical, and sociological reading of air conditioning. While this explicitation is itself educational, I return to the educational common at the end of the article to ask how and what we can learn in, with, and from the air. (shrink)

This survey article looks at various arousal theories which aim to illuminate the connection between music and the emotions.

In this article I bring Giorgio Agamben’s notion of ‘whatever singularity’ into critical pedagogy. I take as my starting point the role of identity within critical pedagogy. I call upon Butler to sketch the debates around the mobilization of identity for political purposes and, conceding the contingent necessity of identity, then suggest that whatever singularity can be helpful in moving critical pedagogy from an emancipatory to a liberatory project. To articulate whatever singularity I situate the concept within the work in (...) which it appears, and then take a detour into Agamben’s general philosophical project. I propose that, for critical pedagogy to take whatever singularity seriously, it must uphold a respect for the ineffability of being, which entails in part the suspension of dialogue. To help flesh out what I mean by this proposal, I turn to a fragment of Lyotard’s philosophy and his critique of democracy. I conclude by addressing a pressing ontological critique of Agamben, which leads me to argue for a materialist appropriation of the figure of whatever singularity, one that is held in tension with ontological concerns of identity. (shrink)

Presents actual cases of brain bisection; how we might be able to divide and reunite our minds; what explains the unity of consciousness at any time; the imagined case of full division, in which each half of our brain would be successfully transplanted into the empty skull of another body; why neither of the resulting people would be us; why this would not matter, since our relation to each of these people contains what matters in the prudential sense, giving us (...) reasons to care about these people, which are like our reasons to care about our own future;and how it is hard to believe that personal identity, or our own continued existence, is not what matters. (shrink)

In her commentary, Kennett helpfully reiterates Pickard’s criticism of Strawsonian theories of blame. Angry forms of blame like resentment are, according to Pickard, characterized by a sense of entitlement and are counterproductive to therapy. Some disagree that entitlement is a necessary condition for emotional blame, but also more permissive understandings of Strawsonian emotional blame have been considered inappropriate and counterproductive in a therapeutic relationship and on a psychiatric ward.We proposed to bracket definitional issues about the meaning of emotional blame and (...) instead looked at the possible therapeutic role of negative affect in clinical settings. Our paper conceptualizes... (shrink)

I defend indirect perceptual realism against two recent and related charges to it offered by A. D. Smith and P. Snowdon, both stemming from demonstrative reference involving indirect perception. The needed aspects of the theory of demonstratives are not terribly new, but their connection to these objections has not been discussed. The groundwork for my solution emerges from considering normal cases of indirect perception (e.g., seeing something depicted on a television) and examining the role this indirectness plays in demonstrative assertions. (...) I argue that indirectness routinely if not typically plays a justificatory role in such judgements, and not a semantic one, and that the same can be said of such judgements when considered within the indirect realist framework. The denial of this, on my analysis, is essential to the criticisms of Snowdon and Smith. The discussion is extended to include scenarios involving the sorts of misconceptions Smith employs. (shrink)

Saul Kripke's influential ‘sceptical paradox’ of semantic rule-following alleges that speakers cannot have any justification for using a word one way rather than another. If it is correct, there can be no such thing as meaning anything by a word. I argue that the paradox fails to undermine meaning. Kripke never adequately motivates its excessively strict standard for the justified use of words. The paradox lacks the resources to show that its standard is truly mandatory or that speakers do not (...) frequently satisfy the well-motivated competitor I offer. So the paradox fails. (shrink)

Ongoing developments in evolutionary and systems biology highlight the deficiencies of reductionistic and mechanistic explanations of the "organic" world. Whitehead's ontology provides the basis for a unified theory of social organization that connects the emergence of primitive life to the development and diversification of human societies along a continuum of creative ontogeneration. The metaphysical characteristic of "creativity" is precisely the manifestation of the ontogenerative relationship between possibility and actuality. Actualization is change. While all actualization necessarily exhibits some degree of continuity (...) with the past, it is driven by the inertiac availability of specific relevant forms of possibility, through which it has access to an array of "novel" forms for actualization. This relation to novelty explains everything from the emergence ofprokaryotes on earth 3.6 billion years ago to the possibility of ideological resistance in human societies today. (shrink)

Deception presents a distinctive ethical problem for democratic politicians. This is because there seem in certain situations to be compelling democratic reasons for politicians both to deceive and not to deceive the public. Some philosophers have sought to negotiate this tension by appeal to moral principle, but such efforts may misrepresent the felt ambivalence surrounding dilemmas of public office. A different approach appeals to the moral character of politicians, and to the variety of forms of manipulative communication at their disposal. (...) The public is usually more indulgent of politicians who ‘spin’ the truth than of those who tell bare-faced lies, but this could be a mistake. Spin expresses disdain for the democratic value of truthfulness, and so democratic ‘spin-doctors’ ought to trouble us more than they typically do. The cause of confusion here may reside in the failure to appreciate the distinctiveness of public morality, and in the misguided application of private standards of behaviour to a public context in which they are out of place. (shrink)

Liberalism and ecologism are widely regarded as incompatible. Liberalism and (anthropocentric) environmentalism might be compatible but liberalism and (non-anthropocentric) ecologism are not. A liberal state cannot promote policies for ecological or ecocentric reasons. An individual cannot be both a liberal and a committed advocate of ecologism. This paper challenges these claims. It is argued that Rawls’s ‘political liberalism’ is compatible with ecologism and, in particular, the idea of ‘ecological justice’. A Rawlsian state can promote ecological justice. A committed political liberal (...) can also be a committed advocate of ecological justice. The argument is developed through a close textual examination of Rawls’s brief discussion of our duties to ‘animals and the rest of nature’. Rawls leaves far more scope for liberal ecologism than his critics have suggested. The proposed version of liberal ecologism is defended against charges of substantive and procedural bias toward humans and against nonhuman nature. Liberal ecologism may not be enough for some ecologists-especially ‘ecological constitutionalists’ seeking constitutional protection for nonhuman nature-but it is a serious and defensible political and moral theory. (shrink)

Thomas Hoccleve wrote his Regement of Princes in 1411 and addressed it to the patronage of Henry, Prince of Wales, who was to succeed to the throne as Henry V two years later, on the death of his father, Henry IV. The Regement is a book of the governance of princes, drawn from the De regimine principum of Aegidius Romanus and from other similar works including the Secreta secretorum, which purports to be a compendium of Aristotle's advice on kingship to (...) Alexander the Great. Like these works, Hoccleve's Regement lays out a series of unexceptionable moral principles that should guide a prince's behavior: the prince is exhorted, for instance, to be prudent, just, liberal, and receptive to counsel. These recommendations are supported with citations from biblical and classical authorities and a wealth of narratives exemplary of kingly and unkingly conduct. Princes were to look in such books as in a mirror, and there see displayed the image of what they should truly be. They were “Mirrors for Princes.” Princes welcomed them and on occasion commissioned them, not because they specially desired to have instruction in the business of government from clerks, nor because they would much appreciate being told things they did not wish to hear, but because it was important that they should represent themselves as receptive to sage counsel. They are not simply political public relations exercises but, equally, they are not “books of instruction.”. (shrink)