This paper empirically investigates one aspect of the folk concept of time by testing how the presence or absence of directedness impacts judgements about whether there is time in a world. Experiment 1 found that dynamists, showed significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in dynamically directed worlds than in non-dynamical non-directed worlds. Comparing our results to those we describe in Latham et al., we report that while ~ 70% of dynamists say there is time in B-theory worlds, (...) only ~ 45% say there is time in C-theory worlds. Thus, while the presence of directedness makes dynamists more inclined to say there is time in a world, a substantial subpopulation of dynamists judge that there is time in non-directed worlds. By contrast, a majority of non-dynamists judged that there was time in both growing block worlds and C-theory worlds, with no significant differences between the means. Experiment 2 found that when participants are only presented with non-dynamical worlds—namely, a directed world and a non-directed world—they report significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in B-theory worlds. However, the majority of participants still judge that there is time in C-theory worlds. We conclude that while the presence of directedness bolsters judgements that there is time, most people do not judge it to be necessary for time. (shrink)

Recent research (Latham, Miller and Norton, forthcoming) reveals that a majority of people represent actual time as dynamical. But do they, as suggested by McTaggart and Gödel, represent time as essentially dynamical? This paper distinguishes three interrelated questions. We ask (a) whether the folk representation of time is sensitive or insensitive: i.e., does what satisfies the folk representation of time in counterfactual worlds depend on what satisfies it actually—sensitive—or does is not depend on what satisfies it actually—insensitive, and (b) (...) do those who represent actual time as dynamical, represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical—what we call insensitive dynamism—or do they represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical only conditional on the actual world in fact being dynamical—what we call sensitive dynamism and (c) do dynamists and non-dynamists deploy two different representations of time, or deploy the same representation, but disagree about what actually satisfies that representation? We found no evidence that the folk representation of time is sensitive, or that the folk representation of time is essentially dynamical in either sense, though we did find evidence of a shared representation, on which dynamical features are sufficient, but not necessary, for time. (shrink)

This paper investigates the connection between temporal attitudes (attitudes characterised by a concern (or lack thereof) about future and past events), beliefs about temporal ontology (beliefs about the existence of future and past events) and temporal preferences (preferences regarding where in time events are located). Our aim is to probe the connection between these preferences, attitudes, and beliefs, in order to better evaluate the normative status of these preferences. We investigate the hypothesis that there is a three-way association between (a) (...) being present-biased (that is, preferring that positive events are located in the present, and negative events are located in the non-present), (b) believing that past and future events do not exist and (c) tending to have present-focused rather than non-present-focused temporal attitudes. We find no such association. This suggests that insofar as temporal preferences and temporal attitudes are connected to the ways we represent time, they are not connected to the ways we represent temporal ontology; rather, they are more likely connected to the ways we represent relative movement in, or of, time. This has important consequences for, first, explaining why we exhibit these preferences and, second, for their normative evaluation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:More Evidence that Hume Wrote the Abstract David Fate Norton In the preceding paper, David Raynor has offered several reasons for discounting J. O. Nelson's unfounded claim that Adam Smith was the author ofAn Abstract of..."A Treatise ofHuman Nature." Prior to the discovery ofa copy ofthis work, it may have been plausible to suppose that the Abstract was written by someone other than Hume, but the internal evidence (...) ofthe pamphlet is so strongly in favour of Humean authorship that not even Nelson can bring himself to question this evidence—although he now chooses to ignore it. Given that Nelson's argument rests on the far from compelling assumption that in 1740 there were two and onlytwoMr. Smith's ofwhom Humehadknowledge and whomayhave had an interest in writingor publishing philosophy, it is especially useful to have William Smith, publisher of the Bibliothèque raisonnée, brought again to our attention, and especially since it is obvious that a copy of the Abstract had been sent to that journal prior to the pubUcation ofthe review ofthe Treatise published there in the spring of1740.1 In short, Raynor nicely shows why Keynes and Sraffa were wrong to suppose that Hume, Hutcheson and John Noon were all involved in a conspiracy to undercut Noon's interest by publishing an Irish edition ofthe Treatise2 and why Nelson is wrong to suppose that ifthe "Mr Smith" ofHume's letter is not John Smith of Dublin, then he can only be Adam Smith, and that thelatter musthave written the Abstract. I wish to consider further evidence, some of it circumstantial, relevant to this discussion. This evidence adds probability, I submit, to the conclusion that Hume wrote the Abstract. 1. In the autumn of1737 Hume told Henry Home that he could not give him a "general Notion ofthe Plan" or "Abridgement" ofwhat was to be the Treatise. A careless reading ofthe Abstract might lead one to suppose that this is evidence that Hume did not write this short work. But in fact the Abstract is not an abridgement. It is an effort to make clearer, by carefully tracing "one simple argument... from the beginning to the end," a work thathad been "complained of as obscure and difficult." 3 The available evidence confirms one in the belief that Hume could not abridge the Treatise, but on several occasions he did recast parts ofit in more accessible form. The first such recasting was theAbstract. That this briefworkis not merely an abridgement makes Volume XIX Number 1 217 DAVID FATE NORTON itless likely, I suggest, thatit was written by anyone other than Hume himself.4 2.The Abstract, although said to be "Printed for C. [C]orbet,B at Addison's Head, over-against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street," wasinfactprintedbyWilUam Strahan, fornone otherthanJohnNoon, the publisher of the Treatise.6 This we know from Strahan's ledgers. These are preservedin the British Library.7Moreover, onApril 19 and 20, 1739, Corbett placed the following advertisement in the London Daily Post and GeneralAdvertiser: Gentlemen, As I have very lately undertaken the Business ofa PubUsher, so will I as faithfully execute it, if at any time you please to employ, Your most Obedient, Humble Servant, Charles Corbett, Who will Inviolably keep secret all Names of Authors, Proprietors, &c. whatever. The fact that Corbett indicates his willingness to undertake clandestine, vanity publishing gives all the explanation one needs of his willingness to become front man for a puffproduced by Hume, and financed, as the Abstract was, by Hume's publisher.8 The fact that it was Noon who arranged for the London printing of the Abstract in no way proves that this work was written by Hume, but it is another bit ofevidence supportive ofthatconclusion,foritindicates thatNoon was in on the effort to publicize the poorly selling volumes ofthe Treatise that he had published.9 3.Robert Connon found a copy of volume three of the Treatise containing extensive manuscript amendments in Hume's hand. As he has also reported, a copy of the Abstract is bound together with this copy ofvolume three, and this copy ofthe Abstract is also amended by Hume. These amendments appear to be those of an author, not... (shrink)

