Climate change is confronting African farmers with growing uncertainties. Advances in seasonal climate predictions offer potential for assisting farmers in dealing with climate risk. Experimental cases of forecast dissemination to African rural communities suggest that participatory approaches can facilitate understanding and use of uncertain climate information. But few of these studies integrate critical reflections on participation that have emerged in the last decade which reveal how participatory approaches can miss social dynamics of power at the community level and in the (...) broader context. Furthermore, neither climate application research nor theoretical critiques of participation fully examine the culturally constructed nature of participation. Drawing on sociolinguistic analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic observation, this paper examines how Ugandan farmers engage in participation in the context of discussions of seasonal climate forecasts. Forecasts were presented to farmers groups whose members were then asked to discuss the forecast among themselves. In doing so, groups sought to develop a common understanding of the forecast and consensual plans for response strategies. Focusing on one particular group meeting as an example, we show how different cultural styles of participation affect the interpretation of the forecast and the formulation of response strategies. Group interaction is shown to be mostly structured around two styles of participation. On the one hand, there is the “Western” style advocated by NGOs and the government, which centers on ensuring that all individuals who are present have opportunities to speak during discussion and to vote on group decisions. On the other hand, a “Kiganda” style of participation emphasizes the importance of affirming ties to a collectivity, respect for social hierarchy, deployment of good manners, and consensus building. The case study illuminates how the performance of different styles of participation is grounded in localized frameworks of language and culture but also draw on political and policy discourses at the national level. Although a cultural high value on consensus may work in favor of prominent members, the availability of multiple styles of participation also enables group members to exercise their agency in positive ways. Attention to the interplay of different styles of participation throws light on the subtle social processes that shape how knowledge is assessed, which sources are trusted, which and whose interpretations prevail, what options are deemed viable, how costs and benefits are calculated, and whose resources are mobilized in the effort to reduce vulnerability to climate risk. These are key questions for an assessment of the role of boundary organizations, such as farmer associations, in the communication and application of climate forecasts in agriculture. (shrink)

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have had extraordinary successes in classifying photographic images of objects and are often described as the best models of biological vision. This conclusion is largely based on three sets of findings: (1) DNNs are more accurate than any other model in classifying images taken from various datasets, (2) DNNs do the best job in predicting the pattern of human errors in classifying objects taken from various behavioral datasets, and (3) DNNs do the best job in predicting (...) brain signals in response to images taken from various brain datasets (e.g., single cell responses or fMRI data). However, these behavioral and brain datasets do not test hypotheses regarding what features are contributing to good predictions and we show that the predictions may be mediated by DNNs that share little overlap with biological vision. More problematically, we show that DNNs account for almost no results from psychological research. This contradicts the common claim that DNNs are good, let alone the best, models of human object recognition. We argue that theorists interested in developing biologically plausible models of human vision need to direct their attention to explaining psychological findings. More generally, theorists need to build models that explain the results of experiments that manipulate independent variables designed to test hypotheses rather than compete on making the best predictions. We conclude by briefly summarizing various promising modeling approaches that focus on psychological data. (shrink)

On several key issues we agree with the commentators. Perhaps most importantly, everyone seems to agree that psychology has an important role to play in building better models of human vision, and (most) everyone agrees (including us) that deep neural networks (DNNs) will play an important role in modelling human vision going forward. But there are also disagreements about what models are for, how DNN–human correspondences should be evaluated, the value of alternative modelling approaches, and impact of marketing hype in (...) the literature. In our view, these latter issues are contributing to many unjustified claims regarding DNN–human correspondences in vision and other domains of cognition. We explore all these issues in this response. (shrink)

Scholars have long recognized the importance of liberty in Milton's early prose, but they tend to center their analysis on republicanism. Although he would go on to express republicanism, Milton's early tracts tie liberty to English political and legal traditions rather than classical ones. Milton, in his early tracts, utilizes the language of the ancient constitution and the common law as he centers liberty on the property and bodies of English citizens, thus framing liberty in distinctly English (...) terms. Additionally, Milton's early prose accepts the power of the monarch, revealing Milton's initial commitment to the existing political structure. (shrink)

