This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable propositions, (...) and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter 2 argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal cognitivism and modal expressivism. I also develop a novel topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel dynamic epistemic two-dimensional hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 3 provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter 4 advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter 5 applies the fixed points of the modal μ-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal μ-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal μ-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter 6 advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine's `criterial' identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter 7 provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapters 2 and 4 are availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting. -/- Chapters 8-12 provide cases demonstrating how the two-dimensional hyperintensions of hyperintensional, i.e. topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker, semantics, solve the access problem in the epistemology of mathematics. Chapter 8 examines the interaction between my hyperintensional semantics and the axioms of epistemic set theory, large cardinal axioms, the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis, the modal axioms governing the modal profile of Ω-logic, Orey sentences such as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, and absolute decidability. These results yield inter alia the first hyperintensional Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis and hyperintensional epistemic set theories in the literature. Chapter 9 examines the modal and hyperintensional commitments of abstractionism, in particular necessitism, and epistemic hyperintensionality, epistemic utility theory, and the epistemology of abstraction. I countenance a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. I suggest, too, that observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make first-order abstraction principles recursively enumerable, i.e. Turing machine computable, and that the truth of the first-order abstraction principle for hyperintensions is grounded in its being possibly recursively enumerable and the machine being physically implementable. Chapter 10 examines the philosophical significance of hyperintensional Ω-logic in set theory and discusses the hyperintensionality of metamathematics. Chapter 11 provides a modal logic for rational intuition and provides a hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 12 avails of modal coalgebras to interpret the defining properties of indefinite extensibility, and avails of hyperintensional epistemic two-dimensional semantics in order to account for the interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities and truthmakers thereof. This yields the first hyperintensional category theory in the literature. I invent a new mathematical trick in which first order structures are treated as categories, and Vopenka's principle can be satisfied because of the elementary embeddings between the categories and generate Vopenka cardinals while bypassing the category of Set in category theory. Chapter 13 examines modal responses to the alethic paradoxes. Chapter 14 examines, finally, the modal and hyperintensional semantics for the different types of intention and the relation of the latter to evidential decision theory. (shrink)

Bob Hale’s distinguished record of research places him among the most important and influential contemporary analytic metaphysicians. In his deep, wide ranging, yet highly readable book Necessary Beings, Hale draws upon, but substantially integrates and extends, a good deal his past research to produce a sustained and richly textured essay on — as promised in the subtitle — ontology, modality, and the relations between them. I’ve set myself two tasks in this review: first, to provide a reasonably thorough (if not (...) exactly comprehensive) overview of the structure and content of Hale’s book and, second, to a limited extent, to engage Hale’s book philosophically. I approach these tasks more or less sequentially: Parts I and 2 of the review are primarily expository; in Part 3 I adopt a somewhat more critical stance and raise several issues concerning one of the central elements of Hale’s account, his essentialist theory of modality. (shrink)

Any living organism interacts with and responds specifically to environmental molecules by expressing specific olfactory receptors. In this paper, this specificity will be first examined in causal terms with particular emphasis on the mechanisms controlling olfactory gene expression, cell-to-cell interactions and odor-decoding processes. However, this type of explanation does not entirely justify the role olfactory receptors have played during evolution, since they are also expressed ectopically in different organs and/or tissues. Homologous olfactory genes have in fact been found in such (...) diverse cells and/or organs as spermatozoa, testis and kidney where they are assumed to act as chemotactic sensors or renin modulators. To justify their functional diversity, homologous olfactory receptors are assumed to share the same basic role: that of conferring a self-identity to cells or tissues under varying environmental conditions. By adopting this standpoint, the functional attribution as olfactory or chemotactic sensors to these receptors should not be seen either as a cause conditioning receptor gene expression, or as a final effect resulting from genetically predetermined programs, but as a direct consequence of the environmental conditions olfactory receptor genes have explored during evolution. The association of odorant patterns with specific environmental or contextual situations makes their relationship semiotically triadic, due to the emergence of an interpretant capable of perceiving odorants as meaningful signs out of a noisy background. This perspective highlights the importance of odorant-receptor relationships as respect to the properties of the interacting partners. It is our contention that only when taken together can these different explanatory strategies provide a realistic account of how olfactory receptor genes have been structurally and functionally modified during evolution. (shrink)

