For the last several decades, dispositional properties have been one of the main topics in metaphysics. Still, however, there is little agreement among contemporary metaphysicians on the nature of dispositional properties. Apparently, though, the majority of them have reached the consensus that dispositional ascriptions cannot be analysed in terms of simple counterfactual conditionals. In this paper it will be brought to light that this consensus is wrong. Specifically, I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, which is generally (...) thought to be dead, is in fact an adequate analysis of dispositions. I will go on to discuss Mumford’s view of dispositions from the perspective of the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. (shrink)

The central theme of this paper is the dispositional/categorical distinction that has been one of the top agendas in contemporary metaphysics. I will first develop from my semantic account of dispositions what I think the correct formulation of the dispositional/categorical distinction in terms of counterfactual conditionals. It will be argued that my formulation does not have the shortcomings that have plagued previously proposed ones. Then I will turn my attention to one of its consequences, the thesis that dispositional properties are (...) not susceptible to intrinsic finks. This thesis was first advanced by me and has ever since stirred up a big controversy, endorsed by some philosophers like Handfield, Bird, and Cohen but rejected by others like Clarke and Fara. Against this background, I will remedy my defense of the impossibility of intrinsically finkable dispositions and then refute some of apparently powerful criticisms of it. And so the upshot is that it is much more reasonable to hold on to the thesis that dispositions are intrinsically unfinkable. This will have the effect of putting the dispositional/categorical distinction on firmer and more secure ground. (shrink)

The idea that dispositions are an intrinsic matter has been popular among contemporary philosophers of dispositions. In this paper I will first state this idea as exactly as possible. I will then examine whether it poses any threat to the two current versions of the conditional analysis of dispositions, namely, the simple and reformed conditional analysis of dispositions. The upshot is that the intrinsic nature of dispositions, when properly understood, doesn't spell trouble for either of the two versions of the (...) conditional analysis of dispositions. Along the way, I will propose an extensionally correct and practically useful criterion for identifying nomically intrinsic dispositions and criticize one objection raised by Lewis against the simple conditional analysis of dispositions. (shrink)

Why would God institute the practice of efficacious petitionary prayer? Why would God not simply give us what we need before we ask? I examine recently proposed solutions to this puzzle and argue that they are inadequate to explain why an omniscient and perfectly good God would act differently in response to prayer. I propose that God has reasons to not always maximize a creature’s good, even in a sinless world, and that petitionary prayer functions as a means to reward (...) those who trust God, to enable us to actively love those we cannot otherwise help, and to give the petitioner personal evidence of God’s existence and care for her, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing faith. I refine this proposal by responding to several objections involving human responsibility and the epistemology of divine action. Along the way, I offer several ways petitioners can recognize God’s having answered a prayer and how God might help us with some common obstacles to prayer. (shrink)

The lack of attention to sustainability, as a concept with multiple dimensions, has presented a developmental gap in green marketing literature, sustainability, and marketing literature for decades. Based on the established premise of customer–corporate (C–C) identification, in which consumers respond favorably to companies with corporate social responsibility initiatives that they identify with, we propose that consumers would respond similarly to companies with sustainability initiatives. We postulate that consumers care about protecting and preserving favorable economic environments (an economic dimension of sustainability) (...) as much as they care about natural environments. Thus, we investigate how two sustainability dimensions (i.e., environmental and economic) and price can influence consumer responses. Using an experimental method, we demonstrate that consumers favor sustainability in both dimensions by giving positive evaluations of the company and purchase intent. In addition, consumers respond more negatively to poor company sustainability than to high company sustainability. In comparison, consumers respond more negatively to the company’s poor commitment to caring for the environment than to the company’s poor commitment to economic sustainability. We also find that consumers do not respond favorably to low prices when they have information about the firm’s poor environmental sustainability. Finally, we find support for an interaction effect between consumer support for sustainability and corporate sustainability; that is, consumers evaluate a company more favorably if the company shares the consumers’ social causes. Overall, we conclude, from our empirical study, support for the idea that consumers do respond to multiple dimensions of sustainability. (shrink)

Manley and Wasserman criticize the conditional analysis of dispositions, arguing that whilst it invites the ‘strategy of getting specific’, this strategy creates more problems than it solves. I show that their understanding both of the phenomenon of masking and also of the strategy of getting specific is deeply defective, which wreaks havoc with their principal critique of the conditional analysis of dispositions.

