Considered a classic in the philosophy of language movement known variously as the New Theory of Reference or the Direct-Reference Theory, as well as in the metaphysics of modal essentialism that is related to this philosophy of language. This award-winning book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation.

We consider the efficacy of various forms of reinforcement learning with punishment in evolving linguistic conventions in the context of Lewis-Skyrms signalling games. We show that the learning strategy of reinforcement with iterative punishment is highly effective at evolving optimal conventions in even complex signalling games. It is also robust and can be easily extended to a self-tuning variety of reinforcement learning. We briefly discuss some of the virtues of reinforcement with iterative punishment and how it may be related to (...) learning in nature. (shrink)

This book argues that Hume is a radical epistemic skeptic who gives only practical reasons for retaining belief in sensory beliefs and the deliverances of reason. He advises us to take a moderate approach to the demands of philosophy, since they sometimes diverge from the demands of life.

In this paper, I consider a novel challenge to John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza’s reasons-responsiveness theory of moral responsibility. According to their view, agents possess the control necessary for moral responsibility if their actions proceed from a mechanism that is moderately reasons-responsive. I argue that their account of moderate reasons-responsiveness fails to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for moral responsibility since it cannot give an adequate account of the responsibility of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Empirical evidence suggests that (...) autistic individuals demonstrate impairments in counterfactual thinking, and these impairments, I argue, are such that they cast doubt on Fischer and Ravizza’s construal of moderate reasons-responsiveness. I then argue that modifying the view in order to accommodate individuals with ASD forces them to defend a strong reasons-responsive account despite the fact that they explicitly deny that such an account can adequately characterize what it is to be morally responsible for one’s actions. (shrink)

Economists have long treated technological phenomena as events transpiring inside a black box and, on the whole, have adhered rather strictly to a self-imposed ordinance not to inquire too seriously into what transpires inside that box. The purpose of Professor Rosenberg's work is to break open and examine the contents of the black box. In so doing, a number of important economic problems be powerfully illuminated. The author clearly shows how specific features of individual technologies have shaped a number of (...) variables of great concern to economists: the rate of productivity improvement, the nature of learning processes underlying technological change itself, the speed of technology transfer, and the effectiveness of government policies that are intended to influence technologies in particular ways. The separate chapters of this book reflect a primary concern with some of the distinctive aspects of industrial technologies in the twentieth century, such as the increasing reliance upon science, but also the considerable subtlety and complexity of the dialectic between science and technology. Other concerns include the rapid growth in the development of costs associated with new technologies as well as the difficulty of predicting the eventual performance characteristics of newly emerging technologies. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 419-433.

In this candid autobiographical essay, Nathan Salmon recounts and assesses the impact of various philosophers and events on his philosophical development.

Morality and religion: intimately wed, violently opposed, or something else? Discussion of this issue appears in pop culture, the academy, and the media―often generating radically opposed views. At one end of the spectrum are those who think that unless God exists, ethics is unfounded and the moral life is unmotivated. At the other end are those who think that religious belief is unnecessary for―and even a threat to―ethical knowledge and the moral life. -/- This volume provides an accessible, charitable discussion (...) that represents a range of views along this spectrum. The book begins with a lively debate between Paul Kurtz and William Lane Craig on the question, Is goodness without God good enough? Kurtz defends the affirmative position and Craig the negative. Following the debate are new essays by prominent scholars. These essays comment on the debate and advance the broader discussion of religion and morality. The book closes with final responses from Kurtz and Craig. (shrink)

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ influential position statement on vegetarianism, meat and seafood can be replaced with milk, soy/legumes, and eggs without any negative effects in children. The United States Department of Agriculture endorses a similar view. The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in fetuses and children. Regular supplementation with (...) iron, zinc, and B12 will not mitigate all of these risks. Consequently, we cannot say decisively that vegetarianism or veganism is safe for children. (shrink)

Heterogeneous beliefs and decision processes generate positive externalities for social and economic systems, analogous to biodiversity in biological systems. Although some aspects of biodiversity (e.g., pests, parasites and bacteria) can lead to ecological and economic problems, biodiversity provides flows of beneficial ecological services and is widely regarded as a valuable natural resource and informational asset, whose value increases as we learn more and science progresses (Wilson in Bioscience 35(11):700–706, 1985). Heterogeneous beliefs and decision processes (and heterogeneous behaviors they generate) similarly (...) provide flows of beneficial economic services. Behavioral diversity should therefore be seen as a natural resource and informational asset likely to improve human wellbeing in surprising ways in the future. Paternalistic policies motivated by the goal of “correcting” allegedly suboptimal beliefs and behavior that diverge from expert recommendations jeopardize behavioral diversity at a substantial cost to social welfare. The risk of encroaching on this beneficial behavioral heterogeneity with policies that aim to induce behavioral and belief monocultures should be included explicitly as costs when evaluating nudges and other paternalistic policies. (shrink)

