In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:59. HUME'S DEBT TO KANT Various commentators on Hume's work have argued that his examination of our causal reasoning is not fundamentally at odds with the claims made by Kant in his supposed "answer to Hume". One way of making the connection, suggested by Wolff for example, is to emphasize the ways in which Humean epistemology depends upon a theory of mental activity. If this activity itself can (...) only be understood in terms of built-in "propensities" of the mind, these dispositions can be interpreted as psychological descriptions of a mind operating in accordance with something quite like Kantian categories. Another way of arguing for this compatibility between Hume and Kant is to bring out central principles (e.g., relating to causation ) which Hume's account depends upon, but which are such that they cannot be given an experiential foundation. Lewis White Beck has offered such a Kantianization of Hume, arguing that beneath the surface of the official Empiricist Hume (and just outside Hume's view of what he was doing) there is a commitment to principles that have 2 an a priori status in his theory. If Beck is right about this, we might speak with tongue only partially in cheek, of Hume's debt to Kant, for the Kantian categories could be taken as the systematic working out of the underpinnings of Hume's theory. In this paper I shall consider this problem only insofar as it relates to causal reasoning. I focus on Professor Wilson's defense of the Empiricist Hume, in which it is denied that our causal reasoning rests upon a priori principles. The principles in question are that (1) Every event has some cause, and (2) That like causes have like effects, and like effects like causes. Wilson argues that these are both empirical generalizations within an account that is both plausible and Humean. I shall 60. argue briefly that, contrary to Wilson's claim, the Humean account of causation makes the second of these an a priori truth because it is analytic. The first is certainly not an analytic truth, but it could not have been derived from experience, at least as Hume depicts our experience. It thus seems to be a claim that is functioning as synthetic and a priori in Hume's account of our beliefs. Except in the general way that this phrase implies, this paper is not really about Kant, who will barely be mentioned again. In my discussion of Wilson's argument I will not deal with the formalizations which he has introduced, but will attempt to capture the main lines of argument in more or less ordinary language. In proceeding thus, I am siding with Hume in siding with the vulgar. Having listed the eight rules of causal judgment which are under discussion here, Hume says Here is all the LOGIC I think proper to employ in my reasoning; and perhaps even this was not very necessary, but might have been supply 'd by the natural principles of our understanding. Our scholastic headpieces and logicians shew no such superiority above the mere vulgar in their reason and ability, as to give us an inclination to imitate them in delivering a long system of rules and precepts to direct our judgment, in philosophy. (T175) 1. The basic problem is whether or not Hume's explanation of our causal reasoning depends upon the assumption that all events have causes, and depends upon it in a way that makes this assumption a priori. Beck (and Wolff) have argued that this is the case, and hence that Hume is much closer to Kant than is commonly supposed. This Wilson denies. The argument revolves around the cases in which we fail to observe the causes we have come to associate with certain effects (or, in principle, vice versa) so that the conjunction of events is not "constant". The Humean account of what happens in such circumstances is that the imagination supplies the deficiency; we feign unobserved events to 4 fill the gap. But whereas Hume frequently disparages such 61. exercises of the fancy (as he calls them) he does not do so here. Hence, one may ask, what entitles us... (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to do so is (...) to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context. (shrink)

While intimately familiar, gender eludes theorizing. We argue that well-known challenges to gender’s analysis originate in a subtle ambiguity: questions about gender sometimes express questions about gender categories themselves (e.g., womanhood, manhood, and so on), while at other times expressing questions about what makes someone a member of these categories. Distinguishing these questions accentuates gender’s connections to morality, making a novel “antirealist” view of gender, or as we call it, “unrealist” view, especially natural. Gender’s relations to identity, sex, and social (...) position are illuminated along the way. Taking cues from both historical and contemporary debates in metaethics about the roles that attitudes can play in metaphysical and semantic analysis, we introduce and begin developing a comprehensive non-ameliorative framework for explicating gender’s nature and our thought and talk about it. In a slogan, on the view we defend, you belong to the gender category to which you intrinsically desire to belong. (shrink)

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)