Феномен пам’яті розглядається як компонент, імпліцитно присутній у процесі інформаційної комунікації. Наведено коротку типологію видів пам’яті, які утворюють референційне поле так званої семантичної пам’яті. Через підходи Ю. Лотмана та Р. Якобсона розглядаєть ся класичне уявлення про час, що тісно пов’язане з пам’яттю. Основна увага приділяється тому, як можна розглядати пам’ять у межах та за допомоги логіки. Як один зі шляхів роз в’язання цього питання пропонується застосувати інструменти часової логіки через аналіз праць видатного українського логіка Анатолія Ішмуратова. Розглянуто класифіка- ції часів (...) О. Єсперсена, Г. Райхенбаха, В. Буля. Проаналізовано суб’єктивну й об’єктивну осі орієнтації, що лежать в основі календарів, діаграм і шкал як фраґментів часу. На думку Іш му- ра това, ці інструменти — схеми, діаграми тощо — можна вважати мовами. Мож ли вість мовної об’єктивації значення визначає зв’язок логічного висновування, а отже, структуру- вання семантичних царин, якими є спогади, засобами логічної мови та відповідно до її струк- тур. Досліджуючи логічні та пізнавальні умови дії, Ішмуратов продовжував розвивати ідеї часової логіки та обґрунтовувати можливості їх застосування до пояснення психологічного сприйняття об’єктивного часу. Він будував схему семантичних зв’язків пам’яті як психоло- гічного акту, що відтворює життєвий шлях особистості; він розрізняв спогади та «псевдо- спогади», які разом впливають на переоцінку минулих подій, формують досвід особистості та її здатність конструювати альтернативи майбутнього. Особливе місце в дослідженнях Ішмуратова займає його експлікація часової тризначної логіки та застосування часових мо дальностей до аналізу так званих перехідних станів. Подальше вивчення таких підходів мог ло б допомогти раціональному осмисленню пам’яті та дати цікаві результати. (shrink)

Argues that the path to the good life does not consist in working toward some abstract concept of the good, but rather by ameliorating the problems of the practices and institutions that make up our practical life.

Moral or ethical questions are vital because they affect our daily lives: what is the best choice we can make, the best action to take in a given situation, and ultimately, the best way to live our lives? Health ethics has contributed to moving ethics toward a more experience-based and user-oriented theoretical and methodological stance but remains in our practice an incomplete lever for human development and flourishing. This context led us to envision and develop the stance of a “living (...) ethics”, described in this inaugural collective and programmatic paper as an effort to consolidate creative collaboration between a wide array of stakeholders. We engaged in a participatory discussion and collective writing process known as instrumentalist concept analysis. This process included initial local consultations, an exploratory literature review, the constitution of a working group of 21 co-authors, and 8 workshops supporting a collaborative thinking and writing process. First, a living ethics designates a stance attentive to human experience and the role played by morality in human existence. Second, a living ethics represents an ongoing effort to interrogate and scrutinize our moral experiences to facilitate adaptation of people and contexts. It promotes the active and inclusive engagement of both individuals and communities in envisioning and enacting scenarios which correspond to their flourishing as authentic ethical agents. Living ethics encourages meaningful participation of stakeholders because moral questions touch deeply upon who we are and who we want to be. We explain various aspects of a living ethics stance, including its theoretical, methodological, and practical implications as well as some barriers to its enactment based on the reflections resulting from the collaborative thinking and writing process. (shrink)

