Short’s assertion that Peirce lacked a cohesive philosophical system is critically examined, and the interconnectedness of Peirce’s 1884–1893 “cosmology” with other aspects of his work is explored, countering Short’s claims of its limited systematic relevance. Additionally, Short’s claim that Peirce “expanded empiricism empirically” is scrutinized, and his interpretation of Peirce’s account of perception is criticized. By contrasting Short’s anti-system reading, I highlight the importance of studying Peirce’s philosophy holistically.

This book defends an interpretation of Peirce’s philosophical work as forming a systematic whole, emphasizing his empiricist epistemology and explaining the roots of his thought in earlier empiricist and common sense philosophers. In particular, the book develops the connections between Peirce, Reid, and the British empiricists, and provides focused analyses of Peirce’s accounts of experience, habit, perception, semeiosis, truth, and ultimate ends.

Abstract:Peirce held a convergence theory of moral truth, as James Liszka persuasively argues in Charles Peirce on Ethics, Esthetics, and the Normative Sciences (2021). Here I emphasize: (1) that Peirce's convergence theory follows from the application of the maxim of pragmatism to the concept of moral goodness or rightness; (2) that in connection with Peirce's account of the ethical summum bonum, morally right action can be understood as action that conforms or contributes to the growth of concrete reasonableness; and (3) (...) that, for Peirce, the growth of concrete reasonableness seems to be a movement or development toward "God". While I broadly agree with Liszka's approach, I highlight some disagreements. As do many readers of Peirce, Liszka seems to regard the convergence of beliefs and habits as necessarily a convergance among the "indefinite community" of distinct persons or inquirers; however, there is sufficient evidence that Peirce came to think that, if any given person were to live long enough, they would come to the same conclusions or rest in the same habits on their own. With respect to morality, even the most evil person would eventually come around to the moral truth. (shrink)

On Peirce’ view, we can perceive many things commonly thought not to be perceptible—or thought to be ‘abstract’—including but not necessarily limited to (some) generals or universals, habits or law-like properties, modal properties, and semeiotic properties (sign relations). My contention turns on his arguments in ‘Some Consequences’ that ‘no cognition of ours is absolutely determinate’, his mature account of perception, particularly his criteria for what counts as perception and what does not, his analysis of the predication of concepts (i.e. his (...) pragmaticism), his claims in the 1903 Harvard lectures that we directly perceive Thirdness, and his realism about generals, habits, modalities, and sign relations. (shrink)