Hegel’s conception of Spirit does not subordinate difference to sameness, in a way that would make it unusable for a genuinely intersubjective idealism directed to a comprehensive account of the contemporary world. A close analysis of the logic of recognition and the dialectic of conscience in the Phenomenology of Spirit demonstrates that the unity of Spirit emerges in and through conflict, and is forged in the process whereby particular encounters between differently situated individuals reveal and establish the emerging character and (...) significance of the stances they uniquely occupy. (shrink)

Plato’s tripartite soul plays a central role in his account of justice in the Republic. It thus comes as a surprise to find him apparently abandoning this model at the end of the work, when he suggests that the soul, as immortal, must be simple. I propose a way of reconciling these claims, appealing to neglected features of the city-soul analogy and the argument for the soul’s division. The original true soul, I argue, is partitioned, but in a finer manner (...) than how we encounter it in our everyday lives. (shrink)

This book is the first to explore the varied ways in which invented languages can be used to teach languages and linguistics in university courses. Renowned scholars and junior researchers show how using invented languages can appeal to a wider range of students, and can help those students to develop the fundamental skills of linguistic analysis.

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well-known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for the concept of recognition in attempts to (...) secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so-called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack. (shrink)

This chapter is an edited transcription of an author-meets-critics session at the Truth 20|20 Conference, on Douglas Edwards’ award-winning book, The Metaphysics of Truth (2018, Oxford University Press). The Metaphysics of Truth tackles fundamental questions about the role of truth in connections between language and the world. Edwards proposes a pluralist account, according to which sentences in different domains get to be true in different ways. Kellen’s questions center around how to locate Edwards’s pluralist account given certain distinctions between varieties (...) of truth pluralism, and on how to determine what domains certain sentences belong to, especially mixed compounds. Taylor’s comments critically investigate Edwards’ critiques of deflationism, particularly to do with what the deflationist can say about whether truth counts as a ‘sparse’ or ‘abundant’ property, and whether deflationists are able to explain important differences between sparse properties such as being magnetic, and abundant properties, which deflationists will likely think include being true. Lynch provides several questions about the metaphysics of Edwards’s account, including the nature of the determination relation, and the nature of the property of truth itself, and whether Edwards’s account of that property manages to distinguish itself from something a truth minimalist would be happy with. (shrink)

Emotions play an important role in both sport and games, from the pride and joy of victory, the misery and shame of defeat, and the anger and anxiety felt along the way. This volume brings together experts in the philosophy of sport and games and experts in the philosophy of emotion to investigate this important area of research. The book discusses the role of the emotions for both participants and spectators of sports and games, including detailed discussions of suffering, shame, (...) anger, anxiety, misery and hatred. It also investigates the issues of collective emotions in relation to sport such as the shared joy of a football crowd when their team scores a goal. In addition, this volume examines the role of pretence and make believe in emotional reactions to sport. In so doing, it makes important contributions both to the philosophy of sport and to the philosophy of emotions, which will be of interest to researchers and students in both fields. (shrink)

From the mid-thirties onwards, Martin Heidegger occasionally speculated about the future possibility of artificially producing human beings. What is at stake in biotechnology, Heidegger claims, is the imminent possibility of the destruction of the human essence. It is unclear, however, how Heidegger can substantiate such a claim given that he consistently denounced attempts to define human Dasein as a living being to which a higher capacity such as reason or language is added. This paper will argue that, in this sense, (...) Heidegger took the radical challenge of biotechnology both too seriously and not seriously enough. Too seriously, because it is unclear why he would fear the annihilation of Dasein’s essence if he is convinced that this essence is not related to man’s biological equipment in the first place. Not seriously enough, because Heidegger at the same time remained convinced that even the most intrusive interventions in the human body will not be able to disrupt Dasein’s ontological essence. (shrink)

People are often responsible for what they do, but they also often possess an excuse. One of the most common excuses is ignorance. Not all ignorance constitutes an excuse, however, for some ignorance is culpable and culpable ignorance is no excuse. But what about group agents? In our everyday practices, we blame group agents constantly. But if groups can be blameworthy, they plausibly can also be excused. Surely one such excuse is ignorance. But, as with individual agents, some group ignorance (...) is also surely culpable. How should we understand the culpable ignorance of group agents? In this paper, I argue for two conditional claims that together constitute what I call the Group Justification Thesis, which is a group-agent adaptation of the Justification Thesis put forth by Biebel [(2018). ‘Epistemic Justification and the Ignorance Excuse.’ Philosophical Studies 175 (12): 3005–3028]: (i) A group agent is excused because of ignorance only if that ignorance is justified, and (ii) a group agent is culpable despite being ignorant only if that ignorance is not justified. One interesting upshot of this view is that a group agent can be culpably ignorant even though none of the members are culpable for their ignorance. (shrink)

