The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is an outstanding, comprehensive and accessible guide to the major themes, thinkers, and issues in metaphysics. The Companion features over fifty specially commissioned chapters from international scholars which are organized into three clear parts: History of Metaphysics Ontology Metaphysics and Science. Each section features an introduction which places the range of essays in context, while an extensive glossary allows easy reference to key terms and definitions. The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is essential reading for students (...) of philosophy and anyone interested in surveying the central topics and problems in metaphysics from causation to vagueness and from Plato and Aristotle to the present-day. (shrink)

What makes a certain consideration an aesthetic reason rather than a reason of some other kind? Is it a solely a matter of the kind of attitude or activity that the reason supports? How fundamental or structural are such reasons? Do they contrast in a natural way with epistemic or practical reasons? Is skilled aesthetic achievement, whether interpretative or creative, a matter of recognizing the aesthetic reasons we have for a given response, and correctly according with such reasons? In this (...) paper, I offer a preliminary discussion of these topics. I argue that our account of aesthetic reasons should respect the fact that they play an important regulative role, over and above directly supporting aesthetic response. Such a role allows aesthetic reasons to moderate a wide range of practical and epistemic activities, but not by adding or substituting distinctively aesthetic ends or purposes for such activities. I then go on to argue against the view that skilled aesthetic achievement consists in correct recognition of and accord with aesthetic reasons, adapting a recent argument of Timothy Williamson’s. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel explanandum for a theory of fictional truth. I explore a range of theoretical treatments of the data, and argue that it motivates the adoption of a distinctive style of relativism about truth-in-fiction.

In recent work, Robert Hopkins has argued that aesthetic judgements are autonomous. When a subject finds herself diverging in judgement from a group of others who, while independently applying the same method, have come to some opposing conclusion, then for ordinary empirical matters this is often reason enough for her to suspend judgement, or even to adopt their view, but this happens much more rarely in the case of beauty. Moreover, the opposing view does not act as a defeater to (...) her belief to the same extent as it does in the empirical case. Hopkins argues that this phenomenon, properly understood, poses a distinctive problem for aesthetic cognitivism. Such a result might seem to support a non-cognitivism about aesthetic judgement, but Hopkins argues that one of the most promising such accounts, a particular form of aesthetic quasi-realism, cannot account in a satisfactory way for aesthetic autonomy either. In this paper, I argue that Hopkins's argument is crucially enthymematic. Supplying the relevant premise makes space for an independently motivated explanation of autonomy, which is open to cognitivists and non-cognitivists alike. (shrink)

In this article, I reply to Juli Eflin's “Epistemic Presuppositions and Their Consequences.” I query Eflin's construal of the aims, scope and method of traditional epistemology, and go on to evaluate several of the central characteristics of Eflin's positive account – pluralistic virtue epistemology.

Some artworks manifest moral attitudes. I clarify and defend an argument to the effect that these works can be aesthetically better merely because morally good people skilfully produced them.

This paper presents an new epistemicist account of vagueness, one that avoids standard arbitrariness worries by exploiting a plenitudinous metaphysic.

Davidson’s error theory about metaphorical meaning has rightly commanded a lot of critical attention over the last twenty five or so years. Each component of that theory – the case for antirealism about metaphorical meanings, the diagnosis of the mistakes that led theorists to falsely ascribe such semantic properties to words and sentences, the suggested functional replacement of such talk in terms of the effects that metaphorical utterances bring about – has been examined, reformulated and criticised. The evaluation of the (...) theory has been far from uniformly negative. It is widely recognized, even by realists about metaphorical meaning, that the ‘conventional wisdom’ about ‘discerning two senses of the predicate term’ that Beardsley had adverted to three years earlier, was shown to be misguided by the considerations that Davidson’s paper brought to bear.[1] Contemporary recognition of the importance of elucidating the dependence of metaphorical language upon its literal base, and upon its context of utterance, can also be seen to have resulted from sustained critical engagement with Davidson’s article. (shrink)

Being for Beauty: aesthetic agency and value, by LopesDominic McIver. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xii + 266.