Most specialists agree that Peirce upholds his abstract definitions of reality and truth simultaneously and consistently with his pragmatist clarifications of those concepts. But some might assume that his pragmatist clarifications (the third grade of clearness) restrict the extensions of abstract definitions (the second grade of clearness), such that anything real must both be independent of what anyone thinks about it, per the abstract definition, and be an object of the would-be “final opinion”, per the pragmatist clarification. I call this (...) reading Interpretive Dependence of the second grade of clearness on the third grade. In contrast, on Interpretive Independence, which I defend here, a concept can have a different extension on the second grade than it has on the third grade, such that it could be true, in a purely abstract sense, that there are realities that can never be known (metaphysical realism). “True” here must also be interpreted only according to an abstract definition, namely, one which Peirce endorses in 1906 and which, I argue, is a deflationary definition. Interpretive Independence not only allows Peirce to explain the intuitive appeal of metaphysical realism, while at the same time rejecting it, it also allows him to explain how there can be truths about fictional objects and truths in pure mathematics. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, according to Peirce’s mature account of perception, we directly perceive generals, or "Thirds," in external reality which should be described as physical and not as mental. I argue against three other interpretations of the role of Thirdness in Peirce’s account: (I) we do not directly perceive Thirds, although they are involved in the interpretive and judgmental part of perception; (II) we directly perceive Thirds, but they are imposed on external objects by our minds; and (...) (III) we directly perceive Thirds in external objects, but external reality is comprised of the representations of an objective mind. I address questions about the role of the percept and the percipuum in his account, in what exact sense he thought that perception is interpretive, and how he thought it is even possible to directly perceive generals in the external world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peirce on Realism and Idealism by Robert LaneAaron B. WilsonPeirce on Realism and Idealism Robert Lane. Cambridge UP, 2018.Robert Lane's Peirce on Realism and Idealism is the ultimate secondary source for those who wish to engage the forms of realism and idealism that Peirce develops over the course of his writings. Lane could not have given his monograph a more concise and descriptive title. He never strays from (...) the topics of realism and idealism, and it is remarkably complete. It includes extensive discussion on Peirce's basic realism (Lane's term) as well as his extreme scholastic realism (Peirce's term), his basic idealism (Lane's term), and his objective idealism (Peirce's term). It might not be the best resource for those interested in the historical influences on Peirce's forms of realism and idealism. For instance, if one is interested mainly in Peirce's extreme scholastic realism and its roots in scholastic philosophy, Mayorga (2007)1 might still be a more useful resource. Also, Lane leaves much to be said about the epistemological underpinnings of Peirce's forms of realism and idealism. Peirce's theory of perception and his critical common-sensism do not get much attention. Also, there is much in Peirce's later semeiotic writings that could have been brought to bear on the issues.However, I do not see any of these omissions as failures of Lane's work. As I read it, the book's central aims are to determine the following: (1) what metaphysical views did Peirce hold, (2) when did he hold them, (3) are they consistent with one another, and (4) what is the textual evidence that he held them as such. With respect to these aims, Peirce on Realism and Idealism exhibits the gold standard of Peirce scholarship: it is remarkably sensitive to dates, different writings, and contexts of writings, and the reader gets a strong impression that Lane has not left any stone unturned—that he had at least skimmed every word in every lecture, published writing, letter, and unpublished manuscript that Peirce produced.Although the book contains some interpretations about which I have some reservations, which I describe further on, I agree with most of its central claims. This includes the claim that, despite various developments, Peirce had always subscribed to "basic realism": the thesis that there are things independent of what anyone thinks about them. A whole chapter is dedicated to showing that Peirce's 1868–1869 "anti-Cartesian" papers are consistent with basic realism, and I found that chapter very helpful. Another thesis that Lane defends, and that I strongly agree with, is that Peirce held a representationalist view of truth. Truth as "correspondence" with reality is one of two [End Page 107] key aspects of Peirce's account of truth (the other being, as Lane calls it, an "investigative aspect"). After works by Christopher Hookway, Cheryl Misak, and others that attempt to de-emphasize or obscure Peirce's representationalism, perhaps to make him more appealing to contemporary analytic "neopragmatists," it is absolutely refreshing to read a book that embraces Peirce's representationalism without apology.However, in the remainder of this review, I will focus on parts that I found troubling. Some of this trouble is probably due more to Peirce himself than to Lane's interpretation of Peirce. But some of it directly concerns Lane's interpretation. In particular, the parts of chapter 6 concerning Peirce's modal realism, while stimulating and enlightening, are also problematic. Further, I do not think that Lane's account of Peirce's idealism appropriately recognizes its similarity to Hegelian or Absolute idealism.To begin with Peirce's modal realism, Lane's discussion of it sets out by addressing the fact that, as Peirce recognizes, the conditionals comprising "pragmatic clarifications," or what result from applying the "pragmatic maxim" to a concept, must be in the hypothetical or subjunctive mood. This is in order to make sense of the truth of even indicative non-conditional propositions such as, to use Peirce's and Lane's example, "the diamond is hard." If the conditionals into which a concept is pragmatically clarified are in the indicative mood... (shrink)

According to Thomas Reid, every act of mind is accompanied by a conception of its object. For instance, he holds that the thing one conceives in an act of perception is always an individual thing that exists, and that the thing one conceives in an act of judgment is the thing expressed by the proposition judged. However, Reid never is clear about what kind of thing is expressed by a proposition; neither is it clear from the existing literature on Reid. (...) What he says about judgments, propositions, and general conceptions together suggests four distinct candidates. But I will argue that each of these candidates either fails to have sufficient textual support, or leads to absurd conclusions (such as that we conceive semi-existent things). In conclusion, I argue that while Reid does not offer an account of the kind of conception accompanying judgments, his writings leave the matter open. (shrink)

Locke characterizes sensitive knowledge as knowledge of the existence of external objects present to the senses, and in terms of an ‘assurance’ that falls short of the certainty of intuition and demonstration. But it is unclear how this fits with his general definition of knowledge, as the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, and it is unclear how that assurance can amount to knowledge, rather than amounting to mere probability (which he contrasts with knowledge). Some contend that Locke (...) does not regard sensitive knowledge as genuine knowledge, but only honourifically calls it knowledge. In contrast, I argue that Locke holds that sensitive knowledge is knowledge, though he takes the conditions for it to be very different from the conditions for intuitive and demonstrative knowledge. It is not the assurance alone which Locke thinks qualifies sensitive knowledge as such: it is also the fact that the assurance arises from the actual employment of the senses upon external objects, and the fact that the senses do not generally deceive us, which he thinks qualifies sensitive knowledge as genuine knowledge. That there is a (tacit) form of externalism in Locke's account of sensitive knowledge is the main thesis of this paper. (shrink)

What exactly are Peirce’s views about the a priori?1Though the term “a priori” and others derived from it do not occur in Peirce’s writings very frequently, they occur often enough to motivate the above question. Their best known appearance is in his “The Fixation of Belief ”, in which he famously rejects the “a priori method” in favor of the “scientific method”. Of course, we cannot take this rejection alone as sufficient evidence that his philosophy is incompatible with any claim (...) to a priori knowledge or justification, since what he opposes as the a priori method is not necessarily representative of all theories having a positive role for the a.. (shrink)

