This paper outlines an Husserlian, phenomenological account of the first stages of the acquisition of empirical knowledge in light of some aspects of Wilfrid Sellars’ critique of the myth of the given. The account offered accords with Sellars’ in the view that epistemic status is attributed to empirical episodes holistically and within a broader normative context, but disagrees that such holism and normativity are accomplished only within the linguistic and conceptual confines of the space of reasons, and rejects the limitation (...) of the relevant normativity to the cognitive domain. Attention to the phenomenological notion of motivations in our mapping of the structure and acquisition of empirical knowledge reveals a form of weak categoriality given in experience, one outside exclusive mediation by language and concepts but also not merely causal. Section 1 outlines some basic aspects of Sellars’ account of empirical knowledge in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, including a regress objection that arises due to his claim that empirical knowledge presupposes knowledge of general facts about perception. Section 2 examines Sellars’ later revisiting of the objection, via his critique of Roderick Firth, in “The Lever of Archimedes,” focusing on his analysis of the “Myth of the Categorial Given” and his use of the notion of ur-concepts. Section 3 looks at Sellars’ psychological nominalism and his rejection of the explanatory primacy of experience in light of the strict dichotomy between the space of causes and the space of reasons, and shows how Firth’s account aligns with phenomenology in its advocating for an irreducible and non-inferential role for experience. It also raises an important objection to Sellars’ account concerning the categorial givenness of causality. Section 4 turns to Husserl, arguing that his conception of motivation in the Logical Investigations and Ideas II reveals a third explanatory or logical space “between” that of causes and that of reasons. Section 5 further develops this account with regard to the explanatory role of lived experience. Section 6 revisits the regress objection to Sellars from the phenomenological standpoint developed earlier in the paper, and argues that an Husserlian account of empirical knowledge offers a viable alternative to Sellars’ that overcomes the regress objection and gives proper explanatory weight to the evidence of lived experience vis-à-vis scientific presuppositions about causality. (shrink)

According to Rosenthal's higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, one is in a conscious mental state if and only if one is aware of oneself as being in that state via a suitable HOT. Several critics have argued that the possibility of so-called targetless HOTs—that is, HOTs that represent one as being in a state that does not exist—undermines the theory. Recently, Wilberg (2010) has argued that HOT theory can offer a straightforward account of such cases: since consciousness is a (...) property of mental state tokens, and since there are no states to exhibit consciousness, one is not in conscious states in virtue of targetless HOTs. In this paper, I argue that Wilberg's account is problematic and that Rosenthal's version of HOT theory, according to which a suitable HOT is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness, is to be preferred to Wilberg's account. I then argue that Rosenthal's account can comfortably accommodate targetless HOTs because consciousness is best understood as a property of individuals, not a property of states. (shrink)

Evidence hierarchies are widely used to assess evidence in systematic reviews of medical studies. I give several arguments against the use of evidence hierarchies. The problems with evidence hierarchies are numerous, and include methodological shortcomings, philosophical problems, and formal constraints. I argue that medical science should not employ evidence hierarchies, including even the latest and most-sophisticated of such hierarchies.

James Ladyman has recently proposed a view according to which all that exists on the level of microphysics are structures "all the way down". By means of a comparative reading of structuralism in philosophy of mathematics as proposed by Stewart Shapiro, I shall present what I believe structures could not be. I shall argue that, if Ladyman is indeed proposing something as strong as suggested here, then he is committed to solving problems that proponents of structuralism in philosophy of mathematics (...) such as Shapiro are trying to solve. Attempting to do so, however, brings out a tacit tension in Ladyman's position. I shall argue that the upshot of this is that the ontological import that Ladyman attributes to structures is rather epistemological import properly understood. (shrink)