The nature of moral facts, and their relationship to rationality, imagination and sentiment, have been central and pressing issues in recent moral philosophy. In this paper, I discuss and criticise a meta-ethical theory put forward by Alison Denham, which views moral facts as being constituted by the responses of ideal, empathetic agents. I argue that Denham’s account is radically unstable, in that she has given us an account of the nature of such agents which is inconsistent with an independently plausible (...) principle relating to concept acquisition. I go on to discuss one line of defence that Denham might employ, but argue that taking such a line entails abandoning what she takes to be an important advantage of her account over rival ideal-observer theories such as Michael Smith’s. (shrink)

David Cooper has argued that any acceptable theory of metaphor should account for ‘indeterminacy’: the sense that many metaphors admit of multiple acceptable interpretations, none of which can be uniquely demonstrated to be correct. He further argues that the ‘speaker's meaning’ model of metaphorical content cannot meet this constraint and, thus, should be rejected. In this paper I argue that Cooper's characterization of the proposed constraint is imprecise as stated and give my own characterization of the problem. There is a (...) general tension between the authority granted to first-person ascriptions of intentions and facts concerning the phenomenology of metaphor production, given that it seems to misrepresent the latter to ascribe to the speaker special access to a cognitive content, which their metaphorical utterance then expresses. I argue that one way of resolving this tension is by following Crispin Wright in viewing facts about intention as essentially response dependent. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of objective phenomenology, or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility. This (...) is because there appear to be cases in which an agent acts at an earlier time which causes her to lack the appropriate psychological features at some later time and yet, intuitively, she is responsible at that later .. (shrink)

Perception is riddled with cases of reliable misperception. These are cases in which a perceptual state is tokened inaccurately any time it is tokened under normal conditions. On the face of it, this fact causes trouble for theories that provide an analysis of perceptual content in non-semantic, non-intentional, and non-phenomenal terms, such as those found in Millikan (1984), Fodor (1990), Neander (2017), and Schellenberg (2018). I show how such theories can be extended so that they cover such cases without giving (...) up their core commitments. (shrink)

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of a proposition seeming true. Many think that these seeming states can yield justified beliefs. Very few have seriously explored what these seeming states are. I argue that seeming states are not plausibly analyzed in terms of beliefs, partial beliefs, attractions to believe, or inclinations to believe. Given that the main candidates for analyzing seeming states are unsatisfactory, I argue for a brute view of seemings that treats seeming states as irreducible propositional attitudes.

This is a discussion of the state of discussion on pragmatic reasons for belief.

This book brings together an international group of scholars to discuss the ramifications of Heidegger's Black Notebooks for philosophy and the humanities. In contrast to both those who seek to exonerate Heidegger and those who simply condemn him, they urge careful reading and rereading of his work to turn Heideggerian thought against itself.

For Kant, knowledge involves certainty. If “certainty” requires that the grounds for a given propositional attitude guarantee its truth, then this is an infallibilist view of epistemic justification. Such a view says you can’t have epistemic justification for an attitude unless the attitude is also true. Here I want to defend an alternative fallibilist interpretation. Even if a subject has grounds that would be sufficient for knowledge if the proposition were true, the proposition might not be true. And so there (...) is sometimes still rational room for doubt. The goal of this paper is to present four different models of what “certainty” amounts to, for Kant, each of which is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

In his 1978 paper “Mathematical Explanation”, Mark Steiner attempts to modernize the Aristotelian idea that to explain a mathematical statement is to deduce it from the essence of entities figuring in the statement, by replacing talk of essences with talk of “characterizing properties”. The language Steiner uses is reminiscent of language used for proofs deemed “pure”, such as Selberg and Erdős’ elementary proofs of the prime number theorem avoiding the complex analysis of earlier proofs. Hilbert characterized pure proofs as those (...) that use only “means that are suggested by the content of the theorem”, a characterization we have elsewhere called “topical purity”. In this paper we will examine the connection between Steiner’s account of mathematical explanation and topical purity. Are Steiner-explanatory proofs necessarily topically pure? Are topically pure proofs necessarily Steiner-explanatory? Answers to these questions will shed light on the general question of the relation between purity and explanatory power. (shrink)

The aim of the Analytic of Concepts is to derive and deduce a set of pure concepts of the understanding, the categories, which play a central role in Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognition and judgment. This chapter is structured around two questions. First, what is a pure concept of the understanding? Second, what is involved in a deduction of a pure concept of the understanding? In answering the first, we focus on how the categories differ (...) from the pure forms of sensibility and examine whether they are known only to be the pure forms of human thinking or rather the forms of discursive cognition as such. In answering the second, we draw a distinction between the application and the exemplification of the categories and use it to identify different ways of understanding Kant’s project in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. These questions connect because the answer to the first determines how we should understand the kind of entitlement which is to be established in the Deduction. (shrink)