That a distinction can be drawn between the literal meaning of a metaphorical expression and its metaphorical meaning is assumed by a number of philosophical theories of metaphor, such as so-called comparison theories. These views descend from Aristotle and typically regard the metaphorical meaning of a metaphorical expression to be the literal meaning of a corresponding simile.1 “Man is a lion” literally means something that is clearly false, while “Man is a lion” metaphorically means something that may be true—man is (...) like a lion. Max Black’s (1962) “interaction” theory also affirms the distinction and remains popular, including among some Peirce scholars whom I will discuss. But Donald Davidson has been.. (shrink)

Idealist and Strong Empiricist approaches to Peirce’s thought are irreconcilable so far as an Idealist interpretation commits Peirce to some form of a priori knowledge, particularly a priori knowledge of the conditions of empirical knowledge. However, while I favor the strong empiricist approach, I agree that there is something like a “condition for the possibility of empirical knowledge” in Peirce, and that this lies with his famous conjecture that, with enough time and experience, there would be a “final result” of (...) all inquiry – “the Final Opinion.” Though some argue that this is mainly a regulative assumption or intellectual hope in Peirce, I contend that he is committed to it as an empirical hypothesis which we should provisionally accept. As an empirical hypothesis, it is not a transcendental constraint on knowledge, though it can be considered a transcendental feature (following Sacks’ (1997) distinction). That is, the thesis explains how knowledge is possible, but the epistemic status of the thesis itself is dependent on the course of experience. Here I explain how it is an empirical thesis and I explain the empirical considerations Peirce thinks support it. Though Peirce should not be considered a transcendental idealist in any robust sense, I give reasons for why he could still be considered a sort of absolute idealist. (shrink)

We explain how the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) – the founder of semiotics and of the pragmatist tradition in philosophy – contributes an epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical foundation to some key transhumanist ideas, including the following claims: technological cognitive enhancement is not only possible but a present reality; pursuing more sweeping cognitive enhancements is epistemically rational; and current humans should try to evolve themselves into posthumans. On Peirce’s view, the fundamental aim of inquiry is truth, understood in terms (...) of a stage of ideal cognition (what he calls the “final opinion”). As current human cognitive abilities are insufficient to achieve this stage, Peirce’s views on cognition support a variety of ways in which they might be enhanced. Finally, we argue that what Peirce describes as our ethical summum bonum seems remarkably similar to what Bostrom (2005) argues to be the core transhumanist value: “the exploration of the posthuman realm.”. (shrink)

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths, yet research funding is by far the lowest for lung cancer than for any other cancer compared with respective death rates. Although this discrepancy should appear alarming, one could argue that lung cancer deserves less attention because it is more attributable to poor life choices than other common cancers. Accordingly, the general question that I ask in this article is whether victims of more avoidable diseases, such as lung cancer, deserve to (...) have their needs taken into less consideration than those of less avoidable diseases, on the grounds of either retributive or distributive justice. Such unequal treatment may be the “penalty” one incurs for negligent or reckless behavior. However, I hope to show that such unequal treatment cannot be supported by any coherent accounts of retributive or distributive justice. (shrink)