In his prose writings, Milton produces a reinvention of the concept of heresy, and subsequently a theological reinvention of the nature of English society. He envisions a Protestant society united by practices of individual piety and by the “heretical imperative” of autonomous choice. While Milton’s account seeks to eliminate the possibilities of religious violence and state persecution, it leads finally to the same impasse as the Lockean theory: the grounding of a right to toleration on subjective piety necessarily (...) excludes those groups who refuse to practice such piety. Nevertheless, Milton’s unique depiction of a society united by practices of heresy ultimately points toward modernity in a way that is even more remarkably prescient than Locke’s influential theory of toleration. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy has enjoyed renewed attention as an egalitarian alternative to contemporary inequality since it seems to uncompromisingly reassert the primacy of the state over the economy, enabling it to defend the modern welfare state against encroaching neoliberal markets. However, I argue that, when understood as a free-standing approach to politics, Kant’s doctrine of right shares essential features with the prevailing theories that legitimate really existing economic inequality. Like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Kant understands the state’s (...) function as essentially coercive and, in justifying state coercion, he adopts a narrow conception of political freedom that formally preserves the right to choose while denying that the range of choices one actually has can be a matter of justice. As a result, Kant cannot identify various forms of social pressure as potential injustices even as he recognizes their power to create and sustain troubling inequalities. For both Kant and the neoliberals, the result is that economic relations almost never count as unjust forms of coercion, no matter how unequal they are. Views that identify coercion as the trigger for duties of justice are thus particularly ill-suited to orient us to contemporary inequality. (shrink)

Qualitative-consciousness arises at the sensory level of olfactory processing and pervades our experience of smells to the extent that qualitative character is maintained whenever we are aware of undergoing an olfactory experience. Building upon the distinction between Access and Phenomenal Consciousness the paper offers a nuanced distinction between Awareness and Qualitative-consciousness that is applicable to olfaction in a manner that is conceptual precise and empirically viable. Mounting empirical research is offered substantiating the applicability of the distinction to olfaction and showing (...) that olfactory qualitative-consciousness can occur without awareness, but any olfactory state that we are aware of being in is always qualitative. Evidence that olfactory sensory states have a qualitatively character in the absence of awareness derives from research on mate selection, the selection of social preference for social interaction and acquaintances, as well as the role of olfactory deficits in causing affective disorders. Furthermore, the conservation of secondary processing measures of olfactory valence during olfactory imagery experiments provides verification that olfactory awareness is always qualitatively conscious—all olfactory consciousness smells phenomenal. (shrink)

Recent debate in metaethics over evolutionary debunking arguments against morality has shown a tendency to abstract away from relevant empirical detail. Here, I engage the debate about Darwinian debunking of morality with relevant empirical issues. I present four conditions that must be met in order for it to be reasonable to expect an evolved cognitive faculty to be reliable: the environment, information, error, and tracking conditions. I then argue that these conditions are not met in the case of our evolved (...) faculty for moral judgement. (shrink)

Open texture is a kind of semantic indeterminacy first systematically studied by Waismann. In this paper, extant definitions of open texture will be compared and contrasted, with a view towards the consequences of open-textured concepts in mathematics. It has been suggested that these would threaten the traditional virtues of proof, primarily the certainty bestowed by proof-possession, and this suggestion will be critically investigated using recent work on informal proof. It will be argued that informal proofs have virtues that mitigate the (...) danger posed by open texture. Moreover, it will be argued that while rigor in the guise of formalisation and axiomatisation might banish open texture from mathematical theories through implicit definition, it can do so only at the cost of restricting the tamed concepts in certain ways. (shrink)

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 239-266, Spring 2022.