Enhanced indispensability arguments claim that Scientific Realists are committed to the existence of mathematical entities due to their reliance on Inference to the best explanation. Our central question concerns this purported parity of reasoning: do people who defend the EIA make an appropriate use of the resources of Scientific Realism to achieve platonism? We argue that just because a variety of different inferential strategies can be employed by Scientific Realists does not mean that ontological conclusions concerning which things we should (...) be Scientific Realists about are arrived at by any inferential route which eschews causes, and nor is there any direct pressure for Scientific Realists to change their inferential methods. We suggest that in order to maintain inferential parity with Scientific Realism, proponents of EIA need to give details about how and in what way the presence of mathematical entities directly contribute to explanations. (shrink)

Drawing on the empirical premise that attention makes objects look more intense, Ned Block has argued for mental paint, a phenomenal residue that cannot be reduced to what is perceived or represented. If sound, Block's argument would undermine direct realism and representationism, two widely held views about the nature of conscious perception. We argue that Block's argument fails because the empirical premise it is based upon is false. Attending to an object alters its salience, but not its perceived intensity. We (...) also argue that salience should be equated with mental primer, a close cousin of mental paint that reintroduces difficulties for direct realism and representationism. The upshot is that direct realism and representationism are still in trouble, but not for the reason that Block thinks. (shrink)

How is what an agent ought to do related to what an agent ought to prefer that she does? More precisely, suppose we know what an agent’s preference ordering ought to be over the prospects of performing the various courses of action open to her. Can we infer from this information how she ought to act, and if so, how can we infer it? One view (which, for convenience, I will call ‘actualism’) is that an agent ought to  just (...) in case she ought to prefer the prospect of her -ing to the prospect of her not -ing. Another view (which, for convenience, I will call ‘possibilism’) is that an agent ought to  just in case she ought to prefer the prospect of some maximally specific option that involves her -ing to the prospect of any maximally specific option that does not involve her -ing (with the quantifiers appropriately restricted). After making some preliminary clarifications in part 1, I will discuss actualism and possibilism in parts 2 and 3, respectively. I will argue, in part 2, that actualism is very far from the truth. And I will argue, in part 3, that while the standard version of possibilism faces significant problems, there are much better versions of possibilism that avoid the objections to the standard view. Ultimately, however, I will argue that even the best forms of possibilism are not acceptable. Then, in part 4, I will propose what I take to be the best view, one that is neither strictly possibilist nor actualist, and that avoids the shortcomings of both these views. (shrink)

This book offers an original account of the history of liberal thought, one grounded in an institutional history of medieval pluralism and the early modern rationalizing state, and explores the deep tensions that liberal political thought rests upon.

Amalgamating evidence of different kinds for the same hypothesis into an overall confirmation is analogous, I argue, to amalgamating individuals’ preferences into a group preference. The latter faces well-known impossibility theorems, most famously “Arrow’s Theorem”. Once the analogy between amalgamating evidence and amalgamating preferences is tight, it is obvious that amalgamating evidence might face a theorem similar to Arrow’s. I prove that this is so, and end by discussing the plausibility of the axioms required for the theorem.

This paper surveys and evaluates the answers that philosophers and animal researchers have given to two questions. Do animals have thoughts? If so, are their thoughts conceptual? Along the way, special attention is paid to distinguish debates of substance from mere battles over terminology, and to isolate fruitful areas for future research.

A proposal for an objective interpretation of probability is introduced and discussed: probabilities as deriving from ranges in suitably structured initial-state spaces. Roughly, the probability of an event on a chance trial is the proportion of initial states that lead to the event in question within the space of all possible initial states associated with this type of experiment, provided that the proportion is approximately the same in any not too small subregion of the space. This I would like to (...) call the “natural-range conception” of probability. Providing a substantial alternative to frequency or propensity accounts of probability in a deterministic setting, it is closely related to the so-called “method of arbitrary functions”. It is explicated, confronted with certain problems, and some ideas how these might be overcome are sketched and discussed. (shrink)

I reply to comments by David Miguel Gray and Grant Gillett concerning my paper, ‘The Generality Constraint and the Structure of Thought’.

