Robustness is a common platitude: hypotheses are better supported with evidence generated by multiple techniques that rely on different background assumptions. Robustness has been put to numerous epistemic tasks, including the demarcation of artifacts from real entities, countering the “experimenter’s regress,” and resolving evidential discordance. Despite the frequency of appeals to robustness, the notion itself has received scant critique. Arguments based on robustness can give incorrect conclusions. More worrying is that although robustness may be valuable in ideal evidential circumstances (i.e., (...) when evidence is concordant), often when a variety of evidence is available from multiple techniques, the evidence is discordant. †To contact the author, please write to: Jacob Stegenga, Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Thought-provoking essays on science as an integral part of the culture of our age from a leader in the scientific humanism movement. "A profoundly moving, brilliantly perceptive essay by a truly civilized man."--Scientific American.

Recent proposals for human-centered AI (HCAI) help avoid the challenging task of specifying an objective for AI systems, since HCAI is designed to learn the objectives of the humans it is trying to assist. We think the move to HCAI is an important innovation but are concerned with how an instrumental, economic model of human rational agency has dominated research into HCAI. This paper brings the philosophical debate about human rational agency into the HCAI context, showing how more substantive ways (...) to understand human objectives may improve HCAI. We contrast the economic approach with two more substantive modern alternatives: the realist and constructivist approaches to human rational agency. The realist approach holds that rational agents pursue what is good, while the constructivist approach holds that rational agents make autonomous choices. We illustrate each by considering its implications for fine-tuning large language models for chatbots such as ChatGPT. (shrink)

One of the perennial challenges of ethical theory has been to provide an answer to a number of views that appear to undermine the importance of ethical questions. We may refer to such views collectively as “deflationary ethical theories.” These include theories, such as nihilism, according to which no action is better than any other, as well as relativistic theories according to which no ethical theory is better than any other. In this article I present a new response to such (...) deflationary ethical views. Drawing a distinction between acceptance and rejection, on the one hand, and belief and disbelief, on the other, I argue that we have strong reason to reject these theories, even if we do not have reason to disbelieve them. In Section I, I clarify the question of what ethical theory we should accept, and I argue for the central importance of this question. In Section II, I discuss what I call “absolutely deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters not at all what we do or not at all what ethical theory we accept. I argue that it is generally rational to reject any theory of this kind. In Section III, I discuss what I call “relatively deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters little what we do or what ethical theory we accept. I argue that we have strong pro tanto reason to reject theories of this kind. And then, in Sections IV and V, I reply to some common objections to my arguments. Throughout, I will be arguing not that deflationary ethical theories are false but only that we should reject them from the practical point of view as a basis for guiding our actions. (shrink)

The central aims of this paper are to show how linguistic corpora have been used and can be used in philosophy and to argue that linguistic corpora and corpus analysis should be added to the philosopher’s toolkit of ways to address philosophical questions. A linguistic corpus is a curated collection of texts representing language use that can be queried to answer research questions. Among many other uses, linguistic corpora can help answer questions about the meaning of words and the structure (...) of discourse. Through a discussion of examples, the paper shows that there are many philosophical questions that can be addressed by using a linguistic corpus. However, linguistic corpora need not (and often cannot) replace traditional philosophical methods. Lastly, it argues that the special properties of linguistic corpora, including their independence and the current ease and cheapness of access, make them an indispensable resource for philosophers. (shrink)

Our world is complex—it is composed of many interacting parts—and this complexity poses a serious difficulty for theorists of social reform. On the one hand, we cannot merely work out ways of ameliorating immediate problems of injustice, because the solutions we generate may interact to set back the achievement of overall long-term justice. On the other, we cannot supplement such problem solving with theorizing about how to make progress towards a long-term goal of ideal justice, because the very interactions that (...) render problem solving unsatisfactory raise insurmountable epistemic difficulties for this latter approach. To accommodate complexity, we must therefore give up on ideal theory, and instead supplement problem solving with a new sort of theorizing that aims to work out how to make our institutional arrangements more progressive: more conducive to further improvements in general, though not necessarily to the achievement of any antecedently specified goal. More concretely, we must identify ways of improving our capacity to flexibly experiment with many promising solutions to problems as they arise, to select for those solutions that prove successful while eliminating those that do not, and to learn from both our successes and our inevitable failures. (shrink)