Many solutions of the Goodman paradox have been proposed but so far no agreement has been reached about which is the correct solution. However, I will not contribute here to the discussion with a new solution. Rather, I will argue that a solution has been in front of us for more than two hundred years because a careful reading of Hume's account of inductive inferences shows that, contrary to Goodman's opinion, it embodies a correct solution of the paradox. Moreover, the (...) account even includes a correct answer to Mill's question of why in some cases a single instance is sufficient for a complete induction, since Hume gives a well-supported explanation of this reliability phenomenon. The discussion also suggests that Bayesian theory by itself cannot explain this phenomenon. Finally, we will see that Hume's explanation of the reliability phenomenon is surprisingly similar to the explanation given lately by a number of naturalistic philosophers in their discussion of the Goodman paradox. (shrink)

Film is frequently employed in philosophy classes to illustrate philosophical themes. I argue that making short films or videos in the philosophy classroom can also be a valuable learning exercise for philosophy students. One such assignment, focused on showing the relevance of philosophy to everyday issues, is described and defended here. The exercise is valuable both as a way to clarify the character of philosophical inquiry and its connection to life, and also because questions about film as a medium relate (...) directly to concerns of the major traditional branches of philosophy. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 59 Heft: 1 Seiten: 245-264.

_Human Dignity in Bioethics _brings together a collection of essays that rigorously examine the concept of human dignity from its metaphysical foundations to its polemical deployment in bioethical controversies. The volume falls into three parts, beginning with meta-level perspectives and moving to concrete applications. Part 1 analyzes human dignity through a worldview lens, exploring the source and meaning of human dignity from naturalist, postmodernist, Protestant, and Catholic vantages, respectively, letting each side explain and defend its own conception. Part 2 moves (...) from metaphysical moorings to key areas of macro-level influence: international politics, American law, and biological science. These chapters examine the legitimacy of the concept of dignity in documents by international political bodies, the role of dignity in American jurisprudence, and the implications—and challenges—for dignity posed by Darwinism. Part 3 shifts from macro-level topics to concrete applications by examining the rhetoric of human dignity in specific controversies: embryonic stem cell research, abortion, human-animal chimeras, euthanasia and palliative care, psychotropic drugs, and assisted reproductive technologies. Each chapter analyzes the rhetorical use of ‘human dignity’ by opposing camps, assessing the utility of the concept and whether a different concept or approach can be a _more_ productive means of framing or guiding the debate. (shrink)

What is a discourse? What makes a discourse coherent or incoherent? Investigation into these difficult questions has yielded so many sophisticated proposals that a short, comprehensive survey is well out of reach.

The volume begins by taking up a central theme noted by the late Allan Bloom—Rousseau's critique of the bourgeois as the dominant modern human type and as a being fundamentally in contradiction, caught between the sentiments of nature and ...

This paper raises an uncommon question: What can studying Thomas Aquinas and Critical Race Theory teach us about failures to promote mercy across the color-line? I answer this question in five stages. After locating Thomas’s teachings on mercy and its impediments within his masterwork, the Summa theologiae, I excavate Thomas’s account of mercy’s impediments. Next, I address the question “What is CRT?” Then I examine a foundational CRT text’s analysis of mercy’s impediments. Lastly, I offer a proposal for further Thomas-CRT (...) collaborations. (shrink)

The early work of Alasdair MacIntyre aims to provide resources to “fragmented” modern selves for adjudicating “incommensurable” claims of rival moral traditions and for committing to one with full allegiance. But MacIntyre seems to undermine rational choice through his thesis of Rational Particularism, namely, that there is no tradition-independent, universally acceptable rational standpoint from which to evaluate competing claims of rival traditions. In this paper I combat a prevalent argument that his Particularism thesis render the choice of tradition allegiance by (...) fragmented selves wholly arbitrary, hence committing MacIntyre to relativism about practical rationality and moral theory. This argument founders on a false analogy between the self-avowed relativist and MacIntyre’s target reader. Thus, MacIntyre can retain strong particularism without yielding to relativism. I also show how MacIntyre can consistently offer rational, historical, imaginative, and personal narrative resources to fragmented selves who seek a coherent moral tradition. (shrink)