This paper reports on the results of an experiment conducted with experienced corporate directors. The study findings indicate that directors employ prospective rationality cognition, and they sometimes make decisions that emphasize legal defensibility at the expense of personal ethics and social responsibility. Directors recognize the ethical and social implications of their decisions, but they believe that current corporate law requires them to pursue legal courses of action that maximize shareholder value. The results suggest that additional ethics education will have little (...) influence on the decisions of many business leaders because their decisions are driven by corporate law, rather than personal ethics. (shrink)

Medical scientists employ ‘quality assessment tools’ (QATs) to measure the quality of evidence from clinical studies, especially randomized controlled trials (RCTs). These tools are designed to take into account various methodological details of clinical studies, including randomization, blinding, and other features of studies deemed relevant to minimizing bias and error. There are now dozens available. The various QATs on offer differ widely from each other, and second-order empirical studies show that QATs have low inter-rater reliability and low inter-tool reliability. This (...) is an instance of a more general problem I call the underdetermination of evidential significance. Disagreements about the strength of a particular piece of evidence can be due to different—but in principle equally good—weightings of the fine-grained methodological features which constitute QATs. (shrink)

Recent findings have provided evidence for the existence of non‐vertebrate acquired immunity. We survey these findings and propose that all living organisms must express both innate and acquired immunity. This is opposed to the paradigm that only vertebrates manifest the two forms of immune mechanism; other species are thought to use innate immunity alone. We suggest new definitions of innate and acquired immunity, based on whether immune recognition molecules are encoded in the inherited genome or are generated through somatic processes. (...) We reason that both forms of immunity are similarly ancient, and have co‐evolved in response to lifestyle, cost‐benefit tradeoffs and symbiosis versus parasitism. However, different species have evolved different immune solutions that are not necessarily genetically related, but serve a similar general function – allowing individuals to learn from their own immune experience; survival of species is contingent on the acquired immune experience of its individuals. (shrink)

Although considerable attention has been devoted to the concepts of “visible” and “invisible” victims in general medical practice, especially in relation to resource allocation, far less consideration has been devoted to these concepts in behavioral health. Distinctive features of mental health care in the United States help explain this gap. This essay explores three specific ways in which the American mental health care system protects potentially “visible” individuals at the expense of “invisible victims” and otherwise fails to meet the needs (...) of great numbers of people with serious psychiatric conditions: prioritization of the wrong patients, incentivization of excessive caution among providers, and a narrow definition of psychiatry's purview. While each of these practices has been discussed elsewhere in the literature, they are rarely considered as part of an interrelated and systemic problem. Reconceptualizing these three issues as aspects of the larger conflict between the interests of “visible” and “invisible” victims may prove a path toward reform. (shrink)

Reasons transmit. If one has a reason to attain an end, then one has a reason to effect means for that end: reasons are transmitted from end to means. I argue that the likelihood ratio (LR) is a compelling measure of reason transmission from ends to means. The LR measure is superior to other measures, can be used to construct a condition specifying precisely when reasons transmit, and satisfies intuitions regarding end-means reason transmission in a broad array of cases.

Evidence‐based medicine has become both the mantra of clinical practice and the dominant contemporary approach to patient care. Gordon Guyatt et al. first proposed applying the concept to medical education in the early 1990s, arguing for training that “de‐emphasizes intuition, unsystematic clinical experience, and pathophysiologic rationale” in favor of “examination of evidence from clinical research”; over the following twenty‐five years, nearly every medical school and residency program in the United States incorporated these methods into its training. During this same period, (...) admissions requirements and protocols have continued to rely on subjective, non‐evidence‐based ideals largely developed a century earlier. In light of the continued underrepresentation of certain demographic groups among matriculants, as well as the national controversy surrounding admissions standards at undergraduate institutions—most notably embodied in the lawsuit by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard University—the moment may be ripe for a radical reexamination of those requirements. (shrink)

