On the standard Paulian definition of epistemically transformative experiences (ETE), we can’t know what an ETE is like before we have it. ETEs are new kinds of experiences and, importantly, can’t be imagined—this is why they have a unique ability to teach us what a particular experience is like. Contra Paul, some philosophers (Sharadin, 2015; Wilkenfeld, 2016; Ismael, 2019; Kind, 2020; Daoust, 2021; Cath, 2022) have argued that transformative experiences can be imagined. A neglected consequence of this argument is that (...) if transformative experiences can in fact be imagined, then it is unclear how they could be epistemically transformative. What do they teach us if we can imagine what they’re like in advance? I will argue not only that imaginable experiences can be transformative, but that experiences of a kind which an agent is experientially acquainted with can also be transformative. This latter kind of transformative experiences, which I will call familiar transformative experiences, are transformative not because the agent learns what a new kind of experience is like—by definition, they are not new kinds of experiences—but because the transformativeness of the experience is brought out by features of the agent experiencing them. Epistemic transformation in these cases may be explained by facts about the agent’s perspective and social environment, which allow them to appreciate elements of the experience they did not previously. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the question of whether we can make transformative decisions rationally. The first chapter introduces and explores the nature of transformative experiences: what are they, and how do they bring about such drastic change? I argue that there is an tension between Paul’s (2014) characterisation of transformative experience and arguments that transformative experiences are imaginable. I propose a broader characterisation of transformative experiences on which transformation isn’t driven by experiential acquaintance. From Chapter 2 onwards, the thesis focuses on (...) whether we can rationally choose to have transformative experiences. Transformative experiences pose a problem to Expected Utility Theory, our standard theory of rationality. I introduce Expected Utility Theory and the problem posed by transformative experience before surveying prominent responses to the problem of transformative experience. Some responses are more promising given my characterisation of transformative experiences, such as Kind’s (2020a) Imaginative Scaffolding proposal, though I ultimately offer reasons to reject the available responses. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to developing and discussing Pettigrew’s (2015; 2019) solution to the problem of transformative experience: the Fine-Graining Response and the Aggregate Utility Solution. I argue that many transformative experiences involve constitutive risk and that this poses a problem for Pettigrew’s solution. The final substantive chapter of the thesis attempts to provide an alternative diagnosis of the problem of transformative experience for rational decision-making. I argue that if we are realists about decision-theoretic attitudes, the problem can be construed as a problem about self-knowledge of desire. On this proposal, the limitations of third-personal evidence are evident: whilst it can help us recognise what is desirable, it cannot settle the question of what we, ourselves, desire. (shrink)

One important strand of Sellars’s attack on classical foundationalism from Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is his thesis about the priority of is-talk over looks-talk. This thesis has been criticized extensively in recent years, and classical foundationalism has found several contemporary defenders. I revisit Sellars’s thesis and argue that is-talk is epistemically prior to looks-talk in a way that undermines classical foundationalism. The classical foundationalist claims that epistemic foundations are constituted by the agent’s set of looks-judgments. However, I argue (...) that only a subset of these looks-judgments are even candidates to serve as foundations for the agent’s empirical knowledge, and membership in this subset is determined by the agent’s theory of how the world is. Thus, the epistemic force of the looks-judgments in this subset is dependent on the agent’s theory of how the world is. This means that these looks-judgments aren’t foundational at all, as the agent’s theory of how the world is is epistemically is prior to the epistemic status of these looks-judgments. This is the sense in which judgments about how the world is are epistemically prior to judgments about how things look. This conclusion allows concrete elaboration of another of Sellars’s well-know claims: “I do wish to insist that the metaphor of ‘foundation’ is misleading in that it keeps us from seeing that if there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation reports, there is another logical dimension in which the latter rest on the former”. (shrink)

The Gouldian argument for evolutionary contingency found in Wonderful Life can be dissected into three premises: palaeontological, macro-evolutionary, and developmental. Discussions of evolutionary contingency have revolved primarily around the developmental. However, a shift in methodological practice and new palaeontological evidence subsequent to the book’s publication appears to threaten the palaeontological premise that asserts high Cambrian disparity, or, roughly, that morphological differences between the Cambrian species were high. This presents a prima facie problem: Did the Cambrian consist of enough anatomical variety (...) to fuel a different outcome upon a replay of the tape of life? I investigate the role that disparity plays in the Gouldian argument for evolutionary contingency and conclude that the reduced disparity view does not undermine the argument, per se. As for the macro-evolutionary premise, Gould never offers any explicit justification for the idea that species sorting was indiscriminate or ‘lottery-like’ (though he certainly gestures at it). Putting aside the exegetical, I consider certain empirical avenues for underwriting the macro-evolutionary premise and argue that the most plausible route is to appeal to the special status of mass extinctions, a move that is not entirely unfamiliar to macro-evolutionists. That is, mass extinctions can be good sources of contingency due to their being ‘chancy’ in at least three respects. In sum, I update the palaeontological and macro-evolutionary premises as to reconstrue the Gouldian argument for evolutionary contingency in its strongest form. (shrink)