Whether in Plato’s Sophist or in Quine’s “Plato’s Beard,”1 the representation of unreal or non-existent objects is usually presented as a puzzle. How is it that we can think and talk coherently about things that do not exist or are not real, given that thinking and talking about such things seem to involve relations between things that exist and things that don’t exist? Uriah Kriegel articulates the problem most generally as the following inconsistent triad:One can think of non-existents.One cannot bear (...) a relation to non-existents.Thinking of something involves bearing a relation to it.2Each of these propositions is difficult to reject. Experience and introspection seem to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peirce on Inference: Validity, Strength, and the Community of Inquirers by Richard AtkinsAaron B. WilsonBy Richard Atkins Peirce on Inference: Validity, Strength, and the Community of Inquirers Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 352 pp. (incl. index).With his third book on Peirce in fewer than eight years, Richard Atkins has quickly established himself as a scholar who contributes high-quality, focused, and detailed accounts of diverse areas of Peirce's thought. (...) His first book on Peirce, Peirce and the Conduct of Life (2016), focuses on ethics and religion, while the focus of his second, Charles S. Peirce's Phenomenology (2018), is evident from the title. Now, Peirce on Inference: Validity, Strength, and the Community of Inquirers (2023) is a detailed analysis of key parts of Peirce's logic—mainly the part of logic he called Critic, "which classifies arguments and determines the validity and degree of force of each kind" (EP 2:260). Perhaps what is remarkable is that none of Atkins's three books on Peirce are directly about pragmatism or pragmaticism. Of course, connections abound, but had Atkins chosen instead to write books on Peirce on meaning, on truth, on inquiry, or even on reality, pragmatism would have occupied a more central place in them. He has articles relating to these topics, and perhaps his fourth book on Peirce will put pragmatism in center, but I find it invigorating that someone has done as much justice to the richness of Peirce's philosophical thought outside pragmatism or pragmaticism as Atkins has done.The layout of Peirce on Inference is very straightforward. First, how should we understand the nature of inference and arguments in general, according to Peirce; second, how does Peirce go about classifying inferences into main types; and third, how does Peirce understand the nature and the validity of each main type of inference. [End Page 234]In the first part, Atkins cannot avoid addressing one of the major controversies of Peirce's philosophy: his simultaneous rejection of psychologism in logic and his endorsement of apparent psychological explanations of logical matters. On this issue, Atkins's response is basically correct, and it might be the most lucid correct response I have seen. I will comment more on it further on. I will, then, comment on the classification issue, particularly as it concerns abduction. For the sake of space, I will say very little about Atkins's accounts of Peircean deduction and induction. I found the parts on deduction very informative, though that could be attributed to my own lack of focus on deduction in Peirce. The parts on induction, easily the basic type of inference to which Atkins gives the most attention, are philosophically rich. He includes a chapter on objections and replies to Peirce's account of induction and its validity, ranging from circularity objections to underdetermination objections, to Goodman's famous "grue" problem, and here Atkins is careful to distinguish between Peirce's replies and Peircean replies. As there is too much to comment on here, I will put aside induction in the remainder of my review, remarking only that Atkin's book is a must read for anyone wanting to engage Peirce on induction. Instead, I focus on the psychologism issue and on what Atkins says about Peirce on abduction.1. PsychologismAtkins distinguishes between inference and argument in Peirce, taking inference to be "a category of mental action" while taking argument to be "a category of semiotic relations" (8). Thus, according to (Atkins's) Peirce, logic is "a science of thought insofar as it studies the process of inferring" (ibid.). Some might regard this already to be too psychological a reading of Peirce's logic. But it is well supported by Peirce's texts, and Atkins argues that it does not undermine Peirce's "unpsychological view of logic" (9). The reason it doesn't is simple: while logic is a science of thought so far as it studies inference as a mental process, the "broader target is the sorts of inferences that could be made and how far they are good" (9). That is, "Peirce's theory is unpsychological because the logician takes an interest in all the sorts... (shrink)

Introduction Recent years have seen increased interest in the complex relationships between the thought of German Idealists (understood to include both transcendental and absolute idealists) and the thought of those philosophers commonly categorized as “American Pragmatists” – from Charles S. Peirce (the progenitor of this alleged tradition) to Richard Rorty and his student, Robert Brandom. This issue presents a collection of papers that, as a collection, do justice to those complex relations...

Several recent systematic and targeted reviews have highlighted limitations in our understanding of talent in sport. However, a comprehensive profile of where the scientific research has focused would help identify gaps in current knowledge. Our goal in this scoping review was to better understand what others have done in the field of research, to summarize the constituent areas of research in a meaningful way, to help identify gaps in the research, and to encourage future research to address these gaps. Peer-reviewed (...) articles written in English that met several inclusion criteria were analyzed. A total of 1,899 articles were identified, and the descriptive findings revealed a relatively narrow focus of research on talent in sport. Specifically, the majority of examined articles focused on males only, the sport of soccer, perceptual cognitive variables, developing athletes, adult samples, and cross-sectional designs. For better or worse, the concept of talent remains a central element of how coaches, practitioners, and scientists think about athlete development. Findings from this scoping review highlight the continued need to explore issues related to talent identification, selection, and development in more diverse samples and contexts. There is also a clear necessity to focus on under-researched areas using alternative methodologies. (shrink)

The heart of Richard Kenneth Atkins’s Peirce and the Conduct of Life: Sentiment and Instinct in Ethics and Religion is an interpretation and defense of Peirce’s sentimental conservatism, as well as an extension of that idea to Peirce’s philosophy of religion and to the casuistic approach to practical ethics. “A Defense of Peirce’s Sentimental Conservatism” is the explicit title of the second of the book’s six chapters. But the only chapter in which Peirce’s sentimental conservatism does not itself appear to (...) play an explicit role is chapter five, “Self-Control and Moral Responsibility”, which is perhaps the chapter that reads most as a stand-alone work (even though the first chapter is the... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to bring recent work on metaphysical grounding to bear on the phenomenon of social construction. It is argued that grounding can be used to analyze social construction and that the grounding framework is helpful for articulating various claims and commitments of social constructionists, especially about social identities, e.g., gender and race. The paper also responds to a number of objections that have been leveled against the application of grounding to social construction from Elizabeth Barnes, (...) Mari Mikkola, and Jessica Wilson. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to make headway on a metaphysics of social construction. In recent work, I’ve argued that social construction should be understood in terms of metaphysical grounding. However, I agree with grounding skeptics like Wilson that bare claims about what grounds what are insufficient for capturing, with fine enough grain, metaphysical dependence structures. To that end, I develop a view on which the social construction of human social kinds is a kind of realization relation. Social (...) kinds, I argue, are multiply realizable kinds. I depart from the Wilson by further arguing that an appeal to grounding is not otiose when it comes to social construction. Social construction, I claim, belongs to the “big-G” Grounding genus, but it is the specific “small-g” relation of realization at work in cases of human kind social construction. (shrink)