Approximately one in three American adults has executed a living will or healthcare declaration stating personal preferences regarding medical treatment in the event that he or she becomes terminally ill and unable to communicate. This figure stands in striking contrast to the 90% of Americans who, when asked, express specific wishes regarding their choice of care under such circumstances. Congress attempted to increase the number of Americans with advance directives when it passed the Patient Self Determination Act in 1990, billed (...) at the time as the “Miranda Warning” of medicine, which requires hospitals and nursing homes receiving federal funds both to inform patients of their right to refuse life-sustaining care and to record all written directive in patients’ charts. (shrink)

“An original, compelling, and provocative exploration of ethical issues in our society, with thoughtful and balanced commentary. I have not seen anything like it.” —Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams Drawing upon the author’s two decades teaching medical ethics, as well as his work as a practicing psychiatrist, this profound and addictive little book offers up challenging ethical dilemmas and asks readers, What would you do? A daughter gets tested to see if she’s a match to donate a kidney to (...) her father. The test reveals that she is not the man’s biological daughter. Should the doctor tell the father? Or the daughter? A deaf couple prefers a deaf baby. Should they be allowed to use medical technology to ensure they have a child who can’t hear? Who should get custody of an embryo created through IVF when a couple divorces? Or, when you or a loved one is on life support, Who says you’re dead? In short, engaging scenarios, Dr. Appel takes on hot-button issues that many of us will confront: genetic screening, sexuality, privacy, doctor-patient confidentiality. He unpacks each hypothetical with a brief reflection drawing from science, philosophy, and history, explaining how others have approached these controversies in real-world cases. Who Says You’re Dead? is designed to defy easy answers and to stimulate thought and even debate among professionals and armchair ethicists alike. (shrink)

Derek Parfit argues that everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance would make things go best. I present a counterexample: a world in which no one's moral beliefs have any motivating force. I explain how Parfit's metaethical commitments imply that such a world is possible, and why this possibility is a problem for Parfit's project of reconciling Kantianism, contractualism, and consequentialism. I consider two of Parfit's responses to my counterexample.

Ego sum moribundus, or Heidegger's call -- I am the dead person I see in the mirror, or Lacan's subject -- Return to Descartes -- the equivocations of phenomenology -- The field of immanence -- The carnal synthesis, the chiasm -- How touching touches itself touching : the (im)possibility of the chiasm -- In contact with the untouchable : the remainder -- This is (not) my body : the remainder of incorporation -- Beyond the other -- The crisis of the (...) chiasm -- From hatred to love -- From archi-agony to resurrection -- Toward deliverance (instasy). (shrink)

This paper assesses the so-called “direct-perception” model of empathy. This model draws much of its inspiration from the Phenomenological tradition: it is offered as an account free from the assumption that most, if not all, of another’s psychological states and experiences are unobservable and that one’s understanding of another’s psychological states and experiences are based on inferential processes. Advocates of this model also reject the simulation-based approach to empathy. I first argue that most of their criticisms miss their target because (...) they are directed against the simulation-based approach to mindreading. Advocates of this model further subscribe to an expressivist conception of human behavior and assume that some of an individual’s psychological states (e.g. her goals and emotions, not her beliefs) can be directly perceived in the individual’s expressive behavior. I argue that advocates of the direct-perception model face the following dilemma: either they embrace behaviorism or else they must recognize that one could not understand another’s goal or emotion from her behavior alone without making contextual assumptions. Finally, advocates of the direct-perception model endorse the narrative competency hypothesis, according to which the ability to ascribe beliefs to another is grounded in the ability to understand narratives. I argue that this hypothesis is hard to reconcile with recent results in developmental psychology showing that preverbal human infants seem able to ascribe false beliefs to others. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the so-called Knobe-Effect constitutes an error. There is now a wealth of data confirming that people are highly prone to what has also come to be known as the ‘side-effect effect’. That is, when attributing psychological states—such as intentionality, foreknowledge, and desiring—as well as other agential features—such as causal control—people typically do so to a greater extent when the action under consideration is evaluated negatively. There are a plethora of models attempting to account for (...) this effect. We hold that the central question of interest is whether the effect represents a competence or an error in judgment. We offer a systematic argument for the claim that the burden of proof regarding this question is on the competence theorist. We sketch an account, based on the notion of the reactive attitudes, that can accommodate both the idea that these sorts of judgments are fundamentally normative and that they often constitute errors. (shrink)

