Against the backdrop of Walter Benjamin's famous essay, “Unpacking My Library”, this article, by the Librarian of the Warburg Institute, tells the story of the many times that the Warburg Library has been packed and unpacked. First it was the private collection of Aby Warburg, later a public institution, originally in Hamburg and then in London from 1933 to the present. This essay also explores the various ways in which books have been — and continue to be — acquired by (...) the Warburg Library, including publication, donation, recommendation, and purchase. Each of these methods is not only discussed but also examined in light of Benjamin's account of the acquisition of his own library. Moreover, Benjamin's view that collections lose their meaning when they cease to be personal is challenged by the example of the Warburg Library, which has been transformed from a private collection containing around 15,000 books in 1911 to a public institution today housing over 350,000 volumes, while still maintaining its unique character. (shrink)

The extent to which people anticipate and are influenced by the potential future consequences of their current behavior is called Consideration of Future Consequences. A well-established tool to measure this construct is the 14-item Consideration of Future Consequences Scale. The CFC-14 has shown appropriate psychometric properties in several languages. This scale comprises two factors: the CFC-Immediate and the CFC-Future. The main goal of this study was to assess the psychometric properties and internal consistency of the CFC-14 Scale in Spanish, using (...) an Argentine sample. A secondary goal was to determine its convergent validity with impulsivity, and determine differences across gender and age groups. Using a web-based survey, we collected data from 512 participants aged 13-74 years. Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed a 2-factor model as the best solution for 13-items version. Standardized regression weights ranged from.50 to.66 for CFC-F and between.43 and.83 for CFC-I. Composite reliability was also adequate: CFC-F achieve? =.80 and CFC-I? =.82. There were no differences across gender and age. The CFC-F subscale and UPPS-P subscales correlations, were negative and significant, highlighting the negative and moderate correlation between CFC-F and the lack of premeditation, a dimension strictly related to intertemporal decisions making. Thus, CFC-14 has adequate psychometric properties in an Argentinian population, although more studies are necessary to determine the robustness of these findings. (shrink)

The existence of a close connection between results on axiomatic truth and the analysis of truth-theoretic deflationism is nowadays widely recognized. The first attempt to make such link precise can be traced back to the so-called conservativeness argument due to Leon Horsten, Stewart Shapiro and Jeffrey Ketland: by employing standard Gödelian phenomena, they concluded that deflationism is untenable as any adequate theory of truth leads to consequences that were not achievable by the base theory alone. In the paper I (...) highlight, as Shapiro and Ketland, the irreducible nature of truth axioms with respect to their base theories. But, I argue, this does not immediately delineate a notion of truth playing a substantial role in philosophical or scientific explanations. I first offer a refinement of Hartry Field’s reaction to the conservativeness argument by distinguishing between metatheoretic and object-theoretic consequences of the theory of truth and address some possible rejoinders. In the resulting picture, truth is an irreducible tool for metatheoretic ascent. How robust is this characterizaton? I test it by considering: a recent example, due to Leon Horsten, of the alleged explanatory role played by the truth predicate in the derivation of Fitch’s paradox; an essential weakening of theories of truth analyzed in the first part of the paper. (shrink)

In the last homily he gave before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described modern life as ruled by a “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely” of satisfying “the desires of one’s own ego.” An eminent scholar familiar with the centuries-old debates over relativism, Ratzinger chose to oversimplify or even caricature a philosophical approach of great sophistication and antiquity. His homily depicts the relativist as someone blown about “by every (...) wind of doctrine,” whereas the relativist sticks firmly to one argument—that human knowledge is not absolute. Gathering prominent intellectuals from disciplines most relevant to the controversy—ethics, theology, political theory, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, epistemology, philosophy of science, and classics—this special double issue of _Common Knowledge_ contests Ratzinger’s denunciation of relativism. One essay relates the arguments of Ratzinger to those of two other German scholars—the conservative political theorist Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde and the liberal philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas—since all three men assume that social order depends on the existence of doctrinal authority. The contributors here argue for an intellectual and social life free of the desire for an “infantilizing” authority. One proposes that the Christian god is a relativist who prefers limitation and ambiguity; another, initially in agreement with Ratzinger about the danger relativism poses to faith and morals, then argues that this danger is what makes relativism valuable. The issue closes with the first English translation of an extract from a book on Catholic-Jewish relations by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the Catholic Church’s most progressive figures. _Contributors_. David Bloor, Daniel Boyarin, Mary Baine Campbell, Lorraine Daston, Arnold I. Davidson, John Forrester, Kenneth J. Gergen, Simon Goldhill, Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Julia Kristeva, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, Christopher Norris, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Richard Shusterman, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Jeffrey Stout, Gianni Vattimo. (shrink)