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

This chapter argues that a Peircean philosophy of sex offers a non-reductionist approach to sex as a biological category. The chapter surveys traditional biological accounts of sex categories and several social constructivist accounts of sex. It then provides an overview of Peirce’s scholastic realism and his ethics of inquiry. While Peirce regarded the distinction between the sexes as a rare “polar distinction”, the chapter works to recover the nuanced view of sex that Peirce ought to have adopted had he extended (...) his scholastic realism to reproductive biology. Ultimately, the Peircean account offered treats sex differences as norms expressed as bimodal distributions. The chapter concludes by illustrating some applications of this Peircean philosophy of sex, and gesturing to those that we can yet barely imagine. (shrink)

Se sostiene, con Rorty, que la verdad no es ninguna propiedad y, contra Rorty, que esta posición no implica eliminar el concepto de verdad del discurso teórico. Con una estrategia pragmatista, se analizan las prácticas de los hablantes, para mostrar que no se adquieren los mismos compromisos cuando se atribuye verdad y cuando se atribuye justificación. Se evidencia el sentido en que es socialmente útil la distinción filosófica entre verdad y justificación, para finalizar mostrando cómo esa distinción no entraña ninguna (...) metafísica misteriosa. We affirm, with Rorty, that truth is not a property, and, against Rorty, that this position does not imply eliminating the concept of truth from theoretical discourse. The practices of speakers are analyzed using a pragmatist strategy, in order to show that one does not acquire the same commitments when attributing truth or attributing justification. The article discusses the sense in which the philosophical distinction between truth and justification is socially useful and, finally, shows that said distinction does not entail a mysterious metaphysics. (shrink)

: In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this (...) work is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this work (...) is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

Jordan Peterson has attracted a high level of attention. Controversies may bring people into contact with Peterson's work, but ideas are arguably what keep them there. Focusing on those ideas, this book explores Peterson’s answers to perennial questions. What is common to all humans, regardless of their background? Is complete knowledge ever possible? What would constitute a meaningful life? Why have humans evolved the capacity for intelligence? Should one treat others as individuals or as members of a group? Is a (...) single person powerless in the face of evil? What is the relation between speech, thought, and action? Why have religious myths and narratives figured so prominently in human history? Are the hierarchies we find in society good or bad? After devoting a chapter to each of these questions, Champagne unites the different strands of Peterson’s thinking in a handy summary. Champagne then spends the remaining third of the book articulating his main critical concerns. He argues that while building on tradition is inevitable and indeed desirable, Peterson’s individualist project is hindered by the non-revisable character and self-sacrificial content of religious belief. This engaging multidisciplinary study is ideal for those who know little about Peterson’s views, or for those who are familiar but want to see more clearly how Peterson’s views hang together. The debates spearheaded by Peterson are in full swing, so Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism should become a reference point for any serious engagement with Peterson’s ideas. (shrink)

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – (...) its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward. (shrink)

According to David Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness consists of explaining how and why qualitative experience arises from physical states. Moreover, Chalmers argues that materialist and reductive explanations of mentality are incapable of addressing the hard problem. In this chapter, I suggest that Chalmers’ hard problem can be usefully distinguished into a ‘how question’ and ‘why question,’ and I argue that evolutionary biology has the resources to address the question of why qualitative experience arises from brain states. From this (...) perspective, I discuss the different kinds of evolutionary explanations (e.g., adaptationist, exaptationist, spandrel) that can explain the origins of the qualitative aspects of various conscious states. This argument is intended to clarify which parts of Chalmers’ hard problem are amenable to scientific analysis. (shrink)