Ecosystem health, as James Nelson argues, must be understood as having both descriptive and normative content; it is in this sense a 'morally thick' concept. The health analogy refers (a) at the similarities between conservation ecology and medicine or plant pathology as normative sciences, and (b) to the ability of ecosystems to 'heal' themselves in the face of disturbances. Nelson, however, goes beyond these two aspects and argues that judgements of illness in ecosystems only support moral obligations to protect them (...) if they are attributed a 'good of their own'. But this latter extension of the analogy flies in the face of ecological science, which has been forced to abandon organicism. If one separates the question of the warranted assertibility of environmentalists' goals from the question of where values in nature are located, the search for an objective realm of value realism can be seen to be unnecessary. (shrink)

The question of where, between theory and experiment, computer simulations (CSs) locate on the methodological map is one of the central questions in the epistemology of simulation (cf. Saam Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 48, 293–309, 2017). The two extremes on the map have them either be a kind of experiment in their own right (e.g. Barberousse et al. Synthese, 169, 557–574, 2009; Morgan 2002, 2003, Journal of Economic Methodology, 12(2), 317–329, 2005; Morrison Philosophical Studies, 143, 33–57, 2009; Morrison (...) 2015; Massimi and Bhimji Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 51, 71–81, 2015; Parker Synthese, 169, 483–496, 2009) or just an argument executed with the aid of a computer (e.g. Beisbart European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2, 395–434, 2012; Beisbart and Norton International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 26, 403–422, 2012). There exist multiple versions of the first kind of position, whereas the latter is rather unified. I will argue that, while many claims about the ‘experimental’ status of CSs seem unjustified, there is a variant of the first position that seems preferable. In particular I will argue that while CSs respect the logic of (deductively valid) arguments, they neither agree with their pragmatics nor their epistemology. I will then lay out in what sense CSs can fruitfully be seen as experiments, and what features set them apart from traditional experiments nonetheless. I conclude that they should be seen as surrogate experiments, i.e. experiments executed consciously on the wrong kind of system, but with an exploitable connection to the system of interest. Finally, I contrast my view with that of Beisbart (European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 8, 171–204, 2018), according to which CSs are surrogates for experiments, arguing that this introduces an arbitrary split between CSs and other kinds of simulations. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