Scholars have traditionally explained away torture as an act of monstrosity. Hannah Arendt has proposed instead a socio-cultural explanation of the phenomenon. Modern rationality, she suggests, constitutes the legitimacy principle that grounds the bureaucracy of repression and that perpetrators can ultimately tap into for the purpose of justifying their deeds. I will suggest, instead, that modern technical rationality is per se not sufficient to justify torture. Rather, to do so, it must undergo a profound transformation as a result of its (...) being linked to deeper moral logics. Linkage, in turn, is a matter of cultural performance. To tackle the question of legitimacy in torture, it is therefore necessary to address its cultural pragmatics. Jeffrey Alexander’s latest work on social performance can help in this respect. (shrink)

Direct neurological and especially imaging-driven investigations into the structures essential to naturally occurring cognitive systems in their development and operation have motivated broadening interest in the potential for artificial consciousness modeled on these systems. This first paper in a series of three begins with a brief review of Boltuc’s (2009) “brain-based” thesis on the prospect of artificial consciousness, focusing on his formulation of h-consciousness. We then explore some of the implications of brain research on the structure of consciousness, finding limitations (...) in biological approaches to the study of consciousness. Looking past these limitations, we introduce research in artificial consciousness designed to test for the emergence of consciousness, a phenomenon beyond the purview of the study of existing biological systems. (shrink)

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self, develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by forecasting (...) the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to most- and myth-consciousness. (shrink)

Effective vaccines for COVID‐19 are already available to humankind. In Peru, 86 million doses were administered to cover the demand for 33 million Peruvian people. Hence, vaccination has been prioritized in groups: health personnel, subjects with pre‐existing health conditions and those over 65 years of age. However, given the social problems and the public health situation in Peru, this work defends that the priority of vaccination should be focused on the population living in extreme poverty. The method used was an (...) ethical argumentation on the distribution of scarce antiSARS‐CoV2 vaccine in Peru. This argument is based on the analysis of the Peruvian population living in extreme poverty, which presents different layers of vulnerability, and that, in the face of an eventual SARS‐CoV2 infection, these would be exacerbated one after the other, through a cascade effect. This scenario would give rise to new vulnerabilities to those already existing, causing greater damage. Vaccination efforts on this key population would give them the opportunity to continue to find ways to bring food to their homes, significantly reducing the risk of contagion in their environment and mitigating the devastating effect of the local diseases to which they are already exposed. Four objections related to this argument are raised with their corresponding responses. Priority access to the vaccine would significantly reduce the humanitarian harm to people living in extreme poverty, prevailing the principles of justice and equity. (shrink)

La humanidad ya dispone de vacunas eficaces contra el COVID‐19. En Perú se administraron 86 millones de dosis para cubrir la demanda de 33 millones de peruanos. Para ello, se ha priorizado la vacunación en grupos clave: personal de salud, sujetos con condiciones de salud preexistentes y mayores de 65 años. Sin embargo, dada la problemática social y la situación de la salud pública en Perú, este trabajo defiende que la prioridad de la vacunación debe centrarse en la población que (...) vive en extrema pobreza. El método utilizado fue una argumentación ética sobre la distribución de la vacuna contra el COVID‐19 en Perú. Esta argumentación se basa en el análisis de la población peruana que vive en extrema pobreza, la cual presenta diferentes estratos de vulnerabilidad, y que, ante una eventual infección por SARS‐CoV‐2, se irían agravando uno tras otro, a través de un efecto en cascada. Este escenario daría lugar a nuevas vulnerabilidades de las ya existentes, causando mayores daños. Los esfuerzos de vacunación en esta población clave les brindaría oportunidad de seguir encontrando formas de llevar alimentos a sus hogares, reduciendo significativamente el riesgo de contagio en su entorno y mitigando el efecto devastador de las enfermedades locales a las que ya está expuesta. Se plantean cuatro objeciones relacionadas con este argumento, con sus correspondientes respuestas. El acceso prioritario a la vacuna reduciría significativamente el daño a las personas que viven en la extrema pobreza, haciendo prevalecer los principios de justicia y equidad. (shrink)

Discoverability: the urgent need of an ecology of human creativity from the prolific Lorenzo Magnani is worthy of direct attention. The message may be of special interest to philosophers, ethicists and organizing scientists involved in the development of AI and related technologies which are increasingly directed at reinforcing conditions against which Magnani directly warns, namely the “overcomputationalization” of life marked by the gradual encroachment of technologically “locked strategies” into everyday decision-making until “freedom, responsibility, and ownership of our destinies” are ceded (...) and we, in parallel, build a future fit for artifacts over human beings. Professional educators - teachers and administrators serious about teaching - and policy-makers including the concerned public, parents and social activists concerned about the effects of technologies on development and well-being may benefit, as well. (shrink)

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This article sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of “self.” Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruism at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry (...) into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability. (shrink)

The Irish antecedents of the struggle of Archbishop Hughes and his Irish emigrant flock against the Public School Society of the City of New York.