Reasoning with diagrams is considered to be a peculiar form of reasoning. Diagrams are often associated with imagistic representations conveyed by spatial arrangements of lines, points, figures, or letters that can be manipulated to obtain knowledge on a subject matter. Reasoning with diagrams is not just ‘peculiar’ because reasoners use spatially arranged characters to obtain knowledge – diagrams apparently have cognitive surplus: they enable a quasi-intuitive form of knowledge. The present paper analyses the issue of diagrams’ cognitive value by enquiring (...) into the tradition of symbolic cognition developed by Leibniz, Lambert, and Kant. The proposal resulting from this enquiry is to question the idea that the cognitive value of diagrams lies solely in allowing evidence for inferences. The imaginative dimension of diagrams connects reasoning to doxastic attitudes of meditation and enquiry. (shrink)

As the father of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure influences all aspects of linguistic development with no exception of Cognitive Grammar. A scrutiny of how Saussure is understood in Cognitive Grammar indicates that Saussurean linguistics is misinterpreted in terms of five core ideas: (1) langue, rather than parole, is given highest priority; (2) the internal relation of “signifier-signified” counts as the pairing of “form-meaning”; (3) “arbitrariness” is contradictory to “symbolicity”; (4) “arbitrariness” means “unmotivatedness”; (5) arbitrariness is not the inherent nature (...) of morphological and syntactic structures. This paper is intended to reassess these five ideas and argue that they depart further from Saussure’s thought. (shrink)

The question about divine action remains contested in the discussion between theology and science. This issue is further exacerbated with the entry of pentecostals and charismatics into the conversation, especially with their emphases on divine intervention and miracles. I explore what happens at the intersection of these discourses, identifying first how the concept of "laws of nature" has developed in theology and science and then probing what pentecostal-charismatic insights might add into the mix. Drawing from the triadic and evolutionary metaphysics (...) of Charles Sanders Peirce, I propose a reconsideration of the "laws of nature" as habitual, dynamic, and general but nevertheless real tendencies through which the Holy Spirit invites the world to inhabit the coming kingdom of God. This proposal contributes to the articulation of an authentic Pentecostal-charismatic witness at the theology-and-science table while also enabling a more plausible and coherent account of divine action for pentecostal-charismatic piety and Christian practice in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This article examines the traditional and modern doctrines of categorical propositions and argues that both doctrines have serious problems. While the doctrines disagree about existential imports...

The ArgumentOne of the earliest arguments for Copernicanism was a widely accepted fact: that on a horizontal plane a body subject to no external resistance can be set in motion by the smallest of all possible forces. This fact was contrary to Aristotelian physics; but it was a physical argument (by abduction) for the possibility of the Copernican world system. For it would be explained if that system was true or at least possible.Galileo argued: only nonviolent motions can be caused (...) by the smallest of all possible forces; hence resistance-free horizontal motions are nonviolent; this confirms Copernicanism insofar as it designates the rotations of celestial spheres (being resistance-free horizontal motions) as nonviolent.Galileo's argument was compatible with (and supportive of) the specific Copernican version of impetus mechanics; but it was also compatible with a (somewhat qualified) principle of inertia. Thus it promoted decisively the transition from impetus mechanics to classical inertial mechanics. (shrink)

Mercier & Sperber (M&S) argue for their argumentative theory in terms of communicative abilities. Insights can be gained by extending the discussion beyond human reasoning to rodent and robot navigation. The selection of arguments and conclusions that are mutually reinforcing can be cast as a form of abductive reasoning that I argue underlies the construction of cognitive maps in navigation tasks.

Dans cette enquête, j’affirme que les signes occupent une place centrale dans la cosmologie de Peirce, et que le fait de soutenir de nouvelles propositions à travers le dialogue a le pouvoir de favoriser l’unité nécessaire pour souder les membres de son continuum. Le dialogue tel que conçu par Peirce devient le moyen de souder chaque membre du continuum. Le principal moteur dans la réalisation de cette «soudure», selon Peirce, est le hasard/l’habitude dans l’utilisation des signes elle-même. Bien que la (...) place du soi, conçu comme une expression de toutes les composantes du monde physique, sera considérée, je m’intéresserai principalement aux changements logiques constatés par le passage du dialogue inter-actionnel au dialogue intra-actionnel. (shrink)