It is not uncommon to hear that poor school performance, welfare dependancy, youth unemployment, and criminal activity result more from shortcomings in the personal makeup of individuals than from societal forces beyond their control. Are American values declining as so many suggest? And are those values at the root of many social problems today?Shaped by experience and public policies, people's values and social norms do change. What role can or should a democratic government play in shaping values? And how do (...) these values conditon the efficacy of public policy?In this book, six distinguished social scientists identify trends in America's values and their consequences, and consider public policy tools with which some of those values might be changed.Daniel Yankelovich begins with a discussion of how American values have shifted in the last half-century, and argues that affluence is the driving force behind these changes in values. James Q. Wilson argues that destructive habits which can lead to social pathologies, like crime and drug use, are set early in life; he examines how public policy might intervene when children are young to promote better values. David Popenoe maintains that America has veered too far towards industrialist values, and explores the resulting decline of families and many attendant social ills. Nathan Glazer describes the history and present status of the dispute over multicultural education. Jane Mansbridge examines the process of building cooperation, consensus, and public spirit. And George Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen discuss the problem of gang criminality.Inthe past, social scientists have often sidestepped questions about values as undefinable, unquantifiable, and somehow unscientific. The essays in this volume address these questions at last.Henry J. Aaron, director of the Economic Studies program at Brookings, is the authorof numerous books, including most recently Serious and Unstable Condition: Financing America's Health Care (1991), and coeditor of Setting Domestic Priorities (1992). Thomas E. Mann is director of the Brookings Governmental Studies program, coeditor of Media Polls in American Politics (1992), and coauthor of the Renewing Congress series (1993). Timothy Taylor is managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives at Stanford University. (shrink)

Empiricism in philosophy is either a method or a theory. The two are separable: one might hold that all knowledge is empirical but that philosophy does something other than add to our knowledge, e.g., that it clarifies concepts; or one might hold that philosophy’s method is empirical and that one of the things known in that way is that not all knowledge is empirical, e.g., mathematics. And what is the empirical? If it is knowledge based on observation, then what is (...) it that can be observed? If philosophy is in method empirical, the range of the observable must be broad, perhaps including mental processes, human history, social institutions such as language, and even the difference between good and evil.In Peirce’s... (shrink)

Extract from Hofstadter's revew in Bulletin of American Mathematical Society : http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1980-02-02/S0273-0979-1980-14752-7/S0273-0979-1980-14752-7.pdf -/- "Aaron Sloman is a man who is convinced that most philosophers and many other students of mind are in dire need of being convinced that there has been a revolution in that field happening right under their noses, and that they had better quickly inform themselves. The revolution is called "Artificial Intelligence" (Al)-and Sloman attempts to impart to others the "enlighten- ment" which he clearly regrets not (...) having experienced earlier himself. Being somewhat of a convert, Sloman is a zealous campaigner for his point of view. Now a Reader in Cognitive Science at Sussex, he began his academic career in more orthodox philosophy and, by exposure to linguistics and AI, came to feel that all approaches to mind which ignore AI are missing the boat. I agree with him, and I am glad that he has written this provocative book. The tone of Sloman's book can be gotten across by this quotation (p. 5): "I am prepared to go so far as to say that within a few years, if there remain any philosophers who are not familiar with some of the main developments in artificial intelligence, it will be fair to accuse them of professional incom- petence, and that to teach courses in philosophy of mind, epistemology, aesthetics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, ethics, metaphysics, and other main areas of philosophy, without discussing the relevant aspects of artificial intelligence will be as irresponsible as giving a degree course in physics which includes no quantum theory." -/- (The author now regrets the extreme polemical tone of the book.). (shrink)

The Deed is Everything offers an engaging new interpretation of Nietzsche as committed to an 'expressivist' conception of agency. Aaron Ridley shows that Nietzsche develops highly distinctive accounts of freedom, morality, and selfhood, with a robust commitment to the value of human excellence in all of its forms.

Modeling and computer simulations, we claim, should be considered core philosophical methods. More precisely, we will defend two theses. First, philosophers should use simulations for many of the same reasons we currently use thought experiments. In fact, simulations are superior to thought experiments in achieving some philosophical goals. Second, devising and coding computational models instill good philosophical habits of mind. Throughout the paper, we respond to the often implicit objection that computer modeling is “not philosophical.”.