While many aspects of cognition have been shown to be shared between humans and non-human animals, there remains controversy regarding whether the capacity to mentally time travel is a uniquely human one. In this paper, we argue that there are four ways of representing when some event happened: four kinds of temporal representation. Distinguishing these four kinds of temporal representation has five benefits. First, it puts us in a position to determine the particular benefits these distinct temporal representations afford an (...) organism. Second, it provides the conceptual resources to foster a discussion about which of these representations is necessary for an organism to count as having the capacity to mentally time travel. Third, it enables us to distinguish stricter from more liberal views of mental time travel that differ regarding which kind(s) of temporal representation is taken to be necessary for mental time travel. Fourth, it allows us to determine the benefits of taking a stricter or more liberal view of mental time travel. Finally, it ensures that disagreement about whether some species can mentally time travel is not merely the product of unrecognised disagreement about which temporal representation is necessary for mental time travel. We argue for a more liberal view, on the grounds that it allows us to view mental time travel as an evolutionarily continuous phenomenon, and to recognise that differences in the ways that organisms mentally time travel might reflect different temporal representations, or combinations thereof, that they employ. Our ultimate aim, however, is to create the conceptual framework for further discussion regarding what sorts of temporal representations are required for mental time travel. (shrink)

The fallacy fallacy is either the misdiagnosis of fallacy or the supposition that the conclusion of a fallacy must be a falsehood. This paper explores the relevance of these and related errors of reasoning for the appraisal of arguments, especially within virtue theories of argumentation. In particular, the fallacy fallacy exemplifies the Owl of Minerva problem, whereby tools devised to understand a norm make possible new ways of violating the norm. Fallacies are such tools and so are vices. Hence a (...) similar problem arises with argumentative vices. Fortunately, both instances of the problem have a common remedy. (shrink)

This chapter addresses an ambiguity in some of the literature on rational peer disagreement about the use of the term 'rational'. In the literature 'rational' is used to describe a variety of normative statuses related to reasons, justification, and reasoning. This chapter focuses most closely on the upshot of peer disagreement for what is rationally required of parties to a peer disagreement. This follows recent work in theoretical reason which treats rationality as a system of requirements among an agent's mental (...) states. It is argued that peer disagreement has either no, or a very limited, affect on what rationality requires of an agent in a given circumstance. This is in part because of difficulties generated by a novel example of evidence of evidence of p being evidence against p. This example calls into question the mechanisms whereby peer disagreement might affect what is rationally required of an agent. The chapter also reevaluates the importance of actual peer disagreement against the backdrop of prior expectations about whether disagreement is believed to be likely, arguing that peer disagreement is most likely to change what is rationally required of an agent when it is believed to be unlikely. (shrink)

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

The norm of monogamy is pervasive, having remained widespread, in most Western cultures at least, in spite of increasing tolerance toward more diverse relationship types. It is also puzzling. People willingly, and often with gusto, adhere to it, yet it is also, prima facie at least, highly restrictive. Being in a monogamous relationship means agreeing to give up certain sorts of valuable interactions and relationships with other people and to severely restrict one’s opportunities for sex and love. It is this (...) restrictiveness which has led for calls among some philosophers for the justification of the norm, and some have argued that it cannot be justified. John McMurtry, for example, writing in 1972, compared monogamy to private property and argued that it serves the capitalist order (McMurtry 1972, 596–97). More recently, Harry Chalmers (2019) has argued that monogamy is morally impermissible. In this chapter we argue that rather than justify the norm, we ought to explain and understand its pervasiveness. Not everyone who follows the norm is doing so blindly, irrationally, or immorally. Indeed, many people are monogamous because being monogamous supports their needs and best enables them to flourish. We suggest that the human need for trust and attachment could underlie many people’s desires for monogamy and, therefore, explain monogamy’s pervasiveness. Focusing on the human need for trust and attachment security can also help us to understand why sexual infidelity can feel like such a betrayal. It can make sense to mutually agree to exclusivity in relationships, in spite of the apparent restrictions this brings. In a sense, not all restrictions are restrictive, because holding ourselves to limits on our behavior can in fact help us to invest in and experience the things we value most. (shrink)

Many say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are (...) themselves substantive. (shrink)

