Perhaps the most fundamental principle of legal interpretation is the presumption that terms should be given their “ordinary” (i.e., general, non-technical) meanings. This principle is a central tenet of modern textualism. Textualists believe a universal presumption of ordinary meaning follows from their theory’s core commitment: A law should be interpreted consistently with what its text communicates to the ordinary public. This Article begins from this textualist premise, empirically examining what legal texts communicate to the public. Five original empirical studies (N (...) = 4,365) reveal a surprising finding: Ordinary people consider genre carefully and regularly take terms in law to communicate technical legal meanings, not ordinary ones. -/- This discovery carries implications for legal interpretation’s theory and practice. Modern textualists—especially at the Supreme Court—justify their theory through “democratic,” fair notice, and rule-of-law appeals to ordinary people. But the empirical studies reveal that fidelity to ordinary people does not imply an unwavering commitment to ordinary meaning. Instead, it requires interpreters to also look to technical meanings. On a practical level, the results support a new presumption of legal meaning and ground a new challenge to textualism’s claim to promote fair notice. As a case study, we consider Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which held that both sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are prohibited forms of sex discrimination. The Article’s empirics and theory offer a new justification of the Court’s landmark decision. (shrink)

In epistemology the nagging voice of the sceptic has always been present, whispering that 'You can't know that you have hands, or just about anything else, because for all you know your whole life is a dream.' Philosophers have recently devised ingenious ways to argue against and silence this voice, but Bryan Frances now presents a highly original argument template for generating new kinds of radical scepticism, ones that hold even if all the clever anti-sceptical fixes defeat the traditional (...) sceptic. Sharp, witty, and fun to read, Scepticism Comes Alive will be highly provocative for anyone interested in knowledge and its limits. (shrink)

There is a long history of using facts about disagreement to argue that many of our most precious beliefs are false in a way that can make a difference in our lives. In this essay I go over a series of such arguments, arguing that the best arguments target beliefs that meet two conditions: (i) they have been investigated and debated for a very long time by a great many very smart people who are your epistemic superiors on the matter (...) and have worked very hard under optimal circumstances to figure out if the belief is true, and (ii) as far as you know these people have not come to any significant agreement on the belief and as far as you know those who agree with you are not, as a group, in a better position to judge the belief than those who disagree with you. (shrink)

Philosophers often find themselves in disagreement with contemporary philosophers they know full well to be their epistemic superiors on the topics relevant to the disagreement. This looks epistemically irresponsible. I offer a detailed investigation of this problem of the reflective epistemic renegade. I argue that although in some cases the renegade is not epistemically blameworthy, and the renegade situation is significantly less common than most would think, in a troublesome number of cases in which the situation arises the renegade is (...) blameworthy in her disagreement with recognized epistemic superiors. I also offer some thoughts on what it would mean for philosophical practice for us to refrain from being renegades. Finally, I show how a new kind of radical skepticism emerges from modest theses regarding the renegade. (shrink)

The Lily's Tongue offers a nuanced, sustained reading of what Maughan-Brown calls the "Lily Discourses"--four discourses that Kierkegaard wrote about the instruction in the Gospel of Matthew to "consider the lilies." Kierkegaard suggests that the lilies are "authoritative" rather than merely "figural" or "metaphorical." The aim of this book is to explore what exactly Kierkegaard means by asking, How do texts speak with authority? In Maughan-Brown's reading, Kierkegaard argues that the key to a text's authority is in the act of (...) reading itself. No text can have authority unless the reader grants it that authority. That is because, paradoxically, no text can avoid or escape the use of figural language. If the lilies speak authoritatively it is precisely because they are also figural. Texts do not speak directly; their tongue is always the lily's tongue. Drawing on the work of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Derrida, The Lily's Tongue situates Kierkegaard's reading of Matthew at the intersection of theological, philosophical, political, and literary investigations of figural language. It uniquely contributes to the ongoing discussion of Kierkegaard's theory and practice of "indirect communication" by introducing four pivotal signed discourses into this debate. In so doing, Maughan-Brown reveals a groundbreaking theory of figure--one that ultimately requires a renewed reading of the major pseudonymous works. (shrink)

This is a short essay that presents what I take to be the main questions regarding the epistemology of disagreement.

If you retain your belief upon learning that a large number and percentage of your recognized epistemic superiors disagree with you, then what happens to the epistemic status of your belief? I investigate that theoretical question as well has the applied case of philosophical disagreement—especially disagreement regarding purely philosophical error theories, theories that do not have much empirical support and that reject large swaths of our most commonsensical beliefs. I argue that even if all those error theories are false, either (...) (a) the average philosopher’s true commonsensical beliefs are epistemically impoverished, or (b) a good portion of philosophy is bunk and philosophers should give up most of their error theories despite the fact that their supporting arguments are generally as good as or even better than other philosophical arguments. (shrink)

This book is published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Getty Museum from November 13, 2001, through February 6, 2002.