The truth-justification is an enduring explanation for valuing free speech. This paper seeks to advance an account of “assertion”, found in speech act theory, that can identify speech which contributes to truth-discovery in a nuanced way. I apply the dialectic theory of assertion which emphasises the language game of giving and asking for reasons to believe things as assertional social practice. In doing so, I consider what “moves” in this game make sense from a truth-discovery perspective, drawing together contemporary and (...) foundational work on assertion in linguistics to fit the normative context of law. Speech act theory is often invoked in current free speech literature to identify regulable speech, but less typically to identify speech that warrants legal protection. I contextualise my theory within this existing legal work and show how the model I advocate for applies across many formulations of the truth-justification to offer comprehensive explanatory and justificatory power. I also explore the potential appeal of alternative theories of assertion and explain why they are a poor fit in comparison to the dialectical account. (shrink)

The periodic table may be seen as the most successful example of inquiry in the history of science, both in terms of practical application and theoretic understanding. As such, it serves as a model for truth as it emerges from inquiry. This paper offers a sketch of a central moment in the history of chemistry that illustrates an intuitive metamathematical construction, a model of emerging truth. The MET, reflecting the structure the surrounds the periodic table, attempts to capture the salient (...) epistemological elements that warrant truth claims based on sets of models that are progressive in light of both empirical and theoretical advance seen over time. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between information and abductive reasoning in the context of problem-solving, focusing on non-human animals. Two questions guide our investigation: What is the relation between information and abductive reasoning in the context of human and non-human animals? Do non-human animals perform discovery based on inferential processes such as abductive reasoning? In order to answer these questions, we discuss the semiotic concept of information in relation to the concept of abductive reasoning and, (...) more specifically, to the notion of manipulative abduction proposed by Magnani. Finally, we investigate a case study of corvids’ intelligence, namely, their capacity of causal cognition. (shrink)

There are two natural ways of thinking about negation: (i) as a form of complementation and (ii) as an operation of reversal, or inversion (to deny that p is to say that things are “the other way around”). A variety of techniques exist to model conception (i), from Euler and Venn diagrams to Boolean algebras. Conception (ii), by contrast, has not been given comparable attention. In this note we outline a twofold geometric proposal, where the inversion metaphor is understoood as (...) involving a rotation o a reflection, respectively. These two options are equivalent in classical two-valued logic but they differ significantly in many-valued logics. Here we show that they correspond to two basic sorts of negation operators—Post’s and Kleene’s—and we provide a simple group-theoretic argument demonstrating their generative power. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 404-418, December 2021.

This article explores pragmatism's associationwith relativism, not to rescue it fromrelativism but rather to highlight how aspectsof the classic pragmatists' positions supportqualified relativism. I do so in an effort tohelp restore ``relativism'' as a meaningfulconcept that is nuanced and complex, ratherthan naive and vulgar, as it is regularlyportrayed by more traditional philosophers. This nuanced relativism I call qualifiedrelativism. Qualified relativists insist thatall inquiry are affected by philosophicalassumptions which are culturally bound, andthat all inquirers are situated knowers who areculturally bound as (...) well. However, we cancompensate for our cultural embeddedness byopening our horizons and including others inour conversations. I connect the classicpragmatist points to current feministepistemological work and show that qualifiedrelativists (pragmatists, feminists, andpostmodernists) can claim roots to theirpositions in Peirce, James, and Dewey, some ofthe very scholars others turn to for theirpragmatic realism and their nonvulgar absolutism. (shrink)

Mercier & Sperber (M&S) claim that the phenomenon of belief bias provides fundamental support for their argumentative theory and its basis in intuitive judgement. We propose that chronometric evidence necessitates a more nuanced account of belief bias that is not readily captured by argumentative theory.