Two individuals can both be ethical vegans but disagree on the normative basis of their moral beliefs. This article will look at the development of two competing theories that hold prominence in debates among animal advocates: utilitarianism and deontology. Next, we turn toward their divergence in epistemology, the moral status of experiences and individuals, and the limits of permissibility. Last, we unite utilitarianism and deontology by noting where they converge. This union comes from enlightenment thinking, the postulation of direct duties (...) to animals, disapproval of factory farming conditions, and, most importantly, the goal of improving the lives of many animals. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

I argue that the following theses are both popular among evidentialists but also jointly inconsistent with evidentialism: 1) Time-Slice Mentalism: one’s justificational properties at t are grounded only by one’s mental properties at t; 2) Experience Ultimacy: all ultimate evidence is experiential; and 3) Sleep Justification: we have justified beliefs while we have dreamless, nonexperiential sleep. Although I intend for this paper to be a polemic against evidentialists, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for them to clarify their (...) views. Furthermore, the paper is not only relevant to evidentialists. For example, the arguments of this paper could give Time-Slice Mentalists a reason to deny evidentialism. (shrink)

To be conscious—according to a common metaphor—is for the “lights to be on inside.” Is this a good metaphor? I argue that the metaphor elicits useful intuitions while staying neutral on controversial philosophical questions. But I also argue that there are two ways of interpreting the metaphor. Is consciousness the inner light itself? Or is consciousness the illuminated room? Call the first sense subjectivity (where ‘consciousness’ =def what makes an entity feel some way at all), and the second sense phenomenal (...) character (where ‘consciousness’ =def what it feels like to be an entity). I use this distinction—as well as the metaphor of the inner light—to clarify some philosophical questions about whether consciousness comes in degrees, whether consciousness is multidimensional, and whether there are borderline cases of consciousness. (shrink)

Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was an Italian Jesuit and one of the first Christian missionaries to China in the modern era. He was a genuine polymath—a translator, cartographer, mathematician, astronomer, and musician. Above all, Ricci was a missionary for the gospel. As we briefly examine his 1603 seminal work, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, our hope is that we, as evangelical educators, will perceive some of the deeper principles necessary for our own missionary work among unreached people.

The Stoics are traditionally regarded as the founders of propositional logic. However, this is not entirely correct. They developed a theory of inference from signs (omens). And their theory became a continuation of the logical technique of Babylonian divination (in particular, of Babylonian medical forecasting). The Stoic theory was not so much propositional logic as it was a technique of propositional logic for databases consisting of IF-THEN expert rules. In the Babylonian divination, each event has a positive or negative value (...) and all events are connected to each other. The Stoics also developed this idea and proposed a special modal logic in which logical determinism is considered an axiom. The paper reconstructs the sign-inference of the Stoics, as well as their modal logic. In particular, two Stoic squares of oppositions are proposed (for signs and for modal operators), which differ markedly from Aristotle’s square. (shrink)

Here's an interesting question: what are we? David Barnett has claimed that reflection on consciousness suggests an answer: we are simple. Barnett argues that the mereological simplicity of conscious beings best explains the Datum: that no pair of persons can itself be conscious. In this paper, I offer two alternative explanations of the Datum. If either is correct, Barnett's argument fails. First, there aren't any such things as pairs of persons. Second, consciousness is maximal; no conscious thing is a proper (...) part of another conscious thing. I conclude by showing how both moves comport with materialist theories of what we are and then apply them to another anti-materialist argument. (shrink)

Let a smooth experience be an experience with perfectly gradual changes in phenomenal character. Consider, as examples, your visual experience of a blue sky or your auditory experience of a rising pitch. Do the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences have continuous or discrete structures? If we appeal merely to introspection, then it may seem that we should think that smooth experiences are continuous. This paper (1) uses formal tools to clarify what it means to say that an experience is continuous (...) or discrete, and (2) develops a discrete model of the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences. As a result, I'll argue that introspection leaves open whether smooth experiences are continuous or discrete. Yet I’ll also argue—perhaps surprisingly—that the discrete theory may better fit our introspective evidence. (shrink)

Is it possible to prepare oneself to become a Christian? For Kierkegaard, there is no straightforward answer to this question, especially since such a transition depends upon a divine activity that is outside the realm of human control. Despite the challenge that this question poses, Kierkegaard's writings do provide us with a way to respond, and this response will be the subject matter of this article. Following an analysis of his position, this article will conclude that, although Kierkegaard recognizes that (...) there are precedent ways of existing that are more conducive to becoming a Christian, it is not helpful to describe them as preparatory. (shrink)