I’m going to argue for a set of restricted skeptical results: roughly put, we don’t know that fire engines are red, we don’t know that we sometimes have pains in our lower backs, we don’t know that John Rawls was kind, and we don’t even know that we believe any of those truths. However, people unfamiliar with philosophy and cognitive science do know all those things. The skeptical argument is traditional in form: here’s a skeptical hypothesis; you can’t epistemically neutralize (...) it, you have to be able to neutralize it to know P; so you don’t know P. But the skeptical hypotheses I plug into it are “real, live” scientific-philosophical hypotheses often thought to be actually true, unlike any of the outrageous traditional skeptical hypotheses (e.g., ‘You’re a brain in a vat’). So I call the resulting skepticism Live Skepticism. Notably, the Live Skeptic’s argument goes through even if we adopt the clever anti-skeptical fixes thought up in recent years such as reliabilism, relevant alternatives theory, contextualism, and the rejection of epistemic closure. Furthermore, the scope of Live Skepticism is bizarre: although we don’t know the simple facts noted above, many of us do know that there are black holes and other amazing facts. (shrink)

Those of us who take skepticism seriously typically have two relevant beliefs: (a) it’s plausible (even if false) that in order to know that I have hands I have to be able to epistemically neutralize, to some significant degree, some skeptical hypotheses, such as the brain-in-a-vat (BIV) one; and (b) it’s also plausible (even if false) that I can’t so neutralize those hypotheses. There is no reason for us to also think (c) that the BIV hypothesis, for instance, is plausible (...) or probably true. In order to take skepticism seriously it’s sufficient to hold (a) and (b); one need not hold (c). Indeed, philosophers who accept (a) and (b) never endorse (c). Show me a philosopher who suspects that he is a brain in a vat and I’ll show you someone who is deranged! That’s one thing that bothers undergraduates in philosophy. They object: why on earth do some philosophers take the BIV hypothesis to pose any threat at all to our beliefs given that those very same philosophers think that there’s no real chance that the BIV hypothesis is true? Sure, the BIV hypothesis is formally inconsistent with my belief that I have hands, so if the former is true then my belief is false. But so what? Why should that bare inconsistency matter so much? Is this strange attitude amongst philosophers the result of some logic fetish infecting the philosophical community? It is sometimes said that the skeptical hypotheses are not only inconsistent with our beliefs but are explanatory of our experiences, which is supposed to make them more of a threat. But students aren’t fooled: although the skeptical hypotheses may attempt to explain why our experience is as it is, it’s the kind of attempt appropriate for science fiction movies that are all special effects and virtually no plot. No one with any sense of reality will take the evil demon hypothesis to be even tenuously explanatory. (shrink)

Representationalism, in its most widely accepted form, is the view that the human mind is an information-using system, and that human cognitive capacities are to be understood as representational capacities. This chapter distinguishes several distinct theses that go by the name "representationalism," focusing on the view that is most prevalent in cogntive science. It also discusses some objections to the view and attempts to clarify the role that representational content plays in cognitive models that make use of the notion of (...) representation. (shrink)

Many theorists have contended that since the mind depends on the brain, the contents of our thoughts are determined by just the intrinsic physical properties of our bodies. In the first part of my dissertation I examine this theory's negation, anti-individualism, by investigating the "Twin-Earth" thought experiments of Putnam and Burge. Although anti-individualism has recently become widely accepted, I argue that none of the arguments given thus far are sound; nor has the theory been given a proper formulation. I also (...) argue that no one has articulated an interesting and true version of externalism, the related idea that if one is thinking, for example, that water is wet, then one's environment has certain empirical features . However, I then proceed to present a true version of externalism and a sound argument for a version of anti-individualism. ;In the past few years many theorists have argued that the Twin-Earth arguments, if they prove anything, have stunning implications: they refute physicalism, scepticism, authoritative self-knowledge, and the causal construal of psychological explanation; and they show that the contents of our thoughts that are appealed to in ordinary psychological explanation are not the contents captured by the sentences we use in those explanations. I attempt to refute all these arguments. ;In the second part of the dissertation I argue against the thesis that thought and action tokens exist and are, at bottom, physical entities. Roughly put, one of the main premises of the main argument is that if an action token has a physical makeup then there cannot be radically incompatible but equally plausible proposals regarding what that makeup is; but since there are such proposals, the tokens have no physical makeup. I then formulate a naturalist but nonphysicalist view of mental tokens. (shrink)