It is widely held that metaphysical modality is the broadest non-epistemic, alethic modality, and that /a posteriori/ modal essentialist truths, like that gold has atomic number 79, enjoy the necessity of the broadest alethic modality. One prominent argument for these conclusions--given by Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri--rests upon an extremely dubious premise: that certain pairs of properties—e.g., being gold and being made of atoms containing 79 protons—are one and the very same property. The two properties are seen to (...) be distinct on independent philosophical grounds. Metaphysical modality is in fact a restricted alethic modality. In particular, mathematical modality is broader than metaphysical modality. Arguably, the broadest alethic modality is logical modality, which is distinct from metaphysical modality. Even if it is metaphysically necessary that gold have atomic number 79, there is no logical/analytical inconsistency in the supposition that it does not. (shrink)

In den Paragraphen 1–78 seiner "Ontologia", die dieser Band enthält, entwickelt Wolff die grundlegenden Prinzipien seiner Metaphysik. Die Ausgabe bietet den Text erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung.

What are physical quantities, and in particular, what makes them quantitative? This book presents an original answer to this question through the novel position of substantival structuralism, arguing that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces.

En dépit de toutes les proclamations sur la " mort de la métaphysique ", la philosophie ne peut aujourd'hui, pas plus qu'hier, se passer de l'interrogation métaphysique. Si elle décidait d'abandonner l'enquête sur les questions au-delà de l'expérience, elle laisserait le champ libre à toutes les spéculations irrationnelles, aux charlatanismes de la quête spirituelle, aux marchands d'illusion illuminée. La question " Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien? " semble réunir à elle seule quelques vertus et tous les péchés (...) que l'on prête à la métaphysique. Certainement insoluble, elle en montre bien le caractère ridicule, dépassé, voire inepte. Evidemment radicale, elle indique ce que la métaphysique a d'inévitable, de nécessaire, voire d'ultime. Elle est en tout cas un nœud de difficultés et de concepts dont les doctrines classiques sont loin d'avoir épuisé les possibles et sur lesquels la discussion s'avère encore féconde. La première partie de ce livre interroge donc la question elle-même : est-elle une ou multiple, a-t-elle un sens ou non, quelles raisons a-t-on pu avancer pour la disqualifier ou pour prétendre y avoir répondu? C'est à approfondir quelques réponses nouvelles, et possibles, qu'est consacrée la seconde partie qui fait surgir d'autres problèmes : la plausibilité des réponses théistes et naturalistes, la pensabilité du néant, l'impossibilité d'un monde vide, les limites du principe de raison suffisante. Francis Wolff, pour le groupe MENS. (shrink)

This is a critical notice of Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way's <i>Getting Things Right<\i> (2022, OUP).

A new argument is offered which proceeds through epistemic possibility (for all S knows, p), cutting a trail from modality to Millianism, the controversial thesis that the semantic content of a proper name is simply its bearer. New definitions are provided for various epistemic modal notions. A surprising theorem about epistemic necessity is proved. A proposition p can be epistemically necessary for a knowing subject S even though p is /a posteriori/ and S does not know p. The identity relation (...) is well-behaved in metaphysically possible worlds but can go rogue in epistemically possible worlds. Whereas it can be epistemically possible that Lewis Carroll is not Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, this is not epistemically possible in the manner that anti-Millianism requires. (shrink)

Intellectual property (IP) can internalize positive externalities associated with the creation and discovery of ideas, thereby increasing investment in efforts to create and discover ideas. However, IP law also causes negative externalities. Strict IP rights raise the transaction costs associated with consuming and building on existing ideas. This causes a tragedy of the anticommons, in which valuable resources are underused and underdeveloped. By disincentivizing creative projects that build on existing ideas, IP protection, even if it increases original innovation, can inadvertently (...) reduce the rate of iterative innovation. The net effect of IP law on innovation and welfare depends on the relative magnitude of these positive and negative externalities. We argue that the current regime probably suffers from excessive, and excessively rigid, IP protection. This motivates the search for institutional alternatives and complements. We suggest that a monocentric IP rights regime may not be the only, or the most efficient, way to internalize the positive externalities of innovation. The knowledge economy supports the emergence of diverse, polycentric forms of bottom-up self-governance, both market and community led, that entail the citizen coproduction of the norms and practices of intellectual creation and discovery. (shrink)