The official definitions that appear at the beginning of four of the five parts of the "Ethics" do not include an account of "existence." However Spinoza does provide a definition of “existence” in the scholium to proposition 45 of Part 2. This is an odd place for such an important doctrine, and all the more so given that the account there differs from anything resembling commonsense. In this paper I show that, for Spinoza, to exist is to be eternal. Existence (...) in the strict sense is eternal existence. (shrink)

Heidegger's later thought is a thinking of things, so argues Andrew J. Mitchell in The Fourfold. Heidegger understands these things in terms of what he names "the fourfold"--a convergence of relationships bringing together the earth, the sky, divinities, and mortals--and Mitchell's book is the first detailed exegesis of this neglected aspect of Heidegger's later thought. As such it provides entré to the full landscape of Heidegger's postwar thinking, offering striking new interpretations of the atomic bomb, technology, plants, animals, weather, (...) time, language, the holy, mortality, dwelling, and more. What results is a conception of things as ecstatic, relational, singular, and, most provocatively, as intrinsically tied to their own technological commodification. A major new work that resonates beyond the confines of Heidegger scholarship, The Fourfold proposes nothing less than a new phenomenological thinking of relationality and mediation for understanding the things around us. (shrink)

Biblical prophetic writings display an unexplained interweaving of anti-idolatry themes with social justice themes. This article offers a link between these ethical foci by appealing to Thorstein Veblen's philosophical economics. Veblen and his more recent followers such as Fred Hirsch argue that upper classes glorify valueless expenditures and activities (conspicuous consumption and leisure) as a means of signaling predatory status. Veblen further theorizes that this process can manifest itself in religious practices and language, appearing when a deity is honored through (...) pointless aesthetics or through portrayal as a predatory entity. This article argues that such a depiction of the deity as predatory, or as worshipped through positional (wasteful) goods, is integral to idolatry, at least as the prophets framed it. Because the hallmark of social injustice is predation by an elite group upon another group, Veblen's paradigm provides a conceptual pathway between the prophet's opposition to idol worship and their disgust with powerful oppressors. Selected texts from Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah provide examples of this connection. (shrink)

Source [1] Andrew E. P. Mitchell, Federica Galli, Sondra Butterworth. (2023). Editorial: Equality, diversity and inclusive research for diverse rare disease communities. Front. Psychol., vol. 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1285774. "It is also important to recognize that certain mental health disorders are classified as rare conditions and have their own cultural concepts of distress, as defined in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)" and require “equal attention and support for individuals and their families, both physically and emotionally”. [1].

Can war be justified? Pacifists answer that it cannot; they oppose war and advocate for nonviolent alternatives to war. But defenders of just war theory argue that in some circumstances, when the effectiveness of nonviolence is limited, wars can be justified. -/- In this book, two philosophers debate this question, drawing on contemporary scholarship and new developments in thinking about pacifism and just war theory. Andrew Fiala defends the pacifist position, while Jennifer Kling defends just war traditions. Fiala argues (...) that pacifism follows from the awful reality of war and the nonviolent goal of building a more just and peaceful world. Kling argues that war is sometimes justified when it is a last-ditch, necessary effort to defend people and their communities from utter destruction and death. Pulling from global traditions and histories, their debate will captivate anyone who has wondered or worried about the morality of political violence and military force. Topics discussed include ethical questions of self-defense and other-defense, the great analogy between individuals and states, evolving technologies and methods of warfighting, moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, broader political and communal issues, and the problem of regional security in a globalizing world. The authors consider cultural and religious issues as well as the fundamental question of moral obligation in a world saturated in military conflict. The book was written in the aftermath of the war on terrorism and includes reflection on lessons learned from the past decades of war, as well as hopes for the future in light of emerging threats in Europe and elsewhere. -/- The book is organized in a user-friendly fashion. Each author presents a self-contained argument, which is followed by a series of responses, replies, and counter-arguments. Throughout, the authors model civil discourse by emphasizing points of agreement and remaining areas of disagreement. The book includes reader-friendly summaries, a glossary of key concepts, and suggestions for further study. All of this will help students and scholars follow the authors’ dialogue so they may develop their own answer to the question of whether war can be justified. (shrink)