Our purpose in this article is to identify and suggest resolution for two core problematics of grounded theory. First, while grounded theory provides transparency to one part of the conceptualization process, where codes emerge directly from the data, it provides no such systematic or transparent way for gaining insight into the conceptual relationships between discovered codes. Producing a grounded theory depends not only on the definition of conceptual pieces, but the delineation of a relationship between at least two of those (...) pieces. Second, the conceptualization process of grounded theory is done in hierarchical fashion, where individual codes emerge from the data but then are used to generate insight into more general concepts and thematic statements. But various works on grounded theory have failed to provide any systematic way of using data specific levels of scale (the codes) to gain insight into more macro levels of scale (concepts and themes). We offer fractal concept analysis as a means of resolving both of these issues. By using a logic structure generator, fractal concept analysis delineates self-similar conceptual frameworks at various levels of abstraction, yielding a method for linking concepts together within and between levels of scale encountered in the grounded theory coding and categorization process. We conclude that this fractal analytic technique can bolster the aims of grounded theory as a formalized and systematic process for generating theory from empirical data. (shrink)

Wattles offers a comprehensive survey of the history of the golden rule, "Do unto others as you want others to do unto you". He traces the rule's history in contexts as diverse as the writings of Confucius and the Greek philosophers, the Bible, modern theology and philosophy, and the American "self-help" context. He concludes by offering his own synthesis of these varied understandings.

This chapter presents the main formalism of the book, which is used in subsequent chapters to describe a variety of concepts in Husserlian phenomenology, and thereby unify them. A dynamical systems approach to Husserl is introduced, and several dynamical laws of Husserlian phenomenology are described. The first is an expectation rule according to which expectations are determined by what a person knows, sees, and does. The second is a learning rule according to which background knowledge is updated in a specific (...) way when experiences fulfill or frustrate prior expectations. In addition to these rules, a “supervenience function” is described, which associates how a thing is seen with a “trail set,” the set ways that thing is expected to look, relative to all possible ways of moving around it. This function further illustrates the explanatory dimension of phenomenology described in Chap. 2, whereby how we immanently experience things is determined by how we expect them to look relative to counterfactual movement patterns. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

Reliabilism—the view that a belief is justified iff it is produced by a reliable process—is often characterized as a form of consequentialism. Recently, critics of reliabilism have suggested that since it is a form of consequentialism, reliabilism condones a variety of problematic trade-offs involving cases where someone forms an epistemically deficient belief now that will lead her to more epistemic value later. In the present paper, we argue that the relevant argument against reliabilism fails because it equivocates. While there is (...) a sense in which reliabilism is a kind of consequentialism, it is not of a kind on which we should expect problematic trade-offs. (shrink)

A simple tool is provided to assist researchers in assessing contributions to a scientific publication, for ease in evaluating which contributors qualify for authorship, and in what order the authors should be listed. The tool identifies four phases of activity leading to a publication—Conception and Design, Data Acquisition, Analysis and Interpretation, and Manuscript Preparation. By comparing a project participant’s contribution in a given phase to several specified thresholds, a score of up to five points can be assigned; the contributor’s scores (...) in all four phases are summed to yield a total “contribution score”, which is compared to a threshold to determine which contributors merit authorship. This tool may be useful in a variety of contexts in which a systematic approach to authorial credit is desired. (shrink)

Many of the computing systems programmed using Machine Learning are opaque: it is difficult to know why they do what they do or how they work. Explainable Artificial Intelligence aims to develop analytic techniques that render opaque computing systems transparent, but lacks a normative framework with which to evaluate these techniques’ explanatory successes. The aim of the present discussion is to develop such a framework, paying particular attention to different stakeholders’ distinct explanatory requirements. Building on an analysis of “opacity” from (...) philosophy of science, this framework is modeled after accounts of explanation in cognitive science. The framework distinguishes between the explanation-seeking questions that are likely to be asked by different stakeholders, and specifies the general ways in which these questions should be answered so as to allow these stakeholders to perform their roles in the Machine Learning ecosystem. By applying the normative framework to recently developed techniques such as input heatmapping, feature-detector visualization, and diagnostic classification, it is possible to determine whether and to what extent techniques from Explainable Artificial Intelligence can be used to render opaque computing systems transparent and, thus, whether they can be used to solve the Black Box Problem. (shrink)