In this path breaking volume, leading researchers from psychology, linguistics, philosophy and primatology offer complementary perspectives on the role of intersubjectivity in the context of human development, comparative cognition and...

T. S. Champlin; VII*—Tendencies, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 91, Issue 1, 1 June 1991, Pages 119–134, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/9.

This paper demonstrates the undecidability of a number of logics with quantification over public announcements: arbitrary public announcement logic, group announcement logic, and coalition announcement logic. In APAL we consider the informative consequences of any announcement, in GAL we consider the informative consequences of a group of agents all of which are simultaneously making known announcements. So this is more restrictive than APAL. Finally, CAL is as GAL except that we now quantify over anything the agents not in that group (...) may announce simultaneously as well. The logic CAL therefore has some features of game logic and of ATL. We show that when there are multiple agents in the language, the satisfiability problem is undecidable for APAL, GAL, and CAL. In the single agent case, the satisfiability problem is decidable for all three logics. (shrink)

Agent-relative consequentialism is thought attractive because it can secure agent-centred constraints while retaining consequentialism's compelling idea—the idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available outcome. We argue, however, that the commitments of agent-relative consequentialism lead it to run afoul of a plausibility requirement on moral theories. A moral theory must not be such that, in any possible circumstance, were every agent to act impermissibly, each would have more reason to prefer the world thereby actualized over the (...) world that would have been actualized if every agent had instead acted permissibly. (shrink)

Classical text on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy; with Āloka Sanskrit commentary.

T. S. Champlin; VII*—Tendencies, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 91, Issue 1, 1 June 1991, Pages 119–134, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/9.

Externalism holds that the content of our utterances and thoughts are determined partly by the environment. Here, I offer an argument which suggests that externalism is incompatible with a natural view about ontological commitment--namely, the Quinean view that such commitments are fixed by the range of the variables in your theory. The idea in brief is that if Oscar mistakenly believes that water = XYZ, the externalist ontologically commits Oscar to two waterish kinds, whereas the Quinean commits him to one (...) such kind (albeit a metaphysically impossible kind). The penultimate section addresses a variety of objections to the argument. (shrink)

W artykule tym przedstawiony został system aksjomatyczny fonologii teoretycznej, stanowiący pewną modyfikację teorii opublikowanej przez autora w pracyLogiczna rekonstrukcja pojęcia fonemu (Studia Logica XI, 1961, s. 139–183).

Книга предназначена для философов, правоведов и специалистов по естественным наукам, а также для заинтересованных читателей.

A questionnaire relating to attitudes towards setting economic priorities within the health care system was sent to all 151 general practitioners in Northern Norway. Of these, 109 (72 per cent) responded. Ninety-six per cent of the respondents agreed or partly agreed that the setting of economic priorities within the health care system was necessary. Ninety-three per cent had experienced a conflict between their responsibility towards the individual patient and the requirement for them to manage the health budget. The responses suggest (...) that doctors act more in the interests of their patient than the interests of society. However, 68 per cent reported having refrained from giving the best treatment to patients because it was too expensive. As many as 60 per cent of the respondents wanted more public guidelines. Only 10 per cent wanted doctors to have more influence in difficult questions arising from setting priorities. (shrink)

This draft now appears (in revised form) as Chapter 7 of _Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind_. See http://philpapers.org/rec/PARSFT-3.

Open peer commentary on the article “Interactivity and Enaction in Human Cognition” by Matthew Isaac Harvey, Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen & Sune Vork Steffensen. Upshot: Enaction is a diverse research program and some of its texts can be interpreted in terms of a critical contrast to interactivity. Yet much of the former has already started to move in a direction favored by the latter: toward systematic studies of how human activity is shaped by social, cultural, and technological influences. Interactivity could therefore help (...) enaction to provide a better account of such highly mediated and augmented forms of sense-making. (shrink)