Science and technology are so intertwined that technoscience has been argued to more accurately reflect the progress of science and its impact on society, and most socioscientific issues require technoscientific reasoning. Education policy documents have long noted that the general public lacks sufficient understanding of science and technology necessary for informed decision-making regarding socioscientific/technological issues. The science–technology–society movement and scholarship addressing socioscientific issues in science education reflect efforts in the science education community to promote more informed decision-making regarding such issues. (...) Now Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics education has emerged as a major reform movement impacting science education. STEM education efforts emphasize literacy across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but with rare exceptions, treat issues of technology superficially and uncritically. Informed decision-making regarding many personal and societal issues requires technological literacy beyond merely becoming an enthusiastic designer or skilled user of technology, but the science education community has given little attention to what such literacy entails. Here, we present results of an extensive review of the literature regarding the nature of technology in order to identify key issues among scholars who study technology. We then provide predominant perspectives among those scholars and suggest which identified NOT issues are most essential to address as part of STEM education efforts that seek to promote informed personal and societal decision-making. (shrink)

Over de vraag hoe geloof en verstand zich onderling verhouden, bestaat geen communis opinio; ook in het verleden is die er nooit geweest. Integendeel, de filosofiehistorie vertoont een complexe verscheidenheid van opvattingen. In dit artikel heb ik deze geordend in een beperkt aantal grondschema’s of grondmodellen. Ik breng zeven van die grondmodellen ter sprake, en duid ze kortweg aan met de termen identificatie, conflict, subordinatie, complementariteit, fundering, authenticiteit en transformatie. Mijn analyse laat zien hoe deze modellen, eenmaal present op het (...) publieke forum, zich blijvend doen gelden, tot op de dag van vandaag. Hun sterke en zwakke kanten dagen ons uit tot een eigen standpuntbepaling in het debat over religie en rede. (shrink)

This article begins with a review of studies in perception and depth psychology concerning the experience of exposure to sacred artworks in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox contexts. This follows with the results of a qualitative inquiry involving 45 Roman Catholic, Eastern and Coptic Orthodox, and Protestant Christians in Canada. First, participants composed narratives detailing memories of spiritual experiences involving iconography. Then, in the context of a darkened room evocative of a sacred space, they viewed artworks depicting Biblical themes and (...) interpreted their meanings. Stimuli included “Western” paintings from the Roman tradition—a selection from the Gothic, Northern Renaissance, and Renaissance canon—and matched “Eastern” icons in the Byzantine style. Spiritual experience narratives were analyzed in terms of word frequencies, and interpretations of sacred artworks were analyzed thematically. Catholics tended to utilize emotional language when recalling their spiritual experiences, while religious activity was most often the concern of Protestants, and Orthodox Christians wrote most about spiritual figures and their signifiers. A taxonomy of response styles was developed to account for participants’ interpretations of Western and Eastern artworks, with content ranging from detached descriptions to projective engagement with the art-objects. Our approach allows for representation of diverse Christians’ interpretations of sacred art, taking into consideration personal, collective, and cultural-religious sources of meaning. Our paradigm also offers to enrich our understanding of the numinous or emotional dimension of mystical contact. (shrink)

Wigner's quantum-mechanical classification of particle-types in terms of irreducible representations of the Poincaré group has a classical analogue, which we extend in this paper. We study the compactness properties of the resulting phase spaces at fixed energy, and show that in order for a classical massless particle to be physically sensible, its phase space must feature a classical-particle counterpart of electromagnetic gauge invariance. By examining the connection between massless and massive particles in the massless limit, we also derive a classical-particle (...) version of the Higgs mechanism. (shrink)

The ‘expropriation of the expropriators’ is a delicious turn of phrase, one that Marx even compares to Hegel’s infamous ‘negation of the negation’. But what does it mean, and is it still relevant today? Before I analyse the content of Marx’s expression, I briefly consider contemporary legal understandings of expropriation, as well as some examples of it. In the remainder of the essay, I spell out different kinds of expropriation in Marx and focus on an ambiguity at the core of (...) the notion of ‘expropriating the expropriators’, namely, whether it describes an immanent and objective tendency within the development of the capitalist mode of production or else actively prescribes a form of revolutionary political praxis for the working class. My answer is that it does both, though not without tension. Finally, I develop some implications of these reflections by showing how the concept of expropriation can be put to use today, in struggles around housing, climate and work. (shrink)

Currently, the most popular views about how to update de se or self-locating beliefs entail the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem.2 Another widely held view is that an agent‘s credences should be countably additive.3 In what follows, I will argue that there is a deep tension between these two positions. For the assumptions that underlie the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem entail a more general principle, which I call the Generalized Thirder Principle, and there are situations (...) in which the latter principle and the principle of Countable Additivity cannot be jointly satisfied. The most plausible response to this tension, I argue, is to accept both of these principles, and to maintain that when an agent cannot satisfy them both, she is faced with a rational dilemma. (shrink)