This article explores problems of thoughtlessness through a critical engagement with Hannah Arendt. Thoughtlessness was more complicated for Arendt than her interpreters have acknowledged. She described it as the failure of conscience; as ideology; and as an everyday condition that sustains ideology. While the first has been widely acknowledged, the latter two have been virtually ignored. Arendt identifies the cultivation of everyday thoughtfulness as a remedy for failures of conscience, but this provides no defence against ideological and everyday thoughtlessness, which (...) can actually reinforce failures of conscience. To address them Arendt turns to storytelling. But narratives can combat and reinforce thoughtlessness. To confront thoughtlessness we need to attend to narrative production and reception. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur I call for deeper engagement between political theorists, literary critics and philosophers of literature on the roles of narrative in promoting or undermining thinking in contemporary politics. (shrink)

In this article, the author makes attempts to demonstrate that, from the educational standpoint, the relationship between philosophy and literature cannot be overlooked. Even the most remote cultures testify their transmission of moral teaching through literary accounts. In this sense, the author promotes this methodology hence argues that the axial concept structured by ethics is the concept of acknowledgment. Secondly, the author explains how the concept of acknowledgment has been present in contemporary ethical discourses and proposes which he considers fundamental (...) on the basis of a theory of knowledge which closely relates understanding and will together. He sustains that fundamental acknowledgment is that which is established by the recognition that the other is a person, a thesis which precedes the acknowledgment of the other as a legitimate interlocutor or a responsible subject. Next, the author aims his effort to explain two ways (among many other possible ones) in which literature applies to education as empathy and as paradigm. With respect to empathy, he argues that the self-recognition the reader can establish with a literary character is essential. In this sense, he considers that the empathy attainable can be only analogical, as it can only be partial. Empathy requires a point in common, which the author places in ?humanity?; thus, a certain form of equality between the empathic subject at the subject he attempts to be relate to, becomes possible. As for paradigms, the author sustains that literature is abundant in models and icons of virtue and vice and that such paradigms turn out to be essential for the ethical-moral upbringing of an individual. He takes up the concept of paradigm as analogical representation, that is, as a model-sign of man, and on these grounds, he reassumes some theses which have become recurrent in contemporary moral philosophy, as is the case with Max Scheler, Karol Wojtyla, Luis Pareyson, and Fernando Salmerón, among others. The author argues that the reader can recognize himself in the character; the later can then exert an aspirational force, which allows a connection to be established, by which the reader tries to approach the paradigm. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 56, Issue 3-4, pp 292 - 319 With William of Ockham and John Buridan, Walter Burley is often listed as one of the most significant logicians of the medieval period. Nevertheless, Burley’s contributions to medieval logic have received notably less attention than those of either Ockham or Buridan. To help rectify this situation, the author here provides a comprehensive examination of Burley’s account of consequences, first recounting Burley’s enumeration, organization, and division of consequences, with particular attention to (...) the shift from natural and accidental to formal and material consequence, and then locating Burley’s contribution to the theory of consequences in the context of fourteenth-century work on the subject, detailing its relation to the earliest treatises on consequences, then to Ockham and Buridan. (shrink)