Is it possible that one and the same object x has opposing dispositions at the same time? One's first reaction might be that it is evidently impossible. On the assumption that x is incombustible, it seems to follow that it is not combustible. Surprisingly enough, however, it is claimed that there are a number of examples in support of the possibility of simultaneous co-instantiation of opposing dispositions. In this paper, I will bring under scrutiny some of the examples and come (...) to the conclusion that none of them achieve the desired goal. This will give support to the initial intuition that opposing dispositions cannot be co-instantiated by one and the same object at the same time. (shrink)

Lewis claims that Martin’s cases indeed refute the simple conditional analysis of dispositions and proposes the reformed conditional analysis that is purported to overcome them. In this paper I will first argue that Lewis’s defense of the reformed analysis can be understood to invoke the concepts of disposition-specific stimulus and manifestation. I will go on to argue that advocates of the simple analysis, just like Lewis, can also defend their analysis from alleged counterexamples including Martin’s cases by invoking the concepts (...) of disposition-specific stimulus and manifestation. This means that Lewis’s own necessary defense of the reformed analysis invalidates his motivation of it. Finally, I will argue that we have a good reason to favor the simple analysis over Lewis’s analysis. (shrink)

Stephen Mumford, in his book on dispositions, argues that we can distinguish between dispositional and categorical properties in terms of entailing his 'conditional conditionals', which involve the concept of ideal conditions. I aim at defending Mumford's criterion for distinguishing between dispositional and categorical properties. To be specific, no categorical ascriptions entail Mumford's 'conditional conditionals'.

Ideological indoctrination is explicit and pervasive in China, with the school curriculum used to mould the spirit and character of adolescents, fulfilling ideological and political purposes. But the exact content varies over time. Comparing two versions of textbooks published in 1997 and 2005, this paper depicts the continuities and change in the curricular discourses centred on the notion of ‘good citizen’. While keeping the official status of socialism and the Party leadership untouched, the new textbooks soften the presentation and packaging (...) of the ideological content, very much in tandem with the soft authoritarianism practised since the post‐Deng era when China has been deeply involved in the processes of marketisation, liberalisation and globalisation. The new textbooks also adopt a stance of greater reconciliation with human rights and global citizenship. While being granted more autonomy and rights, young citizens are still expected to shoulder the mission of national revival and socialist modernisation—very much derived from official policies. (shrink)

Neil Tennant was the first to propose a proof-theoretic criterion for paradoxicality, a framework in which a paradox, formalized through natural deduction, is derived from an unacceptable conclusion that employs a certain form of id est inferences and generates an infinite reduction sequence. Tennant hypothesized that any derivation in natural deduction that formalizes a genuine paradox would meet this criterion, and he argued that while the liar paradox is genuine, Russell's paradox is not. -/- The present paper delves into Tennant's (...) conjecture for genuine paradoxes and suggests that to validate the conjecture, one of two issues must be addressed. The first issue is the need for a philosophical consensus on the identification of a genuine paradox in an informal sense. The second issue is the requirement for a uniform approach to formalize paradoxes in natural deduction. If either of these issues is addressed, the conjecture could be validated, or at the very least, it could hold philosophical importance in delineating the proof-theoretic features of paradoxicality. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Richard Holton’s defence of dispositionalism that all properties are essentially dispositional. By way of countering the objection that dispositionalism generates an infinite regress, Holton attempts to advance a consistent model of possible worlds where all truths are dispositional truths. But I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, on which Holton’s model is built, is so mistaken that Holton’s model fails to serve his goal. What is more, it is not likely that (...) we can successfully materialize the driving idea of Holton’s model on an appropriately revised version of the conditional analysis of dispositions. Finally, I will discuss the lesson on the methodology of philosophy that we can learn from Holton’s failure. (shrink)

Matarese (2022) argued in a commentary that Machery’s (2020) resampling account of replication (RAR) is unsatisfactory because it was too quick to abolish the distinction between direct and conceptual replications. Although Matarese agrees with Machery that some interpretations of conceptual replications are misconceived, she offers an interpretation which purports to show that direct and conceptual replications have different functions, and this justifies preserving the distinction. In this commentary, I will defend the RAR from Matarese’s argument. Most importantly, I will argue (...) that Matarese’s interpretation of conceptual replications is conceptually impossible. Thus, I conclude that the direct–conceptual distinction was rightly abolished by Machery. (shrink)