The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1913) offer an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a ‘rhetorical turn’ Peirce develops his early ‘semiotics’ into a more general theory of sign and sign use, while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce's notion of semiosis—the sign's action—to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce's rhetorical turn not only opens up towards (...) a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is twofold. It first aims at clarifying and developing an important tension within enactivism concerning the relations between intentionality and content, once representationalism has been abandoned. In which sense(s) do enactivists (still) say that intentionality is contentful and not contentful? Secondly, it puts this tension in perspective with two paradigmatic ways of defining the relations between intentional states and their objects: Husserl’s theory of intentionality in the Logical Investigations, and Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic semiotics.

Enactivism does not have its primary philosophical roots in pragmatism: phenomenology (from Husserl to Jonas) is its first source of inspiration (with the exception of Hutto & Myin’s radical enactivism). That does not exclude the benefits of pragmatist readings of enactivism, and of enactivist readings of pragmatism. After having sketched those readings, this paper focuses on the philosophical concept of intentionality. I show that whereas enactivists endorse the idea that intentionality is a base-level property of cognition, pragmatism offer(ed) us some (...) reasons not to proceed this way. It is therefore doubtful to hold that pragmatists and enactivists would converge in the defence of a common, non-representational conception of intentionality. (shrink)

Short abstract (98 words). Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given humans’ exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of (...) evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. (shrink)

The evolutionary debunking argument advanced by Sharon Street, Michael Ruse, and Richard Joyce employs the logic of Paul Griffiths and John Wilkins to contend that humans cannot have knowledge of moral truths, since the evolutionary process that has produced our basic moral intuitions lacks causal connections to those (putative) truths. Yet this argument is self-defeating, because its aim is the categorical, normative claim that we should suspend our moral beliefs in light of the discoveries about their non-truth-tracking origins, when it (...) is precisely this claim that relies upon the normativity under attack. This article cites Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914) to argue that such self-defeat can be avoided by expanding upon the basic structure of the argument put forth by Griffiths and Wilkins, provided that one embraces a version of realism that corresponds with Peirce's doctrine of final causation. So construed, final causation reconciles real generals (including real moral values) with natural selection and undergirds further speculation of moral facts within values per se. (shrink)

Never shall this be proved, that things that are not are. ParmenidesTo say that something does not exist, or that there is something which is not, is clearly a contradiction in terms; hence “ ” must be true. Moreover, we should certainly expect leave to put any primitive name of our language for the “x” of any matrix “ … x … ”, and to infer the resulting singular statement from “ ”; it is difficult to contemplate any alternative logical (...) rule for reasoning with names. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce believed that his pragmatic philosophy could reconcile religion and science and that this reconciliation involves a religious ethics creating a real community with the cosmos and God. After some rival pragmatic approaches to God and religious belief inconsistent with Peirce's philosophy are set aside, his metaphysical plan for a reconciliation of religion and science is outlined. A panentheistic God makes the best match with his desired conclusions from the Neglected Argument for the reality of God, and this (...) God is also capable of fulfilling the pragmatic role demanded by Peirce's ethical expectations for the intelligent functioning of religion. The discussion proceeds to an elaboration of the aesthetic, metaphysical, and ethical elements of Peirce's philosophical system, which indicate why Peirce's religious ethics is best categorized as akin to Stoicism, with some Christian elements. For Peirce, religious ethics proceeds from the (potentially universal) agapic community's cooperation with God's loving creativity of the universe. (shrink)

This paper proposes an analysis of surprise formulated in terms of proximity to the truth, to replace the probabilistic account of surprise. It is common to link surprise to the low probability of the outcome. The idea seems sensible because an outcome with a low probability is unexpected, and an unexpected outcome often surprises us. However, the link between surprise and low probability is known to break down in some cases. There have been some attempts to modify the probabilistic account (...) to deal with these cases, but as we shall see, they are still faced with problems. The new analysis of surprise I propose turns to accuracy and identifies an unexpected degree of inaccuracy as reason for surprise. The shift from probability to proximity allows us to solve puzzles that strain the probabilistic account of surprise. (shrink)