Suppose you know that someone is your epistemic peer regarding some topic. You admit that you cannot think of any relevant epistemic advantage you have over her when it comes to that topic; you admit that she is just as likely as you to get P's truth-value right. Alternatively, you might know that she is your epistemic superior regarding the topic. And then after learning this about her you find out that she disagrees with you about P. In those situations (...) it appears that the confidence with which one holds one's belief should be significantly reduced. My primary goal in this essay is to present and reflect upon a set of cases of disagreement that have not been discussed in the literature but are vital to consider. I argue that in the new cases one is reasonable in not lowering one?s confidence in the belief. Then I articulate and defend an ambitious principle, the Disagreement Principle, meant to answer the question 'Under what conditions am I epistemically blameworthy in retaining my belief with the same level of confidence after I have discovered recognized peers or superiors who disagree with me?'. (shrink)

For years philosophers argued for the existence of distinct yet materially coincident things by appealing to modal and temporal properties. For instance, the statue was made on Monday and could not survive being flattened; the lump of clay was made months before and can survive flattening. Such arguments have been thoroughly examined. Kit Fine has proposed a new set of arguments using the same template. I offer a critical evaluation of what I take to be his central lines of reasoning.

This paper compares two theories of the firm used to interpret firms’ corporate social strategies in order to derive new insights and questions in this research area. Researchers from many branches of strategic management agree that firms can strategically allocate resources in order to achieve both long-term social objectives and competitive advantage. However, despite some progress in investigating corporate social strategy, studies rely on fundamentally diverging theoretical approaches. This paper will identify, compare and begin to integrate two competing theories of (...) the firm implicit in corporate social strategy scholarship: the resource-based and behavioural theories of the firm. I discuss the implications of these two theories for both researchers and practitioners on key debates within corporate social strategy, and conclude by suggesting several fruitful avenues for future research based on the emerging integration of these two theories of the firm within the strategy literature. (shrink)

In this article I offer a three-pronged defense of Millian theories, all of which share the rough idea that all there is to a proper name is its referent, so it has no additional sense. I first give what I believe to be the first correct analysis of Kripke’s puzzle and its anti-Fregean lessons. The main lesson is that the Fregean’s arguments against Millianism and for the existence of semantically relevant senses (that is, individuative elements of propositions or belief contents (...) that are sensitive to our varying personal conceptions of the referents of those elements) are viciously circular. Thus, the Fregean must give new arguments for her central claims. Second, I offer an original, positive argument for the Millian idea that the thoughts that Cicero was bald and that Tully was bald are identical. Incredibly, the argument appeals to nothing but highly intuitive, pre-theoretical principles regarding folk psychological usage—traditionally the source of Fregean intuitions. Third, I examine one of the most important recent papers on Kripke’s puzzle, that by David Sosa (1996). Sosa claims to have found a way to turn the tables on Kripke’s puzzle by using it to argue against Millian theories. I argue that Sosa’s argument on behalf of the Fregean is question-begging. I conclude that Millian theories can be seriously defended without any use of theoretical constructs such as guises or Russellian propositions, and Fregeans need to start over arguing for their theory’s central claims. (shrink)

Hunger continues to be one of humanity's greatest challenges despite the existence of a more-than-adequate global food supply equal to 2,800 kilocalories for every person every day. In measuring progress, policy-makers and concerned citizens across the globe rely on information supplied by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an agency of the United Nations. In 2010 the FAO reported that in the wake of the 2007–2008 food-price spikes and global economic crisis, the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide since 2005–2007 (...) had increased by 150 million, rising above 1 billion in 2009. However, in itsState of Food Insecurity in the World 2012(SOFI 12) the FAO presented new estimates, having revamped its methods and reinterpreted its hunger data back to 1990. The revised numbers for the period 1990–1992 to 2010–2012 reverse the trend to a steadily falling one. Based on the FAO's new calculations, extreme undernourishment peaked in 1990 at a record-breaking one billion, followed by a significant decline through 2006, when progress stalled but did not reverse (see chart below). (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect and the Principle of Do No Harm raise important theoretical and practical issues, some of which are discussed by Boyle, Donagan, and Quinn. I argue that neither principle is correct, and some revisionist, and probably nonabsolutist, analysis of constraints on action and omission is necessary. In making these points, I examine several approaches to deflection of threat cases, discuss an argument for the permissibility of voluntary euthanasia, and present arguments relevant to medical contexts which justify (...) intentionally hanning some to aid others, with and without the consent of those harmed. Keywords: consent, double effect, euthanasia, harming, organ transplantation, scarce resources, trolley problem CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches have been thought to exhaust the possibilities for doing cognitive neuroscience. We argue that neither approach is likely to succeed in providing a theory that enables us to understand how cognition is achieved in biological creatures like ourselves. We consider a promising third way of doing cognitive neuroscience, what might be called the “neural dynamic systems” approach, that construes cognitive neuroscience as an autonomous explanatory endeavor, aiming to characterize in its own terms the states and (...) processes responsible for brain-based cognition. We sketch the basic motivation for the approach, describe a particular version of the approach, so-called ‘Dynamic Causal Modeling’ (DCM), and consider a concrete example of DCM. This third way, we argue, has the potential to avoid the problems that afflict the other two approaches. (shrink)