Despite a staggering body of research demonstrating sex differences in expressed emotion, very few theoretical models (evolutionary or non-evolutionary) offer a critical examination of the adaptive nature of such differences. From the perspective of a socio-relational framework, emotive behaviors evolved to promote the attraction and aversion of different types of relationships by advertising the two most parsimonious properties ofreciprocity potential, or perceived attractiveness as a prospective social partner. These are the individual's (a)perceived capacityor ability to provide expedient resources, or to (...) inflict immediate harm onto others, and their (b)perceived trustworthinessor probability of actually reciprocating altruism (Vigil 2007). Depending on the unique social demands and relational constraints that each sex evolved, individuals should be sensitive to advertise “capacity” and “trustworthiness” cues through selective displays of dominant versus submissive and masculine versus feminine emotive behaviors, respectively. In this article, I introduce the basic theoretical assumptions and hypotheses of the framework, and show how the models provide a solid scaffold with which to begin to interpret common sex differences in the emotional development literature. I conclude by describing how the framework can be used to predict condition-based and situation-based variation in affect and other forms of expressive behaviors. (shrink)

What theory should we accept from the practical point of view, or accept as a basis for guiding our actions, if we don’t know which theory is true, and if there are too many plausible alternative theories for us to take them all into consideration? This question is the theme of the first three parts of this dissertation. I argue that the problem of theory acceptance, so understood, is a problem of practical rationality, and hence that the appropriate grounds for (...) theory acceptance are practical considerations. I argue for a number of principles of theory acceptance, and I explore the implications of these principles for the acceptance both of descriptive theories and evaluative theories. (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)

Three ethical conflicts in particular are paradigmatic of what we define as “clerkship ethics.” First, a distinction that differentiates the clerkship student from the practicing physician involves the student’s principal role as a learner. The clerkship student must skillfully balance her commitment to her own education against her commitment to patient care in a fashion that may compromise patient care. While the practicing physician can often resolve the tension between these two goods when they come into conflict, the clerkship student (...) is left with a more ambiguous set of choices. Second, evaluative scrutiny during clinical clerkships often forces medical students to balance doing what is morally fitting against the perceived expectations of the medical teams in which they work. Third and finally, a deeply entrenched culture of medical hierarchy presents a particular challenge to innovation and improvement in ethics education during the clerkship years. Students regard faculty as exemplars, but are not provided with the tools to assess when technical medical competence is not matched by moral competence; moreover, these faculty are unlikely to have experienced the ethics education in which students are asked to demonstrate mastery. (shrink)

ArgumentRecurring economic crises, like the one of 2007-2008, led to criticism of economic research and a demand to develop new strategies to avoid them. Standard economic theories use conventional approaches to deal with economic challenges, heterodox theories try to develop alternatives with which to face them. It remains unclear whether the 2007-2008 crisis led to a change in economic research as well as to a consideration of alternative approaches. We used co-word analysis to map the structure of economic research in (...) Germany between 2005 and 2014. Core topics within economic research, such as “market” or “production” hardly shift and can be linked to standard economic theories. Peripheral topics such as “inequality” or “unemployment” show greater dynamics. However, only a few of these topics can be linked to heterodox approaches. Certain changes have occurred in reaction to the 2007-2008 crisis. However, the unchanged importance of standard economic topics raises the question whether these changes are sufficient to face coming economic challenges. (shrink)

Le travail d’identification, de reclassement et d’enregistrement informatique des fragments de la réserve du nouveau musée de l’Acropole ainsi que l’étude de nombreux fragments déposés jusqu’ici dans des caisses en bois a permis la matérialisation d’une quarantaine de raccords, en particulier sur des statues archaïques, dont les plus significatifs sont publiés ici. Certains complètent, parfois de manière substantielle, des oeuvres connues (chien Acr. 143, cavalier Acr. 700, géant Acr. 631C). Une «nouvelle » corè (Acr. 588) a aussi été recomposée. L’article (...) illustre l’intérêt et l’utilité de l’étude systématique des fragments, même des plus modestes. (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)