Elizabeth Prior claims that dispositional predicates are incomplete in the sense that they have more than one argument place. To back up this claim, she offers a number of arguments that involve such ordinary dispositional predicates as ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’, and so on. In this paper, I will first demonstrate that one of Prior’s arguments that ‘is fragile’ is an incomplete predicate is mistaken. This, however, does not immediately mean that Prior is wrong that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. On the (...) contrary, I maintain that she has offered another valid argument that does indeed establish the claim that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. I will argue further that Prior is right that ‘soluble’ is an incomplete predicate. Then does this mean that all dispositional predicates are incomplete? I don’t think so. I will suggest that there are complete dispositional predicates that have no more than one argument place. Finally, by relying on my discussion of the incompleteness of dispositional predicates, I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the context-dependence and intrinsic nature of dispositional ascriptions. (shrink)

Simion and Kelp explain the trustworthiness of an AI based on that AI’s disposition to meet its obligations. Roughly speaking, according to Simion and Kelp, an AI is trustworthy regarding its task if and only if that AI is obliged to complete the task and its disposition to complete the task is strong enough. Furthermore, an AI is obliged to complete a task in the case where the task is the AI’s etiological function or design function. This account has a (...) strength in that it can provide a unificatory rationale for the trustworthy-making properties of AIs. According to this account, being explainable, being safe, and being transparent are the trustworthy-making properties of an AI because an AI can fulfill its etiological or design functions in the case where it is explainable, safe, and transparent. This paper shows that though Simion and Kelp’s account has a strength, this account is not satisfactory for two reasons. The first reason is that an AI’s trustworthiness is not determined just by the AI’s disposition to meet obligations, and the second reason is that it is difficult to explain how an AI’s etiological function and design function have to do with that AI’s obligations. To provide a full-fledged account, Simion and Kelp should dismiss these concerns. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that in Mengzi 2A2 Mengzi 孟子 proposes his method for cultivating righteousness by showing that on the way of achieving yi, such topics as the unperturbed hearts, cultivating courage, Gaozi’s 告子 maxim, and the flood-like qi 氣 ultimately converge. Toward this aim, first, I argue that Mengzi’s short remark “bi you shi yan er wu zheng, xin wu wang, wu zhu zhang 必有事焉而勿正, 心勿忘, 勿助長” can be read as his maxim for achieving yi that structurally (...) parallels with the preceding maxim of Gaozi that Mengzi quoted. It tells us that neither our blind obedience to the words nor our impetuous boost of qi is helpful for achieving yi; instead we should concentrate on the heart’s moral sentiments and perform righteous actions. Second, I argue that Mengzi believes that qi is crucial in one’s proper self-cultivation. The centrality of moral sentiment in his teaching redirects our attention to qi’s positive aspects—exemplified by the flood-like qi—though qi’s impulsivity often makes it appear negative. If the four sprouts are to accompany the spontaneous movement of qi, it can be said that properly expressed qi signals the moral health of one’s heart. Moreover, I show that strong positive qi not only constitutes moral sentiment that serves as a fair standard for self-examination but also leads the will to perform moral actions without delay. (shrink)

In his paper, “On paradox without self-reference”, Neil Tennant proposed the conjecture for self-referential paradoxes that any derivation formalizing self-referential paradoxes only generates a looping reduction sequence. According to him, the derivation of the Liar paradox in natural deduction initiates a looping reduction sequence and the derivation of the Yablo's paradox generates a spiral reduction. The present paper proposes the counterexample to Tennant's conjecture for self-referential paradoxes. We shall show that there is a derivation of the Liar paradox which generates (...) a spiraling reduction procedure. Since the Liar paradox is a self-referential paradox, the result is a counterexample to his conjecture. Tennant has believed that classical reductio has no essential role to formalize paradoxes. As our counterexample applies the rule of classical reductio, he may reject the counterexample. In this sense, it will be briefly argued that classical reductio and his rules for the liar sentence share some inferential role. If classical reductio should not be used in paradoxical reasoning, neither should be his rules for the liar sentence. (shrink)