In common with traditional forms of epistemic internalism, epistemological disjunctivism attempts to incorporate an awareness condition on justification. Unlike traditional forms of internalism, however, epistemological disjunctivism rejects the so-called New Evil Genius thesis. In so far as epistemological disjunctivism rejects the New Evil Genius thesis, it is revisionary. -/- After explaining what epistemological disjunctivism is, and how it relates to traditional forms of epistemic internalism / externalism, I shall argue that the epistemological disjunctivist’s account of the intuitions underlying the New (...) Evil Genius thought experiment is at best incomplete. As presented, therefore, epistemological disjunctivism is unable to accommodate the core guiding intuitions of epistemic internalism. Given the stated aim of not being revisionary on this score, the view is at a dialectical disadvantage over the traditional forms of epistemic internalism the position is meant to replace. Unfortunately, therefore, at present, the impasse between internalism and externalism remains. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the value of epistemic justification cannot be adequately explained as being instrumental to truth. I intend to show that false belief, which is no means to truth, can nevertheless still be of epistemic value. This in turn will make a good prima facie case that justification is valuable for its own sake. If this is right, we will have also found reason to think that truth value monism is false: assuming that true belief does (...) have value, there is more of final epistemic value than mere true belief. (shrink)

Modern science developed in the interflow of culture between west and east. Combing of pratice technology with philosophic thoughts formed experimental method. Holistic views contacting atomism produced system theory. System thoughts are applicated in the science and engineering of biosystems, and the cencepts of system biomedicine (Kamada T.1992), systems biology (Zieglgansberger W, Tolle TR.1993), system bioengineering and system genetics (Zeng BJ. 1994) were established. From positive to synthetic thoughts, philosophy have been developed ontology, cosmology, organism theories. Structurity is structure logic (...) system founded on entity, develop, exist axioms, tolerance, adaptation, fluctuate, interweave, transform theorems and integrate, adaptation, construct laws. Structurity be discussed on the cosmos, life, culture system, creation, hologram theories of structure ontology, construct mutation, simi-structure organism and entity emergence, symbol implication. From the relation of structure, function and development, the structurity put forward the cycle, spiral, triangle structure stability patterns of self-organization in structure complement each other and stratification, functional couple and interflow bounds growth, coordinativetransformation and holographic symmetry. (shrink)

Measurement of gravitomagnetic field is of fundamental importance as a test of general relativity. Here we present a new theoretical project for performing such a measurement based on detection of the electric field arising from the interplay between the gravitomagnetic and magnetic fields in the stationary axial-symmetric gravitational field of a slowly rotating massive body. Finally it is shown that precise magnetometers based on superconducting quantum interferometers could not be designed for measurement of the gravitomagnetically induced magnetic field in the (...) cavity of a charged capacitor since they measure the circulation of a vector potential of electromagnetic field, i.e., an invariant quantity including the sum of electric and magnetic fields, and the general-relativistic magnetic part will be totally cancelled by the electric one which is in good agreement with the experimental results. (shrink)

What makes an intellectual virtue a virtue? A straightforward and influential answer to this question has been given by virtue-reliabilists: a trait is a virtue only insofar as it is truth-conducive. In this paper I shall contend that recent arguments advanced by Jack Kwong in defence of the reliabilist view are good as far as they go, in that they advance the debate by usefully clarifying ways in how best to understand the nature of open-mindedness. But I shall argue that (...) these considerations do not establish the desired conclusions that open-mindedness is truth-conducive. To establish these much stronger conclusions we would need an adequate reply to what I shall call Montmarquet’s objection. I argue that Linda Zagzebski’s reply to Montmarquet’s objection, to which Kwong defers, is inadequate. I conclude that it is contingent if open-mindedness is truth-conducive, and if a necessary tie to truth is what makes an intellectual virtue a virtue, then the status of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue is jeopardised. We either need an adequate reliabilist response to Montmarquet’s objection, or else seek alternative accounts of what it is that makes a virtue a virtue. I conclude by briefly outlining some alternatives. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Ramachandran and Hirstein claim that ‘peak shift', or exaggeration of salient features, ‘explains not only caricatures but all art.’ I would like to test the peak shift hypothesis in a case that at first glance seems to support it. Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac is the tragicomic tale of a grand poetic wit of Paris in the 17th. century, a noble fighter and master of fencing who loves with all his heart, but feels he is unlovable for (...) one very prominent reason: his wondrously prognathous nose. When a challenger pokes fun at Cyrano's most notable facial feature, the latter contemptuously provides a lesson in satiric exaggeration. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: I have great respect for efforts by Francisco Varela, Jonathan Shear and company to create a systematic phenomenology. In support of their efforts it should be noted that there is no need to start from scratch. We already have a systematic study of human conscious experience, and it is called ‘psychology'. True, many academic psychologists deny this rather obvious fact, but if we look at what they do rather than what they say, we find that they are always (...) studying the things people can report with accuracy. But the things we humans can report accurately are the same things we experience as conscious! Reportability is the generally accepted index of consciousness. In point of fact, therefore, psychologists are always asking people about their conscious experiences. (shrink)