After offering a definition of “conspiracy theory” and highlighting some interesting interconnections between conspiracy theories and religious worldviews, we turn to epistemologically relevant analogies. Proponents of conspiracy theories and religions have often been accused of the same biases and epistemic vices, e.g., gullibility, hypersensitive proneness to personal explanations, or overemphasis on holistic thinking. So-called Generalism is best understood as the thesis that conspiracy theories are guilty until proven innocent because they share certain “bunkum-making properties.” However, we argue for the particularist (...) position, i.e. the position that a general epistemic presumption against conspiracy theories is not tenable. Building a negative valence into the very notion of conspiracy theory is not convincing either. Given the analogies, our analysis supports similar verdicts with respect to religious worldviews: Like conspiracy theories, they should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis rather than being dismissed simply for being religious. Finally, we reject Bezazel’s view that both conspiracy theories and religious worldviews constitute a-rational frames or “bliks” that, besides other things, ground what counts as an explanation. Such a proposal squares badly with epistemic misgivings about particularly preposterous examples of conspiracy theories and religious worldviews. (shrink)

Kant's comments on animal minds have provoked radically different readings, with some contending animals have clear and distinct awareness of their world and others contending animals lack consciousness altogether. This paper argues that Kant's comments have received such divergent responses because, according to Kant, we inevitably slide into a deceptive anthropomorphism when talking about non-human minds. While Kant follows contemporaries, such as H.S. Reimarus, in arguing humans can only conceive of animal minds by analogy with their own, Kant's transcendental idealism (...) shifts the meaning of this analogy. The upshot is that animal minds, just like the mind of God, are intrinsically unimaginable for humans. We can talk about them, but it is mere talk; we cannot know what we are talking about. (shrink)

Many take the claim that you cannot ‘get’ an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ to imply that non- moral beliefs are by themselves incapable of justifying moral beliefs. I argue that this is a mistake and that the position that moral beliefs are justified exclusively by non-moral beliefs—a view that I call moral inferentialism—presents an attractive non-sceptical moral epistemology.

Over the past century, the “right to health” has been recognized by medical organizations and governments across the globe. This essay calls for recognition of a parallel “right to be sick” intended to reframe physician attitudes toward patient autonomy and the right to refuse care. Rather than seeking to discourage allopathic medicine or to question laws requiring involuntary treatment when indicated by the collective welfare, the goal is to have the medical and public health communities reconceptualize their attitudes toward individuals (...) who reject unsought guidance and care. (shrink)

This paper examines an important but neglected topic in Suárez’s metaphysics–—namely, his theory of efficient causation. According to Suárez, efficient causation is to be identified with action, one of Aristotle’s ten highest genera or categories. The paper shows how Suárez’s identification of efficient causation with action helps to shed light on his views about the precise nature of efficient causation, and its role in his ontology. More specifically, it shows that Suárez understands efficient causation to be a distinctive or sui (...) generis type of entity, and that he thinks we must adopt this view in order to account for the facts of efficient causation. The paper also examines several objections to Suárez’s account. (shrink)

"A gem of enlightenment.... One rejoices in Bronowski's dedication to the identity of acts of creativity and of imagination, whether in Blake or Yeats or Einstein or Heisenberg."--Kirkus Reviews "According to Bronowski, our account of the world is dictated by our biology: how we perceive, imagine, symbolize, etc. He proposes to explain how we receive and translate our experience of the world so that we achieve knowledge. He examines the mechanisms of our perception; the origin and nature of natural language; (...) formal systems and scientific discourse; and how science, as a systematic attempt to establish closed systems one after another, progresses by exploring its own errors and new but unforeseen connections.... A delightful look at the inquiring mind."--Library Journal "Eminently enjoyable to read, with a good story or 'bon mot' on every page."--Nature "A well-written and brilliantly presented defense of the scientific enterprise which could be especially valuable to scientists and to teachers of science at all levels."--AAAS Science Books & Films Contents 1. The Mind as an Instrument for Understanding 2. The Evolution and Power of Symbolic Language 3. Knowledge as Algorithm and as Metaphor 4. The Laws of Nature and the Nature of Laws 5. Error, Progress, and the Concept of Time 6. Law and Individual Responsibility. (shrink)

An emphasis on explanatory contribution is central to a recent formulation of the indispensability argument for mathematical realism. Because scientific realism is argued for by means of inference to the best explanation, it has been further argued that being a scientific realist entails a commitment to IA and thus to mathematical realism. It has, however, gone largely unnoticed that the way that IBE is argued to be truth conducive involves citing successful applications of IBE and tracing this success over time. (...) This in turn involves identifying those constituents of scientific theories that are responsible for their predictive success and showing that these constituents are retained across theory change in science. I argue that even if mathematics can be shown to feature in best explanations, the role of mathematics in scientific theories does not satisfy the condition that mathematics is always retained across theory change. According to a scientific realist, this condition needs to be met for making ontological claims on the basis of explanatory contribution. Thus scientific realists are not committed to mathematical realism on the basis of this recent formulation of IA. (shrink)