This book offers a sustained critique of individualism in psychology, a view that has been the subject of debate between philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Tyler Burge for many years. The author approaches individualism as an issue in the philosophy of science and by discussing issues such as computationalism and the mind's modularity he opens the subject up for non-philosophers in psychology and computer science. Professor Wilson carefully examines the most influential arguments for individualism and identifies the main (...) metaphysical assumptions underlying them. Since the topic is so central to the philosophy of mind, a discipline generating enormous research and debate, the book has implications for a very broad range of philosophical issues including the naturalisation of intentionality, psychophysical supervenience, the nature of mental causation, and the viability of folk psychology. (shrink)

Theoretical Perspective on Smell is the first collection of scholarly articles to be devoted exclusively to philosophical research on olfaction. The essays, published here for the first time, bring together leading theorists working on smell in a format that allows for deep engagement with the emerging field, while also providing those new to the philosophy of smell with a resource to begin their journey. The volume’s 14 chapters are organized into four parts: -/- I. The Importance and Beauty of Smell (...) II. Smell in Time and Space III. What We Perceive through Smell IV. Smell and Other Senses -/- The collection solidifies the area as an important emerging branch of perceptual philosophy by presenting the cutting edge research being done by innovative early career researchers, as well as by those more senior and established within the field. -/- Table of Contents 1. Introduction Andreas Keller and Benjamin Young -/- Part I: The Importance and Beauty of Smell -/- 2. The Role of Smell in Consciousness Barry C. Smith -/- 3. The metacognitive gap: Why we both trust and mistrust our sense of smell Ophelia Deroy -/- 4. Perfumes and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature Chiara Brozzo -/- 5. Aesthetics, Olfaction, & Environment Michael Aaron Lindquist -/- Part II: Smell in Time and Space -/- 6. Smell and the Space Between Us Clare Batty -/- 7. The Temporal Structure of Olfactory Experience Keith A. Wilson -/- Part III: What We Perceive through Smell -/- 8. How Biology Perceives Chemistry: A Causal Analysis of the Stimulus in Olfaction and its Implications for Scientific and Philosophical Theorizing Ann-Sophie Barwich -/- 9. The Accuracy Conditions of Olfactory Perception Andreas Keller -/- 10. Maybe We Don't Smell Molecular Structure Benjamin D. Young -/- 11. Stuff & Nonsense: Against Mizrahi on Olfaction Harry Sherwood -/- 12. The Layering of Smell William G. Lycan -/- Part IV: Smell and the Other Senses -/- 13. From Odors to Flavors: Perceptual organization in the chemical senses Becky Millar -/- 14. Seeing and hearing flavors Błażej Skrzypulec -/- 15. Smelling Gustatory Qualities Louise Richardson. (shrink)

This article focuses on how aesthetic values permeate Nietzsche’s philosophy. Artistry is not confined to the creation of conventional works of art but occurs in the form-giving that is essential to all human forms of life. Since Nietzsche was committed to the view that the world is in some basic sense chaotic and meaningless, he held that only by imposing forms can we create a cognizable world. This close association between the conditions of life itself and the aesthetic activity of (...) giving form belies that Kantian conception that any appreciation of aesthetic phenomena is essentially disinterested. (shrink)

The affective sciences are essential to research regarding sustainable transition towards renewable energy. We focus on important questions that should be addressed by affective science in relation to the siting of large-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar. Considering the recent acceleration of the transition, a more holistic understanding of negative and positive emotional responses to energy development will be essential. This is particularly important as the least controversial sites begin to dwindle in number. We break this commentary down (...) into four primary question categories for future research. These are the causal relationships between emotional elicitations and their sources, dual processing through cognitive and affective response, affect and its relationship with place, and how all of these elements change over time. (shrink)

A quarterback like Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers gambles with a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game when he has nothing to lose - the risky throw might turn defeat into victory, or end in a meaningless interception. Rodgers may not realize it, but he has much in common with figures such as George Washington, Rosa Parks, Woodrow Wilson, and Adolph Hitler, all of whom changed the modern world with their risk-loving decisions. In The Power (...) of Nothing to Lose, award-winning economist William Silber explores the phenomenon in politics, war, and business, where situations with a big upside and limited downside trigger gambling behavior like with a Hail Mary. Silber describes in colorful detail how the American Revolution turned on such a gamble. The famous scene of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the enemy may not look like a Hail Mary, but it was. Washington said days before his risky decision, "If this fails I think the game will be pretty well up." Rosa Parks remained seated in the White section of an Alabama bus, defying local segregation laws, an act that sparked the modern civil rights movement in America. It was a life-threatening decision for her, but she said, "I was not frightened. I just made up my mind that as long as we accepted that kind of treatment it would continue, so I had nothing to lose. (shrink)