Amodal completion is the representation of those parts of the perceived object that we get no sensory stimulation from. While amodal completion is rife and plays an essential role in all sense modalities, philosophical discussions of this phenomenon have almost entirely been limited to vision. The aim of this paper is to examine in what sense we can talk about amodal completion in olfaction. We distinguish three different senses of amodal completion – spatial, temporal and feature-based completion – and argue (...) that all three are present and play a significant role in olfaction. (shrink)

Olfactory perception provides a promising test case for enactivism, since smelling involves actively sampling our surrounding environment by sniffing. Smelling deploys implicit skillful knowledge of how our movement and the airflow around us yield olfactory experiences. The hybrid nature of olfactory experience makes it an ideal test case for enactivism with its esteem for touch and theoretical roots in vision. Olfaction is like vision in facilitating the perception of distal objects, yet it requires us to breath in and physically contact (...) the sensory object in a manner similar to touch. The paper offers an analysis of the central theoretical components of enactivism, whose soundness and empirical viability are tested using the empirical literature on sniffing. It will be shown that even if sniffing is an essential component of olfaction, the motoric component is not necessary for perceiving smells, which is contrary to the most crucial tenet of enactivism. Thus, the paper concludes that the theory cannot account for olfactory perception. (shrink)

“Sophisticated” theories of welfare face two potentially devastating criticisms. They are based upon two claims: that theories of welfare should be tested for what they imply about newborn infants and that even if a theory of welfare is intended to apply only to adults, we might still have sufficient reason to reject it because it implies an implausible divergence between adult and neonatal welfare. It has been argued we ought reject sophisticated theories of welfare because they have significantly counterintuitive implications (...) about neonatal welfare and because they imply an implausible divergence between the welfare of adults and that of newborns. I argue against both claims. (shrink)

Towards the unconditioned: Kant, Epicurus and Glückseligkeit -- Arendt and the time of the pardon -- Kant, evil, and the unconditioned -- Judgment after Derrida.

The description for this book, The Conquest of Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times, will be forthcoming.

This study assessed the extent to which college students, tomorrow's executives, agreed with various commonly heard assertions regarding the tactics of those climbing the corporate career ladder. The study used essentially the same data collection instrument as that used in a recent study of business executives. The results indicate a highly significant relationship of the opinions to church affiliation, citizenship, and race of the subjects. Moderate levels of significant opinion differences related to the subjects' school, age, social class, and gender. (...) The subjects' opinions were not significantly related to their academic department, gradepoint average, or work experience. (shrink)

uber das Programm der kommenden Philosophie. ZUr Kritik der Gewalt. SChicksal und Charakter. GEschichtsphilosophische Thesen. THeologisch-politisches Fragment.

This introduction argues for the importance of Suárez’s philosophy for historians of medieval philosophy as well as historians of early modern philosophy. It also provides synopses of each of the essays in the volume and a brief biography of Suárez, placing his life and works into some historical context.

Environmentalists often argue that, in order to address fundamentally the harmful impact of their activities on the environment, western industrial societies need to change their attitude to nature. Specifically, they need to see nature as sacred, and to acknowledge that humanity is a part of nature rather than separate from it. In this paper, I seek to show that these tow ideas are incompatible in the context of western culture. Drawing particularly on ideas expressed by western conservationists, I argue that (...) nature is already seen as sacred, and that its sacredness depends on it being seen as separate from humanity, an idea which effectively contradicts the scientific knowledge on which many conservationists base their actions. Goodin's green theory of value is used as a source of ideas about why non-human nature is experienced as sacred, and can be extended to suggest that other values, such as 'development' and progress', are also seen as sacred. (shrink)

Ein Lebewesen und sein Leben verbindet offenbar eine innige Beziehung. Aber welche genau? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Artikels. Im Anschluss an die Klarstellung, dass es sich nicht um die Beziehung der Identität handelt, wird gezeigt, dass sich die Frage mittels einer Konstruktion des internen Akkusativs beantworten lässt. Die dabei ausgedrückte Beziehung ist, so das Plädoyer des Artikels, eine der ontologischen Abhängigkeit. Es werden zwei Erklärungen eines Abhängigkeitsbegriffs vorgestellt, deren zentraler Begriff einerseits ein modaler und andererseits ein explanatorischer ist, und (...) es wird diskutiert, inwiefern der jeweilige Begriff die Antwort auf die Leitfrage stützt. (shrink)