Content externalism is the dominant view in the philosophy of mind. Content essentialism, the thesis that thought tokens have their contents essentially, is also popular. And many externalists are supporters of such essentialism. However, endorsing the conjunction of those views either (i) commits one to a counterintuitive view of the underlying physical nature of thought tokens or (ii) commits one to a slightly different but still counterintuitive view of the relation of thought tokens to physical tokens as well as a (...) rejection of realist physicalism. In this essay I reveal the problem and articulate and adjudicate among the possible solutions. I will end up rejecting content essentialism. (shrink)

The movement repertoire that develops in the first year of life is a language in itself and conveys desires, intentions, and emotions. This early life in motion serves as the roots of ongoing nonverbal interaction and later verbal expression – in short, this language remains a key element in communication throughout life. In their path-breaking book, gestalt therapist Ruella Frank and psychoanalyst Frances La Barre give readers the tools to see and understand the logic of this nonverbal realm. They (...) demonstrate how observations of fundamental movement interactions between babies and parents cue us to coconstructed experiences that underlie psychological development. Numerous clinical vignettes and detailed case studies show how movement observation opens the door to understanding problems that develop in infancy and also those that appear in the continuing nonverbal dimension of adult communication. Their user-friendly nonverbal lexicon – foundational movement analysis – enhances perception of emerging interactive patterns of parents and their babies, couples, and individual adults within psychotherapy. Clinicians in any setting will find this book to be a masterful application of infant research and movement theory that significantly augments clinical acumen and promotes greater understanding of the nonverbal basis of all relationships. (shrink)

A common kind of explanation in cognitive neuroscience might be called functiontheoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function constitutes (in the system’s normal environment) the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called ‘new mechanist’ approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals (...) the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms fails to be explanatory. I argue that a functiontheoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, I argue that even those entities that in their own right and for their own sake give us reason not to destroy them and to help them are sometimes substitutable for the good of other entities. In so arguing, I consider the idea of being valuable as an end in virtue of intrinsic and extrinsic properties. I also conclude that entities that have claims to things and against others are especially nonsubstitutable. In the (...) second part, I argue that cloning poses no threat to the nonsubstitutability of these entities (and in this sense, to the dignity of persons). I also consider the relation between cloning and (what I called) holistic identity, and between the latter and genetic identity. In the concluding part of the article, I try to distinguish cases where identity over time and so-called person-affecting acts have and do not have greater moral significance than nonidentity over time and nonperson-affecting acts. I try to apply my results to cases involving embryos, future generations, and to the so-called Non-Identity Problem. (shrink)

In this essay I try to motivate and formulate the main epistemological questions to ask about the phenomenon of religious disagreement. I will not spend much time going over proposed answers to those questions. I address the relevance of the recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement. I start with some fiction and then, hopefully, proceed with something that has at least a passing acquaintance with truth.

This book focuses on group behaviour in developing countries. It includes studies of producer and community organizations, NGOs, and some public sector groups. Despite the fact that most economic decisions are taken by people acting within groups -- families, firms, neighbourhood or community associations, and networks of producers -- the analysis of group functioning has not received enough attention, particularly among economists. Some groups function well, from the perspectives of equity, efficiency, and well-being, while others do not. This book explores (...) why. It covers groups that perform three types of function: overcoming market failures ; improving the position of their members, and distributing resources to the less well-off. It contrasts three modes of group behaviour: power and control; cooperation; and the use of material incentives. It explores what determines modes of behaviour of groups, and the consequences for efficiency, equity, and well-being. The book includes eleven case studies by different authors, including producers' associations in Brazil, farmers' organizations in Korea and Taiwan, community forestry groups in South Asia, organizations of sex-workers in Calcutta, and health NGOs in Uganda. Claims groups tended to be the most cooperative, cooperation fostering empowerment and self-esteem. Distributive or pro bono groups mostly operated according to power and control, while market failure groups often combined all three modes.The studies show the strong impact of norms in society as a whole on group behaviour. The recent shift towards a stronger role for market incentives has exerted powerful pressures on groups to use more material incentives, undermining the cooperation essential to sustain efficiency and equity. The universal presumption in favour of monetary incentives needs to be abandoned. Non-market behaviour needs to be valued and protected as well. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), the influential German philosopher, believed that human history was advancing spiritually and morally according to God’s purpose. At the beginning of this masterwork, Hegel writes: “What the history of Philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds, a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of Reason, have penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into the Being of God, and have won for us by their labours the (...) highest treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge.” In his introduction to this Bison Book edition, Frederick C. Beiser notes the complex and controversial history of Hegel’s text. He makes a case that this English-language translation by E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson is still the most reliable one. (shrink)