A thesis (“weak BCP”) nearly universally held among philosophers of probability connects the concepts of objective chance and metaphysical modality: Any prospect (outcome) that has a positive chance of obtaining is metaphysically possible—(nearly) equivalently, any metaphysically impossible prospect has zero chance. Particular counterexamples are provided utilizing the monotonicity of chance, one of them related to the four world paradox. Explanations are offered for the persistent feeling that there cannot be chancy metaphysical necessities or chancy metaphysical impossibilities. Chance is objective but (...) contrary to popular opinion it is also largely epistemic. Chancy necessities are analogous to necessary a posteriori truths. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 99, Issue 3, Page 644-662, November 2019. (shrink)

The discussion of the adequacy of Karl Marx''s definition of exploitation has paid insufficient attention to a prior question: what is a definition? Once we understand Marx as offering a reference-fixing definition in a model we will realise that it is resistant to certain objections. A more general analysis of exploitation is offered here and it is suggested that Marx''s own definition is a particular instance of the general analysis which makes a number of controversial moral assumptions.

If the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, then it appears that miracles are metaphysically impossible. Yet Locke accepts both Essentialism, which takes the laws to be metaphysically necessary, and the possibility of miracles. I argue that the apparent conflict here can be resolved if the laws are by themselves insufficient for guaranteeing the outcome of a particular event. This suggests that, on Locke’s view, the laws of nature entail how an object would behave absent divine intervention. While other views (...) of laws also make miracles counterfactually dependent on God’s will, I show how this view is consistent with the Essentialist commitment to the view that the laws are metaphysically necessary. Further, I argue Locke’s view is a relatively attractive version of Essentialism, in part, because it allows for the possibility of miracles. (shrink)

Volume 29, Issue 7-8, November - December 2024.

There is a modern movement to grow artificial meat in laboratories in order to counter the ills of industrial animal agriculture. This article investigates whether lab-grown meat constitutes animal liberation by critically examining its proposed ethical superiority over traditional meat. These considerations are balanced with reflections on the ethical unknowns and shortcomings of the use of technology to solve human-caused problems. We examine a range of meanings attributed to “animal liberation” and consider how various forms of violence are potentially left (...) unchallenged, with a particular focus on gender relations. (shrink)

This paper argues that, in spite of interpretations to the contrary, Avicenna and Aquinas are fundamentally agreed as to subject and principles of metaphysics. The first part shows the philosophers’ common metaphysical starting points in the realm of assent and the realm of conceptualization as well as their common use of the distinction between principles common by causality and common by predication to provide the overall structure for their metaphysics. The second part argues that both philosophers have similar descriptions of (...) God and common being and thus similar views on the relation between God and the subject of metaphysics; and the third part, by surveying some remarks by Avicenna on Sufism and the use of the Qur’ān’s description of God’s attributes, argues that Avicenna is not forced by his naturalistic theory of prophecy to include God under the subject of metaphysics. (shrink)

Anthropologists working on altered states of consciousness (ASC) have suggested that we should do away with psychologizing concepts and use people's own terms for these experiences. With material drawn from the Orang Sakai of Sumatra this paper shows that practitioners who utilize ASC do recognize the alteration of states of awareness as preconditions for numinous interactions. Also critically discussed is the term ASC.

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

According to the standard formulation, natural selection requires variation, differential fitness, and heritability. I argue that this formulation is inadequate because it fails to distinguish natural selection from artificial selection, intelligent design, forward-looking orthogenetic selection, and adaptation via the selection of nonrandom variation. I suggest adding a _no teleology_ condition. The no teleology condition says that the evolutionary process is not guided toward an endpoint represented in the mind of an agent, variation is produced randomly with respect to adaptation, and (...) selection pressures are not forward looking. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Locke takes sensitive knowledge (i.e. knowledge from sensation) to be genuine knowledge that material objects exist. Samuel Rickless has recently argued that, for Locke, sensitive knowledge is merely an “assurance”, or a highly probable judgment that falls short of certainty. In reply, I show that Locke sometimes uses “assurance” to describe certain knowledge, and so the use of the term “assurance” to describe sensitive knowledge does not entail that it is less than certain. Further, (...) I show that sensitive knowledge includes the perception of a relation between ideas, and thus it satisfies Locke’s definition of knowledge. He also repeatedly claims that sensitive knowledge is certain. So, despite recent challenges to this interpretation raised in the secondary literature, Locke really does take sensitive knowledge to be certain knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that it is not a necessary condition of intentional agency that agents act on intentions with antecedently clear content. That is, some actions proceed on the basis of intentions which do not initially provide necessary conditions for performing those actions, and instead involve discovering at least some of these conditions in the course of performing them. To do this, I develop an account of problem-oriented agency, according to which agents may act in relation to problems (...) which at first resist adequate representation. This pushes us to recognize a dimension of open-ended inquiry in agency often neglected in rationalist accounts. Lastly, I argue that paradigmatically rational actions on determinate intentions which are not sensitive to potentially transformative feedback in the course of their execution can fall short of full agency in important ways. (shrink)