Logicians have strongly preferred first-order natural deductive systems over Peirce's Beta Graphs even though both are equivalent to each other. One of the main reasons for this preference, I claim, is that inference rules for Beta Graphs are hard to understand, and, therefore, hard to apply for deductions. This paper reformulates the Beta rules to show more fine-grained symmetries built around visual features of the Beta system, which makes the rules more natural and easier to use and understand. Noting that (...) the rules of a natural deductive system are natural in a different sense, this case study shows that the naturalness and the intuitiveness of rules depends on the type of representation system to which they belong. In a diagrammatic system, when visual features are discovered and fully used, we have a more efficacious deductive system. I will also show that this project not only helps us to apply these rules more easily but to understand the validity of the system at a more intuitive level. (shrink)

This article introduces and defends a probabilistic measure of the explanatory power that a particular explanans has over its explanandum. To this end, we propose several intuitive, formal conditions of adequacy for an account of explanatory power. Then, we show that these conditions are uniquely satisfied by one particular probabilistic function. We proceed to strengthen the case for this measure of explanatory power by proving several theorems, all of which show that this measure neatly corresponds to our explanatory intuitions. Finally, (...) we briefly describe some promising future projects inspired by our account. (shrink)

Charles Peirce incorporates modality into his Existential Graphs by introducing the broken cut for possible falsity. Although it can be adapted to various modern modal logics, Zeman demonstrates that making no other changes results in a version that he calls Gamma-MR, an implementation of Jan Łukasiewicz's four-valued Ł-modal system. It disallows the assertion of necessity, reflecting a denial of determinism, and has theorems involving possibility that seem counterintuitive at first glance. However, the latter is a misconception that arises from overlooking (...) the distinction between the intermediate truth values that are assigned to possibly true propositions as either X-contingent or Y-contingent. Any two propositions having the same ITV are possible together, while any two propositions having different ITVs, including those that are each other's negation, are possible individually yet not possible together. Porte shows that Ł-modal can be translated into classical logic by defining a constant for each ITV such that its implication of another proposition asserts the latter's possibility, while its conjunction with another proposition asserts the latter's necessity. These are expressed in the Alpha part of EG without broken cuts, simplifying derivations and shedding further light on Łukasiewicz's system, as long as graphs including either of the constants are properly interpreted. Ł-modal and Gamma-MR thus capture the two-sided nature of possibility as the limit between truth and falsity in Peirce's triadic conception. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the discovery of the DNA structure by Francis Crick and James Watson, which has provoked a large historical literature but has yet not found entry into philosophical debates. I want to redress this imbalance. In contrast to the available historical literature, a strong emphasis will be placed upon analysing the roles played by theory, model, and evidence and the relationship between them. In particular, I am going to discuss not only Crick and Watson's well-known model (...) and Franklin's x-ray diffraction pictures (the evidence) but also the less well known theory of helical diffraction, which was absolutely crucial to Crick and Watson's discovery. The insights into this groundbreaking historical episode will have consequences for the ‘new’ received view of scientific models and their function and relationship to theory and world. The received view, dominated by works by Cartwright and Morgan and Morrison ([1999]), rather than trying to put forth a ‘theory of models’, is interested in questions to do with (i) the function of models in scientific practice and (ii) the construction of models. In regard to (i), the received view locates the model (as an idealized, simplified version of the real system under investigation) between theory and the world and sees the model as allowing the application of the former to the latter. As to (ii) Cartwright has argued for a phenomenologically driven view and Morgan and Morrison ([1999]) for the ‘autonomy’ of models in the construction process: models are determined neither by theory nor by the world. The present case study of the discovery of the DNA structure strongly challenges both (i) and (ii). In contrast to claim (i) of the received view, it was not Crick and Watson's model but rather the helical diffraction theory which served a mediating purpose between the model and the x-ray diffraction pictures. In particular, Cartwright's take on (ii) is refuted by a comparison of Franklin's bottom-up approach with Crick and Watson's top-down approach in constructing the model. The former led to difficulties, which only a strong confidence in the structure incorporated in the model could circumvent. How to Get to the Structure 1.1 X-ray diffraction and its synthesis 1.2 Model building and Pauling's panache 1.3 The structure of proteins 1.3.1 A failed inference to the best explanation 1.3.2 The misleading 5.1 Å spot in proteins and how to get rid of it 1.3.3 Derived predictions from Pauling's alpha-helix of protein molecules The CCV Theory of Helical X-Ray Diffraction 2.1 The role of the CCV theory in the discovery of the DNA structure Killing the Helix 3.1 Appreciating all evidence—in vain Conclusion Epilogue: Chargaff's Ratios CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of perception that reconciles representationalism and relationalism by relying on pragmatist ideas. I call it the pragmatic view of perception. I argue that fully reconciling representationalism and relationalism requires, first, providing a theory in which how we perceive the world involves representations; second, preserving the idea that perception is constitutively shaped by its objects; and third, offering a direct realist account of perception. This constitutes what I call the Hybrid Triad. I discuss how Charles Peirce’s (...) theory of perception can provide a framework for such a view and I devote the rest of the paper to developing my own pragmatic and Peircean theory of perception. In particular, I argue that considering perception as a continuous temporal process, which essentially involves interaction with the environment, allows us to do justice to the Hybrid Triad. I motivate this view by discussing how a pragmatic theory of perception would deal with issues such as the distinction between veridical and non-veridical experiences and the nature of perceptual objects. (shrink)