What makes one individual’s experience vicarious is that it is both similar to, and caused by, another’s psychological state. Vicarious responses are mediated by the observation of another’s goal-directed or expressive action. While the evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests the ubiquity of vicarious responses to others’ goals, intentions, sensations and emotions, the question is: is the general function of vicarious responses to understand another’s mind? In this paper, I argue for a dual view of the function of vicarious responses: while (...) empathetic responses are other-directed, contagious responses are self-centered. (shrink)

Desde una perspectiva histórica se intenta aportar elementos que clarifiquen la problemática sobre la mundialización y la confrontación de las culturas jurídicas. Así, por una parte, se ofrece una interrogación acerca de la manera en que se practica la teoría del derecho en el mundo anglosajón y en el continental europeo, lo cual conduce a poner en cuestión su pretensión de universalidad. Por otra parte se analiza y discute el estatus y la pertinencia de ciertas teorías del derecho, como la (...) del legal origins theory, que afirman la superioridad del common law sobre el resto de las culturas jurídicas. Se destaca además la necesidad de introducir la dimensión sociológica para la comprensión del fenómeno jurídico. (shrink)

Né en 1921, Edgar Morin est un penseur connu, mais heureusement pas toujours reconnu dans les milieux scientifiques. Sa ronflante Méthode, qui établit que les effets d’une action échappent souvent à son auteur en provoquant des conséquences méconnues, comble surtout des médias trop heureux d’avoir sous la main un théoricien tout-terrain aux analyses grandiloquentes. D’ailleurs, la femme, l’entreprise, le football, la France, l’Europe, les pays de l’est, les pays arabes, le monde... sont, pour Edgar Morin, complexes. En quelques années, Edgar (...) Morin a ainsi réussi à amener la gauche à jeter Marx et ses analyses tranchées aux poubelles de l’Histoire. Car avec Edgar Morin, c’est beaucoup plus complexe et parfois même un tantinet ésotérique. Il est donc insensé de faire preuve de volontarisme politique. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que penser? Qu'est-ce que la pensée? À quelles conditions un être est-il conscient? Une douleur, une expérience olfactive, une perception visuelle, une intention, une croyance et un remords ont-ils une nature mentale commune? Si oui, la science peut-elle la découvrir? Le concept d'intentionnalité a été introduit en philosophie afin de clarifier le contenu de ces questions. Il désigne la capacité de viser mentalement des objets et de se représenter mentalement des états de choses. Ce livre analyse les problèmes soulevés (...) par l'introduction du concept d'intentionnalité dans la philosophie contemporaine. Il montre d'abord comment la philosophie du langage du XXe siècle a tenté de résoudre les énigmes logiques et ontologiques engendrées par la définition de l'intentionnalité. Il montre ensuite que la question centrale de la philosophie de l'esprit du XXe siècle a été de savoir si l'intentionnalité est la caractéristique distinctive des phénomènes mentaux : de tous les phénomènes mentaux et d'eux seuls. Remerciements Introduction Chapitre premier. L'ordre mental cartésien Chapitre 2. L'héritage ontologique de Brentano Chapitre 3. La logique et le défi des objets inexistants Chapitre 4. La référence directe Chapitre 5. L'intensionnalité est-elle un critère de l'intentionnalité? Chapitre 6. Les variétés de l'intentionnalité Chapitre 7. L'intentionnalité est-elle la propriété exclusive des phénomènes mentaux? Chapitre 8. Peut-on naturaliser l'intentionnalité? Chapitre 9. À quoi sert l'intentionnalité? Chapitre 10. Tous les phénomènes mentaux possèdent-ilsl'intentionnalité? Conclusion Bibliographie Index. (shrink)

Essentielle au droit, la question de la valeur n'a pourtant jamais été prise au sérieux. Et pour cause, dans le sillage des sciences empiriques, la pensée juridique moderne s'est accommodée d'une épistémologie d'après laquelle toute proposition juridique est réputée vraie ou fausse si elle décrit un état de chose « réel ». Conçu comme un ensemble de faits sociaux, objectivement identifiables, le droit s'appréhende comme une discipline promouvant des idéaux scientifiques, dont la neutralité axiologique de l'observateur. Dans ces conditions, la (...) valeur, indémontrable puisqu'elle n'est pas un fait, est renvoyée aux confins du droit. Cet ouvrage vise à souligner l'articulation fondamentale entre la discipline juridique et le concept de valeur qui en constitue le pivot, et à proposer une définition juridiquement satisfaisante de cet objet central pour le droit. (shrink)