Mandik (2012)understands color-consciousness conceptualism to be the view that one deploys in a conscious qualitative state concepts for every color consciously discriminated by that state. Some argue that the experimental evidence that we can consciously discriminate barely distinct hues that are presented together but cannot do so when those hues are presented in short succession suggests that we can consciously discriminate colors that we do not conceptualize. Mandik maintains, however, that this evidence is consistent with our deploying a variety of (...) nondemonstrative concepts for those colors and so does not pose a threat to conceptualism. But even if Mandik has shown that we deploy such concepts in these experimental conditions, there are cases of conscious states that discriminate colors but do not involve concepts of those colors. Mandik’s arguments sustain only a theory in the vicinity of conceptualism: The view that we possess concepts for every color we can discriminate consciously, but need not deploy those concepts in every conscious act of color discrimination. (shrink)

Cette étude offre un panorama du scotisme des XVIe et XVIIe siècles et tente d’apprécier son influence sur la culture philosophique de l’âge classique. On analyse successivement son développement interne, au sein de la scolastique franciscaine, et son influence externe, à travers les emprunts d’arguments scotistes dans la tradition jésuite et leur présence récurrente dans les nouveaux systèmes philosophiques modernes. On s’est également efforcé de donner un maximum de références bibliographiques pour faciliter d’autres recherches.This study offers an general overview of (...) sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scotism and tries to give an account of its general influence on early-modern philosophical culture. It analyses successively its internal development within Franciscan scholasticism and its external influence, by showing the use of Scotistic arguments in the Jesuit tradition and their recurrent presence in some of the new early-modern philosophical systems. Special attention has been paid to provide an important selection of bibliographical references in order to allow further research. (shrink)

In his paper “There It Is” and his précis “There It Was,” Benj Hellie develops a sophisticated semantics for perceptual justification according to which perceptions in good cases can be explained by intentional psychology and can justify beliefs, whereas bad cases of perception are defective and so cannot justify beliefs. Importantly, Hellie also affords consciousness a central role in rationality insofar as only those good cases of perception within consciousness can play a justificatory function. In this commentary, I reserve judgment (...) regarding Hellie’s treatment of the rational difference between good and bad cases, but I argue there can be what he views as good cases of perceptual justification outside of consciousness. (shrink)

In engaging five of Plato's dialogues—Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Cratylus, Sophist, and Statesman—and by paying particular attention to Socrates' intellectual defense in the "philosophic trial" by the Stranger from Elea, Jacob Howland illuminates Plato's understanding of the proper relationship between philosophy and politics. This insightful and innovative study illustrates the Plato's understanding of the difference between sophistry and philosophy, and it identifies the innate contradictions of political philosophy that Plato observed and remain entrenched within the field to this day. This is (...) essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of political philosophy. (shrink)

Embodied simulation and the epistemic motivation to search for the of other people's behaviors are not necessary for specific and functional responding to, and hence processing of, human facial expressions. Rather, facial expression processing can be achieved through lower-cognitive, heuristical perceptual processing and expression of prototypical morphological musculature movement patterns that communicate discrete trustworthiness and capacity cues to conspecifics.

This paper is about teaching philosophy to high school students through Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate. LD, also known as “values debate,” includes topics from ethics and political philosophy. Thousands of high school students across the U.S. debate these topics in class, after school, and at weekend tournaments. We argue that LD is a particularly effective tool for teaching philosophy, but also that LD today falls short of its potential. We argue that the problems with LD are not inevitable, and we offer (...) strategic recommendations for improving LD as a tool for teaching philosophy. Ultimately, our aim is to create a dialogue between LD and academic philosophy, with the hope that such dialogue will improve LD’s capacity to teach students how to do philosophy. (shrink)

According to the universal entropy bound, the entropy (and hence information capacity) of a complete weakly self-gravitating physical system can be bounded exclusively in terms of its circumscribing radius and total gravitating energy. The bound’s correctness is supported by explicit statistical calculations of entropy, gedanken experiments involving the generalized second law, and Bousso’s covariant holographic bound. On the other hand, it is not always obvious in a particular example how the system avoids having too many states for given energy, and (...) hence violating the bound. We analyze in detail several purported counterexamples of this type, and exhibit in each case the mechanism behind the bound’s efficacy. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 9, Page 9-11, September 2012.