Individual semiotic systems interpreting their environment are not well understood from the externalist approach typical of the scientific method. Science constructs probabilities describing large populations of systems, not individuals. The Umwelt, as the individually experienced/created aspects of the habitat aspect of its population’s ecological niche, is given an internalist understanding within the framework of the compositional hierarchy. Vagueness is an important aspect of the internalist condition. It is selectively reduced momentarily by creative choices that can have a Peircean semiotic formulation, (...) and which are often unpredictable externally, thereby appearing to be chance events. (shrink)

In philosophy of science, the literature on abduction and the literature on styles of thinking have existed almost totally in parallel. Here, for the first time, we bring them together and explore their mutual relevance. What is the consequence of the existence of several styles of scientific thinking for abduction? Can abduction, as a general creative mode of inference, have distinct characteristic forms within each style? To investigate this, firstly, we present the concept of abduction; secondly we analyze what is (...) understood by styles of thinking; thirdly, we give some comments on abduction and styles of thinking by analyzing examples of scientific discovery or innovation within each style. We develop a case-based comparative investigation of creative aspects of abductive reasoning with examples drawn from different styles of scientific thinking and doing as understood by the Crombie/hacking tradition. We argue that abduction, as a general mode of reasoning, can have a variety of specific expressions enabled and constrained by the styles of scientific thinking. Finally, we draw some conclusions on the relationship between abduction and styles of thinking suggesting that scientific discovery is a dynamical goal-directed activity within the scientific community that benefits from distinct styles of thinking and doing research. (shrink)

Theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics are scarce and tend to apply a monological model of communication that focuses on the transfer of information from signallers to receivers. This study relies on an alternative model of communication, semiotic alignment, which sees communicative interaction as a dialogical process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants’ own-worlds. We conducted an experiment where dyads composed of an elephant instruction-giver and a human instruction-receiver needed to (...) engage in dynamic and interactive communication in order to solve a cooperative object-choice task. Our results showed that dyads were able to solve the task well above chance levels. Moreover, cross-recurrence analysis revealed that interactants were synchronizing referential indexical gestures throughout the experiment. However, we were not able to confirm a direct correlation between joint deixis and experimental outcomes, presumably because these outcomes are dependent on other forms of joint semiosis not analysed in this study. (shrink)