In order to understand ongoing activity, observers segment it into meaningful temporal parts. Segmentation can be based on bottom‐up processing of distinctive sensory characteristics, such as movement features. Segmentation may also be affected by top‐down effects of knowledge structures, including information about actors' intentions. Three experiments investigated the role of movement features and intentions in perceptual event segmentation, using simple animations. In all conditions, movement features significantly predicted where participants segmented. This relationship was stronger when participants identified larger units than (...) when they identified smaller units, and stronger when the animations were generated randomly than when they were generated by goal‐directed human activity. This pattern suggests that bottom‐up processing played an important role in segmentation of these stimuli, but that this was modulated by top‐down influence of knowledge structures. To describe accurately how observers perceive ongoing activity, one must account for the effects of distinctive sensory characteristics, the effects of knowledge structures, and their interactions. (shrink)

Data science, and the related field of big data, is an emerging discipline involving the analysis of data to solve problems and develop insights. This rapidly growing domain promises many benefits to both consumers and businesses. However, the use of big data analytics can also introduce many ethical concerns, stemming from, for example, the possible loss of privacy or the harming of a sub-category of the population via a classification algorithm. To help address these potential ethical challenges, this paper maps (...) and describes the main ethical themes that were identified via systematic literature review. It then identifies a possible structure to integrate these themes within a data science project, thus helping to provide some structure in the on-going debate with respect to the possible ethical situations that can arise when using data science analytics. (shrink)

Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis of the view that everything is a manifestation of the physical aspects of existence. Jeffrey Poland presents a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the philosophical foundations of this program. He investigates the core ideas, motivating values, and presuppositions of physicalism; the constraints upon an adequate formulation of physicalist doctrine; the epistemological and modal status, the scope, and the methodological roles of physicalist principles. (...) He reviews and evaluates major objections to the program, and considers its significance for philosophy, science, society, and individual persons. He also examines the relations between physicalism and other philosophical positions, such as realism, empiricism, and relativism, and suggests that physicalism is compatible with a tolerant pluralism in the philosophical, cultural, and personal domains. (shrink)

The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...) research reveals the need for a more sophisticated account of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

Models developed using machine learning are increasingly prevalent in scientific research. At the same time, these models are notoriously opaque. Explainable AI aims to mitigate the impact of opacity by rendering opaque models transparent. More than being just the solution to a problem, however, Explainable AI can also play an invaluable role in scientific exploration. This paper describes how post-hoc analytic techniques from Explainable AI can be used to refine target phenomena in medical science, to identify starting points for future (...) investigations of causal relationships, and to generate possible explanations of target phenomena in cognitive science. In this way, this paper describes how Explainable AI—over and above machine learning itself—contributes to the efficiency and scope of data-driven scientific research. (shrink)

It is often claimed (1) that levels of nature are related by supervenience, and (2) that processes occurring at particular levels of nature should be studied using dynamical systems theory. However, there has been little consideration of how these claims are related. To address the issue, I show how supervenience relations give rise to ‘supervenience functions’, and use these functions to show how dynamical systems at different levels are related to one another. I then use this analysis to describe a (...) graded approach to non-reductive physicalism, and to critically assess Davidson’s arguments for psychological anomaly. I also show how this approach can inform empirical research in cognitive science. (shrink)

This brief paperback is designed for symbolic/formal logic courses. It features the tree method proof system developed by Jeffrey. The new edition contains many more examples and exercises and is reorganized for greater accessibility.

In a context of pervasive digitalization of the social world, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of education has undergone major changes with the development of digital practices and settings. However, the physical presence of the subjects and the body remain something primordial and irreplaceable in traditional educational processes. Thus, it is often assumed that virtuality is opposed to the corporeal reality of the subjects involved in teaching, learning and studying. In this paper we aim to critically (...) challenge this assumption by addressing the phenomenon of virtuality in a more original sense: as a fundamental dimension of corporeality itself. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological insights, we argue that the experience of the virtual is inherently embodied and fully real. We understand corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena. At the same time, this leads us to rethink the digital as only one possible medium in which virtuality can appear as inherent to embodied experience. We develop our phenomenological approach in three instances. First, we question and bracket two common assumptions about corporeality. From our critical perspective, assumptions about a disembodied digitality and a devirtualized corporeality represent extremes within which educational discourses currently move. Second, we address the inherent virtuality of embodied experience. We outline the heuristic concept of the virtual body to describe corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena that encompass extension, intercorporeality and intermediality. Finally, we make some remarks on the relationships of corporeality and virtuality considering the challenges of digital education. (shrink)