One thing nearly all epistemologists agree upon is that Gettier cases are decisive counterexamples to the tripartite analysis of knowledge; whatever else is true of knowledge, it is not merely belief that is both justified and true. They now agree that knowledge is not justified true belief because this is consistent with there being too much luck present in the cases, and that knowledge excludes such luck. This is to endorse what has become known as the 'anti-luck platitude'. <br /><br (...) />But what if generations of philosophers have been mistaken about this, blinded at least partially by a deeply entrenched professional bias? There has been another, albeit minority, response to Gettier: to deny that the cases are counterexamples at all. <br /><br />Stephen Hetherington, a principal and vocal proponent of this view, advances what he calls the 'Knowing Luckily Proposal'. If Hetherington is correct, this would call for a major re-evaluation and re-orientation of post-Gettier analytic epistemology, since much of it assumes the anti-luck platitude both in elucidating the concept of knowledge, and in the application of such accounts to central philosophical problems. It is therefore imperative that the Knowing Luckily Proposal be considered and evaluated in detail. <br /><br />In this paper I critically assess the Knowing Luckily Proposal. I argue that while it draws our attention to certain important features of knowledge, ultimately it fails, and the anti-luck platitude emerges unscathed. Whatever else is true of knowledge, therefore, it is non-lucky true belief. For a proposition to count as knowledge, we cannot arrive at its truth accidentally or for the wrong reason. (shrink)

In general, epistemic internalists hold that an individual’s justification for a belief is exhausted by her reflectively accessible reasons for thinking that the contents of her beliefs are true. Applying this to the epistemology of testimony, a hearer’s justification for beliefs acquired through testimony is exhausted by her reflectively accessible reasons to think that the contents of the speaker’s testimony is true. A consequence of internalism is that subjects that are alike with respect to their reflectively accessible reasons are alike (...) with respect to what they have justification to believe. Testimony should be thought no different: hearers that are alike with respect to reflectively accessible reasons to think that a speaker’s testimony is true are alike with respect to their justification for beliefs based upon that testimony. But it has been recently argued that this view faces powerful counterexamples. So the central question is this: assuming that a hearer can acquire justification to believe a proposition through the testimony of a speaker, can epistemic internalism provide the resources to explain how such justification is possible? My aim in this paper is to address these counterexamples, and in so doing, defend epistemic internalist accounts of testimony. (shrink)

It has recently become popular to suggest that questions of ontology ought be settled by determining, first, which fundamental things exist, and second, which derivative things depend on, or are grounded by, those fundamental things. This methodology typically leads to a hierarchical view of ontology according to which there are chains of entities, each dependent on the next, all the way down to a fundamental base. In this paper we defend an alternative ontological picture according to which there is no (...) ontological hierarchy. Such a picture appears counterintuitive (at least to many), in part because in the absence of a hierarchical structure to our world, there would be no structure apt to back metaphysical explanations. There are two reasons to suppose this is so. First, there would be no structure apt to back metaphysical explanations because there would be a fatal mismatch between the formal features of metaphysical explanation, on the one hand, and the structure of the world, on the other hand. Second, in the absence of an ontological hierarchy there would be no structure apt to back metaphysical explanations because the only connections that would obtain between relevant facts are mere correlational connections. But mere correlations are not the right kinds of relations to back metaphysical explanations: explanation requires something more. This paper aims to show that neither of these is a good reason to prefer a hierarchical view of ontology. (shrink)