What are the effects of word-by-word predictability on sentence processing times during the natural reading of a text? Although information complexity metrics such as surprisal and entropy reduction have been useful in addressing this question, these metrics tend to be estimated using computational language models, which require some degree of commitment to a particular theory of language processing. Taking a different approach, this study implemented a large-scale cumulative cloze task to collect word-by-word predictability data for 40 passages and compute surprisal (...) and entropy reduction values in a theory-neutral manner. A separate group of participants read the same texts while their eye movements were recorded. Results showed that increases in surprisal and entropy reduction were both associated with increases in reading times. Furthermore, these effects did not depend on the global difficulty of the text. The findings suggest that surprisal and entropy reduction independently contribute to variation in reading times, as these metrics seem to capture different aspects of lexical predictability. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire's early engagements with logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy are examined as historical and philosophical reference points for locating an alternative – interpretive and humanist – tradition that developed within analytic philosophy at Oxford in the 20th C. Berlin and Hampshire's writings show the legacy of an enduring Idealist philosophy, one that nonetheless had to be revised and reinvented against the new empiricist challenges brought on by the rise of analytic philosophy. Berlin and Hampshire rejected (...) idealism's metaphysical pretensions of the Absolute in favor of the new empiricism's insistence on grounding philosophy in experience, but staunchly opposed applying the latter's narrowly ‘scientistic’ view of knowledge to human experience, re-affirming the indivisible connections between epistemological issues and moral and political issues. The idealist themes they expounded are most clearly evident in their arguments for an interpretive philosophy in opposition to the reductivist tendencies of logical positivism, and in their defense of humanist liberalism against the drive of analysis toward naturalism where inquiry into human life is concerned. Such themes include: (i) an anti-naturalist, vitalist, philosophy of human sciences, (ii) an insistence on the intrinsic force and importance of human values against moral relativism, and (iii) the recognition of the political significance of the plurality of human values. As such, Berlin and Hampshire reveal the strong interpretive and humanist ways of reasoning from within the analytic tradition itself. Moreover, these interpretive and humanist themes continue to have strong echoes, this paper argues, in the development of post-analytic political theory in the latter half of the 20th century through today, as further evinced in the ideas of Bernard Williams (1929–2003) and Charles Taylor (b. 1931). By calling attention to such continuities, this paper reveals how moral and political philosophy in the Anglophone world lay not moribund but continued to develop in the heyday of analytic philosophy from the late ‘30s to the ‘50s and onward, thereby challenging the commonplace of the ‘death’ of normative political theorizing until Rawls reinvigorated it in the ‘70s. ☆ Special thanks are owed to Amy McCready, an astute reader of a preliminary draft of this paper. Also, the fearless members of the Contemporary Histories of Political Theory Working Group and participants of the Post-Analytic Political Theory Workshop at University of California, Berkeley provided useful insights and even more useful criticisms. (shrink)

This essay investigates the structure and meaning of the Mengzi’s 孟子 analogical inferences in Mengzi 6A7. In this chapter, he argues that just as the perceptual masters allowed the discovery of our senses’ uniform preferences, the sages enabled us to recognize our hearts’ universal preferences for “order and righteousness.” Regarding an unresolved question of how the sages help us understand our hearts’ preferred objects as such, I propose a spectator-based moral artisanship reading as an alternative to an evaluator-focused moral connoisseurship (...) view: the sages are moral artisans who refine their moral achievements, and people’s uniform approval of their achievements—firmly associated with “order and righteousness”—demonstrates our hearts’ same natural preferences for them. Furthermore, I argue that this chapter’s conclusion—we and the sages are of the same kind with natural moral preferences—implies the necessity of our transition from passive spectators to active moral performers for moral self-cultivation. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward a counterexample against Lewis’s reformed conditional analysis of fragility and then refute a possible response by Lewis. And I go on to argue that Lewis can overcome the counterexample by excluding fragility-mimickers from the stimulus appropriate to the concept of fragility.

The most valuable finding of my first sightseeing trip was that medieval Europe was the seat of Christendom and that Christianity defines the West. I was amazed to see that Europe reveals so much of its past. I had not had such an experience in the United States, where I had lived as a student and then as a professor of economics.As I glimpsed the West, I found myself rediscovering Confucian civilization and how much I am still Confucian, although I (...) was born into a Presbyterian family in Korea. But then, Korea is the most Confucian country. Curious about the West since my first trip, whenever I can I have toured Europe in search of the meaning of the West.While travelling in Europe, my mind often jumps back to my early life in Korea and Japan. I am struck by the vivid contrast in appearance between medieval European towns and Asian towns, which were grey and as flat as pancakes. Medieval towns are stony and solid. Nothing is flimsy. Shaped by spires, domes, and towers, a European town's silhouette rises and falls like a stock market graph. Europeans obviously loved the vertical emphasis. A traveller can see either a soaring church tower or a castle keep miles away on the horizon. Churches predominate, as if to emphasize that the main business of the town is the worship and glorification of God. (shrink)