Read Jus, 17 June 1887): The voluntary taxation proposal really means the dissolution of the State into its constituent atoms, and leaving them to recombine in some way or no way, just as it may happen. There would be nothing to prevent the existence of five or six "States" in England, and members of all these "States" might be living in the same house! The proposal is, it appears to me, the outcome of an idea in the minds of those (...) who propound it that the State is, or ought to be, founded on contract, just as a joint stock company is. ... The explanation of the whole matter, I believe, is that ... the State is a social organism, evolved as every other organism is evolved, and not requiring any more than other organisms to be based upon a contract ... (shrink)

Much recent empirical work in the developmental sciences has emphasized the importance of cultural knowledge transmission for the processes of human evolution and development. This body of empirical work provides indirect support for the “knowledge economy framework” developed by John Greco in his book The Transmission of Knowledge. In doing so, however, it also raises questions concerning the scope or generality of Greco’s framework. Whereas Greco contends that testimonial knowledge transmission is paradigmatic of the process of knowledge transmission generally, this (...) empirical literature recognizes a variety of non-testimonial forms of knowledge transmission, many of which function in ways that are importantly different from outright testimony. This leaves us with some decisions to make concerning the extent to which we wish to tie the concept of knowledge transmission to the topic of testimony and concerning how to characterize the various non-testimonial ways in which knowledge gets around within epistemic communities. (shrink)

In Plato’s Euthyphro, Euthyphro proposes to analyse the pious as that which is beloved of the gods. In the most widely discussed argument of the dialogue, Socrates tries to show that Euthyphro’s analysis fails. The argument crucially involves an ingenious use of the explanatory connective ‘because’. This paper presents a detailed reconstruction and defence of the argument. It starts with a rigorous analysis of its logical form, explains and justifies its premises, and closes with a defence of the argument against (...) the strongest common objection. (shrink)

This article brings a new perspective to the ethical debate on geoengineering through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), incorporating the emerging techno-moral change scholarship into the discussion surrounding sustainability. The techno-moral change approach can help us understand different ways in which technology might shape society. First, it helps highlight how values and norms are interrelated. Second, it shows that techno-moral change can happen even if the technology is in no way realized. Through the introduction of two techno-moral vignettes, two diametrically opposed (...) ways in which SAI forces us to rethink sustainability and our relationship with nature are suggested. SAI could lead to a situation of entrenchment, wherein sustainability as a norm is undermined, or transformation where the necessity of acting according to sustainability is highlighted. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept an ‘Authority Thesis’ according to which self-ascriptions of one’s current mental states ordinarily are or ought to be met with a distinctive presumption of truth. Recently, however, Wolfgang Barz (2018) has argued that there is no adequately specified Authority Thesis. This, he argues, is because available specifications are either (1) philosophically puzzling but implausible, or (2) plausible but philosophically unpuzzling. I argue that there are several plausible and philosophically puzzling specifications of the Authority Thesis.

With the godlike powers of modern technology, just one bad actor can unleash hell on Earth. In the face of this threat posed by technology, some have proposed moral bioenhancement as a solution. Although moral bioenhancement may at first seem like something Christian should support, it is my contention in this paper that there is at least one significant reason for Christians to be cautious in their appropriation of moral bioenhancement technology: it can at best give us a false apatheia, (...) which runs the ironic risk of destroying our ability to make moral progress. (shrink)

Radical virtue serves two distinct purposes: consolation in unfavorable circumstances, and prescription to achieve better ones. This paper maps out the theoretical nuances important for practical guidance. For a Stoic, radical virtue is a way to live well through environmental tragedy. For a consequentialist, it is an instrument to motivate us to combat climate change. For an Aristotelian, it is both. I argue that an Aristotelian approach fares the best, balancing the aim of external success with the aim of living (...) well through practical wisdom. This involves criticizing assumptions about living well that underlie behaviors that contribute to climate change. Some might object virtue theory suffers from application problems, and an Aristotelian approach suffers even more because it does not tell the virtuous person how to negotiate her aims. In response, Aristotelian revision starts with moral perception that adds valuable content by navigating through the messiness. (shrink)