Democratic theorists, especially since the advent of the deliberative democracy paradigm in the 1980s, have focused primarily on relationships involving citizens and their political representatives, and have thus paid scant attention to the bureaucratic agencies within the modern state that are presumed merely to “flesh out,” implement, and enforce the decisions made by elected officials. This undertheorized space between markets and democratic decision making, in brief, is where corporations and other interested parties inter- act with regulatory agencies, their bureaucrats, and (...) the elected officials who are accountable for what governments do on their watch. How and why ought democratic governments to facilitate, regulate, or get out of the way of, markets and corporations in a so-called market democracy? We cannot possibly provide or defend a detailed answer to this question here. What we will attempt to do, however, is to make the case for why the question is too normatively and conceptually rich for political philosophers to continue to outsource it almost entirely to scholars in law and the social sciences. Although the tensions between lawmaking by bureaucrats and the ideals of representative democracy rarely merit more than a few sentences of abstract reflection by democratic theorists, we have tried to reconstruct the implicit assumptions that might explain this neglect. (shrink)

Directed duties are those duties whose violation would wrong someone in particular. Under what conditions, and in virtue of what, is a duty directed to someone? This is the Question of Direction. In this article, I explore the possibility of providing a Contractualist answer to the Question of Direction—one where the directedness of a directed duty is explained by the way in which that duty is derived in Contractualist moral reasoning. After presenting and rejecting three attempts at such an answer, (...) I arrive at a satisfactory one: An agent has a duty to an individual to perform some action just in case and because, were the agent not to perform that action, the agent would make the individual occupy the standpoint relative to which any principle that permits the agent not to perform that action is unacceptable. (shrink)

In medicine and the social sciences, researchers must frequently integrate the findings of many observational studies, which measure overlapping collections of variables. For instance, learning how to prevent obesity requires combining studies that investigate obesity and diet with others that investigate obesity and exercise. Recently developed causal discovery algorithms provide techniques for integrating many studies, but little is known about what can be learned from such algorithms. This article argues that there are causal facts that one could learn by conducting (...) a large study but which could not be learned by combining many smaller studies. Moreover, I characterize the frequency with which combining many studies increases underdetermination and exactly how much information is lost. 1 Introduction2 Causal Inference from Observational Data3 Piecemeal Causal Inference4 The Extent and Frequency of the Problem of Piecemeal Induction5 Conclusion. (shrink)

A study in the philosophy of mind, centred on the problem of 'intentionality' the sense in which emotions can be said to have objects, their relation to these objects, and the implications of this relation for our understanding of human action and behaviour. Dr Wilson sets his enquiry against a broad historical background on what distinguishes man from inanimate objects by describing both Cartesian view of man is matter plus mind and the neo-Wittgensteinian view that there is a dynamic (...) behavioural difference – causal notions being often inapplicable to human action. Dr Wilson goes on to show the controversies and arguments that arise from the notion of intentionality cannot be analysed in causal terms. Dr Wilson believes that this notion can be shown causally and sets out to prove it. Finally, he brings this argument to a larger context mentioning that it has far-reaching effects in natural and social sciences. (shrink)

Brendan Wilson leads the reader through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revealing a new clarity, singleness of purpose and contemporary relevance in this acknowledged masterpiece.

Each chapter in Encountering the Medieval in Modern Jewish Thought addresses a different Jewish return to the medieval by using a language of renewal.

Abstract:In my response to the commentators, I agree with Rosa Mayorga that Duns Scotus should be included as an important influence on Peirce's notion of agency, as well as his sense of the highest good. I explain, however, how Peirce's triadic view of agency is an improvement that relates to current debates between moral internalism and externalism. In response to Diana Heney, I defend Peirce's notion of evolutionary love as a form of intergenerational altruism, necessary to any community of inquiry. (...) I also argue, in response to her query, that Peirce did not subscribe to moral perfectionism. Instead, there is good reasons to think that he was a meliorist in Dewey's sense. The end is improvement, which seems to be an endless process, rather than the movement towards a static end. I agree with Aaron Wilson's claim that the pragmatic definition of truth implies the convergence theory of truth. However, I explain how the convergence theory of truth might be elaborated as to apply to ethical claims. I also discuss how the 'would be' of the convergence theory of truth is a problematic measure of moral claims. Like progress in science, it is better to measure a moral norm in terms of its improvement from previous ones. I take issue with Wilson's account of moral reality and his claim that truth can be attained by individuals in the absence of community. I end by arguing that reasonableness has to be understood as a process rather than a perfected state. (shrink)