Many now countenance the idea that certain groups can have beliefs, or at least belief-like states. If groups can have beliefs like these, the question of whether such beliefs are justified immediately arises. Recently, Goldman Essays in collective epistemology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) has considered what a reliability-based account of justified group belief might look like. In this paper I consider his account and find it wanting, and so propose a modified reliability-based account of justified group belief. Lackey :341–396, (...) 2016) has also criticized Goldman’s proposal, but for very different reasons than I do. Some of her objections, however, can be lodged against the modified account that I propose here. I also respond to these objections. Finally, I note how some formal and experimental work is relevant to those who are attracted to the kind of reliability-based account of justified group belief I develop here. (shrink)

The generative entrenchment of an entity is a measure of how much of the generated structure or activity of a complex system depends upon the presence or activity of that entity. It is argued that entities with higher degrees of generative entrenchment are more conservative in evolutionary changes of such systems. A variety of models of complex structures incorporating the effects of generative entrenchment are presented and we demonstrate their relevance in analyzing and explaining a variety of developmental and evolutionary (...) phenomena, both on a macroscopic developmental and evolutionary scale, and using models and strategies pioneered by Kauffman, on the more microscopic scale appropriate to the analysis of the structure and behavior of gene control networks. The resulting picture suggests that generative entrenchment acts as a powerful and constructive developmental constraint on the course of evolutionary processes. Since virtually any system exhibits varying degrees of generative entrenchment among its parts and activities, these studies and results have in addition broad potential application for the analysis of generative structures in other areas. (shrink)

The view of business ethics that Christopher McMahon calls the “implicit morality of the market” and Joseph Heath calls the “market failures approach” has received a significant amount of recent attention. The idea of this view is that we can derive an ethics for market participants by thinking about the “point” of market activity, and asking what the world would have to be like for this point to be realized. While this view has been much-discussed, it is still not well-understood. (...) This paper seeks to remedy this problem. I begin by showing, against some recent commentators, that McMahon’s view and Heath’s view are fundamentally the same. Second, I clarify the sense of “efficiency” at work in the market failures approach. Finally, I argue that, in its current form, this view has little relevance to the real world of business. I conclude by sketching two ways of modifying it to fit our world. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a business paradigm that allows and enables the integration of environmental ethics into business decisions while creating a competitive advantage through the use of an ethical framework based on classical American pragmatism. Environmental ethics could be useful as an alternative paradigm for business ethics by offering new perspectives and methodologies to grant consideration of the natural environment. An approach based on classical American pragmatism provides a superior framework for businesses by focusing on experimentation and innovation, (...) driving a long-term focus, and providing actionable clarity. Under a pragmatic approach to ethics, the choice for sustainability becomes self-evident for business performance and moral reasons. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSuppose that beliefs come in degrees. How should we then measure the accuracy of these degrees of belief? Scoring rules are usually thought to be the mathematical tool appropriate for this job. But there are many scoring rules, which lead to different ordinal accuracy rankings. Recently, Fallis and Lewis [2016] have given an argument that, if sound, rules out many popular scoring rules, including the Brier score, as genuine measures of accuracy. I respond to this argument, in part by noting (...) that the argument fails to account for verisimilitude—that certain false hypotheses might be closer to the truth than other false hypotheses are. Oddie [forthcoming], however, has argued that no member of a very wide class of scoring rules can appropriately handle verisimilitude. I explain how to respond to Oddie's argument, and I recommend a class of weighted scoring rules that, I argue, genuinely measure accuracy while escaping the arguments of Fallis and Lewis as well as Oddie. (shrink)

David Lewis ([1986b]) gives an attractive and familiar account of counterfactual dependence in the standard context. This account has recently been subject to a counterexample from Adam Elga ([2000]). In this article, I formulate a Lewisian response to Elga’s counterexample. The strategy is to add an extra criterion to Lewis’s similarity metric, which determines the comparative similarity of worlds. This extra criterion instructs us to take special science laws into consideration as well as fundamental laws. I argue that the Second (...) Law of Thermodynamics should be seen as a special science law, and give a brief account of what Lewisian special science laws should look like. If successful, this proposal blocks Elga’s counterexample. (shrink)