The authors put forward an interesting response to detractors of black box algorithms. According to the authors, what is of ethical relevance for medical artificial intelligence is not so much their transparency, but rather their reliability as a process capable of producing accurate and trustworthy results. The implications of this view are twofold. First, it is permissible to implement a black box algorithm in clinical settings, provided the algorithm’s epistemic authority is tempered by physician expertise and consideration of patient autonomy. (...) Second, physicians are not expected to possess exhaustive knowledge or understanding of the algorithmic computation by which they verify or augment their medical opinions. The potential of these algorithms to improve diagnostic and procedural accuracy alongside the quality of patient decision-making is undoubtedly a boon to modern medicine, but blind deference to them is neither feasible nor responsible, as several logistical and ethical quagmires noted by the authors still remain inherent in algorithmic software. I concur …. (shrink)

Bloch's Teppich : an initial approach -- On the genealogy of the Teppich metaphor before Bloch -- The conceptual constellation of Bloch's musical philosophy -- Entering Bloch's musical system -- Wagner's animal lyricism -- Bloch's vision of the armored men, or the limits of enlightenment -- The achievement of symphonic authenticity -- Epilogue : an atheism of presence and absence.

Human nature -- On mental disorder -- The meaning of anxiety -- To someone considering psychotherapy -- The sinner in the saint -- Our incoherent world -- The contribution of science -- Making sense of experience -- On reason and religion -- The world of religion -- A note on the aesthetic -- Where are we headed?

Derek Bolton has claimed that extant philosophical theories of mind imply accounts of mental disorder, via their accounts of intentionality. The purpose of this paper is to extend Bolton’s claims, by exploring what an embodied/situated theory of mind might imply about mental disorder. I argue that, unlike the more traditional views Bolton considers, embodied/situated accounts can (in principle) provide an observer-independent criterion for distinguishing mental health from disorder in cases of Capgras and Cotard delusions.

This is a study of the encounter with the problem of heresy in Europe between the World Wars, in Germany and among Jews above all. It is first and foremost an intellectual history, though not exclusively so, and has four related aims. It argues, first, that the advent of a heretical ideal among Jews in the interwar period marked the definitive end of a chapter in German-Jewish history that began with Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's gambit and the liberal Judaism that arose (...) in its wake proved unworkable by this time, and the arrival of avowedly heretical forms of Jewish return signaled the end of his epoch. But we also find in this period the beginnings of a search for post-liberal modes of Jewish identity in which its predecessor endured in interesting and unexpected ways. Second, the dissertation reconstructs and analyzes the two leading languages of heresy in the interwar period, the gnostic and the pantheist. The first pined for salvation from a sinful world by the grace of a wholly transcendent, extramundane and therefore absent God, or a deus absconditus , and was associated in the interwar period with the Protestant representatives of dialectical theology. The pantheist language of heresy, by contrast, contested the gnostic spirit by divinizing the world, and was associated with the interconfessional revival of Spinoza. On the strength of this contextual reconstruction, the study aims, third, to reinterpret the philosophical careers of three important twentieth-century thinkers, all of them German-Jewish emigres: Hans Jonas, whose philosophical biology made him an unproclaimed "guru" to the German Green movment; Leo Strauss, the philosopher and unwitting father of a neo-conservative revolt in American politics; and Gershom Scholem, the eminent scholar of religion and Jewish culture. The study shows how their diverse projects all had origins in their encounter with the problem of heresy in interwar Europe. Their projects had also a common end: all resurrected the ancient Greek distinction between physis and nomos , and all contested normative Judaism by coming down squarely on the side of the former as the ground for Jewish identity in particular and human being more generally. Fourth and last, the dissertation makes an argument for the abiding salience of a theological dimension to European intellectual life between the wars and beyond. If nothing else, the stories presented here should alert us to the ways in which talk about God could be adapted for talk about nature, or politics, or art, to the ways in which discourses of the divine not only endure in this worldly world of ours, but flourish. (shrink)