The British Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians have published new guidance, endorsed by the General Medical Council, on decision-making about clinically assisted nutrition and hydration and adults who lack capacity to consent. The development of the guidance follows a series of legal cases which has created confusion about the precise circumstances in which an application to the court is required before CANH is withdrawn which has culminated with the decision of the Supreme Court in National Health Service Trust (...) versus Y. 1 This confirmed that there is no requirement to go to court, providing there is agreement as to the patient’s best interests, the provisions of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 have been observed, and the relevant professional guidance has been followed. The new guidance covers all decisions to start, restart, continue, or stop providing CANH in patients who are not imminently dying, in circumstances where CANH is the primary life-sustaining treatment being provided. It goes beyond the category of patients in permanent vegetative state or minimally conscious state who have previously been the subject of court applications, and also covers decisions for patients with neurodegenerative conditions and patients who have suffered a sudden onset brain injury in addition to having multiple comorbidities or general frailty which is likely to impact on life expectancy. It provides a clear statement of doctors’ legal responsibilities, covers the importance of robust best interests’ assessments and sets out the process to be followed for sufficient independent scrutiny of decisions. In light of some of the identified problems with decisions about CANH, a particular focus of the guidance is on the importance of regular best interests’ assessments, and it provides detailed practical guidance about how to approach these. The development of …. (shrink)

Conventionalism about property is the view that all moral duties correlative to property rights depend essentially either on the existence of a convention that assigns conventional ownership of objects, or on the existence of a body of positive law that confers legal property rights. It has been objected that, if Conventionalism about property is true, then it is impossible for someone to have her property right violated by someone who is not a member of the community in which her conventional (...) property right is assigned. But it is possible. When Christopher Columbus sailed up to the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he and his sailors wronged the inhabitants by forcing them off their land. So, Conventionalism is false. This is the Outsider Challenge for Conventionalism. The Outsider Challenge (and its first premise, in particular) receives support from the Benefit Condition, according to which one can be morally obligated to comply with a conventional rule only if one benefits or has one’s interests protected by the convention of which it is a part. Despite its provenance and plausibility, however, I think that the Benefit Condition should be rejected. Doing so in a principled way allows us to square Conventionalism with our moral intuitions and, thus, address the Outsider Challenge. My main aim in this essay is to reject the Benefit Condition in one such principled way by providing a Contractualist answer to the question of when, and why, someone is morally required to respect another’s conventional property right. One is morally required to respect the conventional property rights of another when and because failing to do so would run afoul of the Principle of Established Practices (pep) – a principle for which I give a Contractualist justification. Roughly, the pep requires us to comply with sufficiently just social practices in the absence of special justification, and the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not always a sufficiently strong reason for one to violate the duties assigned by that convention. Since the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not necessarily a special justification for violating the pep, the pep gives us reason to reject the Benefit Condition and, thus, the Outsider Challenge, too. (shrink)

Perinatal hospice is a novel form of care for an unborn child who has been diagnosed with a significantly life-limiting condition. In this book, Aaron D. Cobb develops a virtue-based defense of the value of perinatal hospice. He characterizes its promotion and provision as a common project of individuals, local communities, and institutions working together to provide exemplary care. Engaging with important themes from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Robert Adams, he shows how perinatal hospice manifests virtues crucial (...) to meeting the needs of families in these difficult circumstances. As a work of applied virtue ethics, this book has important normative, social, and political implications for the creation and development of structured programs of care. It grounds the view that communities ought to devote resources to ensure that these programs are widely available and to develop social structures that promote awareness of and accessibility to these forms of care. A Virtue-Based Defense of Perinatal Hospice will be of interest to philosophers working in bioethics and applied virtue ethics, as well as scholars in the fields of neonatology, nursing, palliative and hospice care, and counseling who are interested in the study of perinatal hospice. (shrink)

The following article is a response to Virginia Aspe’s “The Political Dilemmas of the Transformations of Mexico: A Philosophical Approach”. My aim is to discuss some ideas developed by Aspe Armella, pointing out, from the perspective of the history of Mexican philosophy, both the successes of her approach, as well as some aspects that deserve more debate.

El presente trabajo busca analizar la relación de la propuesta de hermenéutica analógica de Mauricio Beuchot con sus estudios previos publicados para documentar la historia de la filosofía novohispana, encontrando en estos la raíz de la famosa propuesta Beuchot. Palabras clave: Beuchot, hermenéutica analógica, filosofía novohispana.

Ecological weed management (EWM) is a scientifically established management approach that uses ecological patterns to reduce weed seedbanks. Such an approach can save organic farmers time and labor costs and reduce the need for repeated cultivation practices that may pose risks to soil and water quality. However, adoption of effective EWM in the organic farm community is perceived to be poor. In addition, communication and collaboration between the scientific community, extension services, and the organic farming community in the US is (...) historically weak. In order to uncover the most persistent obstacles to promoting effective weed management in organic agroecosystems, we use the mental models approach to generate an expert model based on interviews with experts (e.g., weed scientists, weed ecologists, and extension personnel) and theories from the behavioral sciences. The expert model provides two main insights: (1) EWM is a complex strategy that may cause farmers to use heuristics in management decisions and (2) the long-term benefits of EWM, rather than the risks, need to be emphasized in communication with and outreach to organic farmers. The basis for new research topics and outreach material that incorporates these insights from the expert model are discussed. We briefly explain how the expert model is an incomplete picture of on-farm practices, but provides the basis for the second step of our mental models research, the farmer interviews and farmer decision model development. (shrink)