Nathan Salmon presents a selection of nineteen of his essays from the early 1980s to 2006, on a set of closely connected topics central to analytic philosophy. The book is divided into four thematic sections, on direct reference, apriority, belief, and the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. The volume concludes with four essays about the distinction between meaning and use, or more generally, the distinction between semantics and pragmatics.

Two professionals who treated Jack Adcock before his death were convicted of gross negligence manslaughter, receiving 24-month suspended sentences. His nurse, Isabel Amaro, was erased from the nursing register; but after reviews in the High Court and Court of Appeal, his doctor, Hadiza Bawa-Garba, was merely suspended. This article explores the proposition that nurses are at greater risk of erasure than doctors after gross negligence manslaughter through a close reading of the guidance for medical and nursing tribunals informed by analysis (...) from the High Court and Court of Appeal in the Bawa-Garba cases. Examination of the relevant sections of the guidance for medical and nursing tribunals reveals no significant differences. An outline of the conduct that amounted to breach of duty of care by Amaro and Bawa-Garba shows that their conduct could satisfy the thresholds for erasure given in their professions’ respective guidelines for tribunals. Both presented similar mitigating evidence, although this cannot be weighed heavily in a professional tribunal setting. Thus, Amaro was treated more harshly than Bawa-Garba without a simple explanation. However, I suggest that the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Conduct and Competence Committee made a mistaken ‘presumption of erasure’ for gross negligence manslaughter and misinterpreted the sway that sentencing remarks should hold over tribunals. Both of these types of error were criticised by the Court of Appeal in Bawa-Garba. Furthermore, the Conduct and Competence Committee did not flesh out its analysis of ‘public confidence’ or acknowledge Lord Hoffmann’s caution against ending ‘useful’ careers for the sake of public confidence, but Bawa-Garba’s legal team ensured these arguments were taken into account by the Medical Professional Tribunal. The Conduct and Competence Committee’s failures are not inherent to Nursing and Midwifery Council procedure or policy. Rather Amaro’s self-representation appears to have impaired her access to justice. Tribunals must accept their right, and responsibility, to reach their own conclusions. (shrink)

Understanding individual differences in cognitive performance is an important part of understanding how variations in underlying cognitive processes can result in variations in task performance. However, the exploration of individual differences in the components of the decision process—such as cognitive processing speed, response caution, and motor execution speed—in previous research has been limited. Here, we assess the heritability of the components of the decision process, with heritability having been a common aspect of individual differences research within other areas of cognition. (...) Importantly, a limitation of previous work on cognitive heritability is the underlying assumption that variability in response times solely reflects variability in the speed of cognitive processing. This assumption has been problematic in other domains, due to the confounding effects of caution and motor execution speed on observed response times. We extend a cognitive model of decision‐making to account for relatedness structure in a twin study paradigm. This approach can separately quantify different contributions to the heritability of response time. Using data from the Human Connectome Project, we find strong evidence for the heritability of response caution, and more ambiguous evidence for the heritability of cognitive processing speed and motor execution speed. Our study suggests that the assumption made in previous studies—that the heritability of cognitive ability is based on cognitive processing speed—may be incorrect. More generally, our methodology provides a useful avenue for future research in complex data that aims to analyze cognitive traits across different sources of related data, whether the relation is between people, tasks, experimental phases, or methods of measurement. (shrink)