The way in which philosophers have thought about the scientific method and the nature of good scientific reasoning over the last few centuries has been consistently and heavily influenced by the examples set by physics. The astounding achievements of 19th and 20th century physics demonstrated that physicists had successfully identified methodologies and reasoning patterns that were uniquely well suited to discovering fundamental truths about the natural world. Inspired by this success, generations of philosophers set themselves the goal of taxonomising, codifying, (...) formalising and evaluating these reasoning patterns. Many will concede that this has been a tremendously fruitful exercise that has served both to illuminate characteristic methodological and epistemological features of the physical sciences, and to inform the way that philosophers think about the epistemic ideals served by science more generally. However, as has been widely noted, the great challenges confronted by contemporary physics have led to a number of fundamental shifts in the way that physicists formulate, assess and apply their theories of the physical world. The most prominent examples of this trend occur in the realm of theoretical high energy physics, where many of the most influential theories advocated by physicists lie beyond the reach of extant experimental methods, and are therefore extremely difficult to test empirically. The fact that whole communities of physicists have devoted so much time and effort to evaluating theories that are largely disconnected from experiments and empirical testing suggests that existing philosophical accounts of the epistemology of physics, based as they are on a broadly empiricist conception of physics, are no longer completely apt, or are at least somewhat out of date. This in turn suggests that it is time for philosophers to redirect their attention towards the characteristic reasoning strategies at play in contemporary physics. As well as clarifying the epistemic structure of 21st century physics and providing new stimulation for general debates surrounding the epistemology of science, this will also allow more philosophers to confront and engage with the existential methodological debates currently raging within physics. There is currently intense and wide spread disagreement surrounding what kinds of reasoning strategies can legitimately be employed in the assessment of competing physical theories and research programs. This special issue aims to facilitate the further engagement of philosophers in this crucial debate by collecting eight contributions that both highlight the deep philosophical issues at stake in debates surrounding the proper methodology for theory assessment in physics, and present novel philosophical perspectives on specific reasoning strategies in the physical sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an argument strengthening the view of Norman Daniels, Bruce Kennedy and Ichiro Kawachi that justice is good for one's health. We argue that the pathways through which social factors produce inequalities in sleep more strongly imply a unidirectional and non-voluntary causality than with most other public health issues. Specifically, we argue against the 'voluntarism objection' – an objection that suggests that adverse public health outcomes can be traced back to the free and voluntary choices of (...) individual actors. Our argument proceeds along two lines: an empirical line and a conceptual line. We first show that much of the empirical research on sleep supports the view that those with fewer opportunities are those who have poorer sleep habits. We then argue that sleep-related decisions are not of the same nature as most other lifestyle choices, and therefore are not as easily susceptible to the voluntarism objection. (shrink)

It is usually thought that wrongful acts of threat-involving coercion are wrong because they involve a violation of the freedom or autonomy of the targets of those acts. I argue here that this cannot possibly be right, and that in fact the wrongness of wrongful coercion has nothing at all to do with the effect such actions have on their targets. This negative thesis is supported by pointing out that what we say about the ethics of threatening (and thus the (...) ethics of coercion) constrains what we can say about the ethics of warning and offering. Importantly, our favoured explanation of the wrongness of certain kinds of threatening should not commit us to condemning as wrong parallel cases of warning and offering. My positive project is to show how this can be done. I defend the claim that wrongful coercion is nothing more than the issuing of a conditional threat to do wrong, and that an agent's issuing of a conditional threat to do wrong is wrong because it constitutes motivation for that agent to adopt the announced intention to do wrong. The idea of explaining the wrongness of wrongful coercion in this way has gone unnoticed because we have thus far been mistaken about what a threat is. In this essay I present my moral analysis of coercion only after presenting a careful descriptive analysis of threats. On my view, it is essential to a threat that the announced intention is one that the agent does not possess before announcing it. This analysis makes it possible to elucidate the descriptive differences between threats, warnings and offers, which sets up the later project of elucidating the moral differences between them. (shrink)

Architectural Philosophy is the first book to outline a philosophical account of architecture and to establish the singularity of architectural practice and ...