What constitutes a good life? A hedonist’s answer to this question is rather simple— more pleasure, less pain. While hedonism was previously a widely accepted belief, it now suffers from several crucial objections. A challenge particularly vexing to hedonists is the Philosophy of Swine: could it be possible that our lives may be less than that of a theoretical swine? In this essay, I argue that lifetime hedonism, the view of hedonism concerned with one’s total lifelong well-being, does not survive (...) this objection. In particular, I will refute the counterarguments that modern-day hedonist, Ben Bramble, presents against the Philosophy of Swine objection. (shrink)

When Western Christianity came to Asia, it merged with Eastern religions and histories and developed very differently in different places. Today Asian women in each country build up very unique images of God. They practice Eastern forms of worship and liturgical rites, and do indigenized theologies. They simultaneously try to find their own ways of naming, imaging, believing in and communicating with their own God. Korean Christianity has inherited many images of God from Western Christian doctrines and theologies. However, when (...) it meets and merges with Koreanized Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism, some of the images of God in Christianity are transformed and re-imagined in Korean women's social cultural and religious contexts. As an Asian woman, especially a Korean woman, I would like to introduce one of the many Asian women's theologies, Korean women's images of God. It cannot represent all Asian women's ways of doing theologies, but it will give some clues to show how Asian women do theologies in their own context. In particular, I will examine three images of God that demonstrate how Western Christianity and Eastern religions meet and are transformed in Korean Christian women's living contexts. (shrink)

We evaluated the reliability, validity, and differential item functioning (DIF) of a shorter version of the Defining Issues Test-1 (DIT-1), the behavioral DIT (bDIT), measuring the development of moral reasoning. 353 college students (81 males, 271 females, 1 not reported; age M = 18.64 years, SD = 1.20 years) who were taking introductory psychology classes at a public University in a suburb area in the Southern United States participated in the present study. First, we examined the reliability of the bDIT (...) using Cronbach’s α and its concurrent validity with the original DIT-1 using disattenuated correlation. Second, we compared the test duration between the two measures. Third, we tested the DIF of each question between males and females. Findings reported that first, the bDIT showed acceptable reliability and good concurrent validity. Second, the test duration could be significantly shortened by employing the bDIT. Third, DIF results indicated that the bDIT items did not favour any gender. Practical implications of the present study based on the reported findings are discussed. (shrink)

In this dissertation, we shall investigate whether Tennant's criterion for paradoxicality(TCP) can be a correct criterion for genuine paradoxes and whether the requirement of a normal derivation(RND) can be a proof-theoretic solution to the paradoxes. Tennant’s criterion has two types of counterexamples. The one is a case which raises the problem of overgeneration that TCP makes a paradoxical derivation non-paradoxical. The other is one which generates the problem of undergeneration that TCP renders a non-paradoxical derivation paradoxical. Chapter 2 deals with (...) the problem of undergeneration and Chapter 3 concerns the problem of overgeneration. Chapter 2 discusses that Tenant’s diagnosis of the counterexample which applies CR−rule and causes the undergeneration problem is not correct and presents a solution to the problem of undergeneration. Chapter 3 argues that Tennant’s diagnosis of the counterexample raising the overgeneration problem is wrong and provides a solution to the problem. Finally, Chapter 4 addresses what should be explicated in order for RND to be a proof-theoretic solution to the paradoxes. (shrink)

Brechts Sonettsammlung Studien entstand als Reaktion auf die sogenannte Expressionismusdebatte, die in der Exilzeitschrift Das Wort (1937/38) ausgetragen wurde. Es geht darin um die produktive Nutzung des klassischen Erbes der Weltliteratur. Während die theoretischen Schriften Brechts über diese Debatte in der Forschung viel Beachtung fanden, wurden die Studien bisher marginalisiert. Die Autorin legt erstmalig eine Gesamtdarstellung der Studien vor. Im Zentrum stehen die Bezüge zur Expressionismusdebatte, die sich, wie in der Arbeit gezeigt wird, nicht auf eine «Brecht-Lukács-Debatte» reduzieren läßt. Darüber (...) hinaus werden die Studien editionsgeschichtlich, gattungsästhetisch und im Gesamtzusammenhang des Sonett-Werkes Brechts untersucht. (shrink)