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ABSTRACT Our goal in this paper is to extend counterfactual accounts of scientific explanation to mathematics. Our focus, in particular, is on intra-mathematical explanations: explanations of one mathematical fact in terms of another. We offer a basic counterfactual theory of intra-mathematical explanations, before modelling the explanatory structure of a test case using counterfactual machinery. We finish by considering the application of counterpossibles to mathematical explanation, and explore a second test case along these lines.

Standard approaches to counterfactuals in the philosophy of explanation are geared toward causal explanation. We show how to extend the counterfactual theory of explanation to non-causal cases, involving extra-mathematical explanation: the explanation of physical facts by mathematical facts. Using a structural equation framework, we model impossible perturbations to mathematics and the resulting differences made to physical explananda in two important cases of extra-mathematical explanation. We address some objections to our approach.

The present paper advances an analogy between cases of extra-mathematical explanation and cases of what might be termed ‘extra-logical explanation’: the explanation of a physical fact by a logical fact. A particular case of extra-logical explanation is identified that arises in the philosophical literature on time travel. This instance of extra-logical explanation is subsequently shown to be of a piece with cases of extra-mathematical explanation. Using this analogy, we argue extra-mathematical explanation is part of a broader class of non-causal explanation. (...) This has important implications for extra-mathematical explanation, for time travel and for theories of explanation more generally. (shrink)

Tim travels back in time and tries to kill his grandfather before his father was born. Tim fails. But why? Lewis's response was to cite "coincidences": Tim is the unlucky subject of gun jammings, banana peels, sudden changes of heart, and so on. A number of challenges have been raised against Lewis's response. The latest of these focuses on explanation. This paper diagnoses the source of this new disgruntlement and offers an alternative explanation for Tim's failure, one that Lewis would (...) not have liked. The explanation is an obvious one but controversial, so it is defended against all the objections that can be mustered. (shrink)

We argue that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities are genuine explanations. Our defense is based on a certain picture of impossibility. Namely, that there are impossibilities and that the impossibilities have structure. Assuming this broad picture of impossibility we defend the genuineness of explanations that appeal to logical impossibilities against three objections. First, that such explanations are at odds with the perceived conceptual connection between explanation and counterfactual dependence. Second, that there are no genuinely contrastive why-questions that involve logical impossibilities (...) and, third, that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities rule nothing out. (shrink)

It has seemed, to many, that there is an important connection between the ways in which some theoretical posits explain our observations, and our reasons for being ontologically committed to those posits. One way to spell out this connection is in terms of what has become known as the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment. This is, roughly, the view that we ought to posit only those entities that are indispensable to our best explanations. Our primary aim is to argue that (...) the moral nonnaturalist places herself in an invidious position if she simply accepts that the nonnatural moral facts that she posits are not explanatory. Instead, we offer the nonnaturalist an alternative strategy for dealing with moral explanations. The strategy is to retain the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment and maintain that moral properties are, in fact, explanatory. The explanations they provide are not causal explanations; instead, moral properties make a non-causal difference to the physical facts. (shrink)

Doubtless, the conscious brain integrates masses of information. But declaring that consciousness simply “emerges” when enough has accumulated, doesn't really explain how first person experience is implemented by neurons. Moreover, empirical observations challenge integrated information theory's (IIT) reliance on thalamo–cortical interactions as the information integrator. More likely, the cortex streams processed information to a still-enigmatic consciousness generator, one perhaps located in the brainstem.

Although recent epistemology has been marked by several prominent disagreements – e.g., between foundationalists and coherentists, internalists and externalists – there has been widespread agreement that some form of fallibilism must be correct. According to a rough formulation of this view, it is possible for a subject to have knowledge even in cases where the justification or grounding for the knowledge is compatible with the subject’s being mistaken. In this paper, I examine the motivation for fallibilism before providing a fully (...) general account of the view. I conclude by looking at the two major difficulties for fallibilism: the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox. (shrink)

An account of distinctively mathematical explanation (DME) should satisfy three desiderata: it should account for the modal import of some DMEs; it should distinguish uses of mathematics in explanation that are distinctively mathematical from those that are not (Baron [2016]); and it should also account for the directionality of DMEs (Craver and Povich [2017]). Baron’s (forthcoming) deductive-mathematical account, because it is modelled on the deductive-nomological account, is unlikely to satisfy these desiderata. I provide a counterfactual account of DME, (...) the Narrow Ontic Counterfactual Account (NOCA), that can satisfy all three desiderata. NOCA appeals to ontic considerations to account for explanatory asymmetry and ground the relevant counterfactuals. NOCA provides a unification of the causal and the non-causal, the ontic and the modal, by identifying a common core that all explanations share and in virtue of which they are explanatory. (shrink)

Gender dysphoria (GD) is marked by an incongruence between a person’s biological sex at birth, and their felt gender (or gender identity). There is continuing debate regarding the benefits and drawbacks of physiological treatment of GD in children, a pathway, beginning with endocrine treatment to suppress puberty. Currently, the main alternative to physiological treatment consists of the so-called “wait-and-see” approach, which often includes counseling or other psychotherapeutic treatment. In this paper, we argue in favor of a “third pathway” for the (...) diagnosis and treatment of GD in youths. To make our case, we draw on a recent development in bioethics: the phenomenological approach. Scholars such as Slatman and Svenaeus have argued that the extent to which the body can (or should be) manipulated or reconstructed through medical intervention is not only determined by consideration of ethical frameworks and social and legal norms. Rather, we must also take account of patients’ personal experience of their body, the personal and social values associated with it, and their understanding of its situation in their life: their narrative identities. We apply this phenomenological approach to medicine and nursing to the diagnosis and treatment of GD in youth. In particular, we discuss Zahavi and Martiny’s conception of the phenomenological interview, in order to show that narrative techniques can assist in the process of gender identification and in the treatment of youth presenting with GD. We focus on two case studies that highlight the relevance of a narrative-based interview in relations between patients, HCPs, and family, to expose the influence of social ideologies on how young people presenting with GD experience their bodies and gender. (shrink)

Extra-mathematical explanations explain natural phenomena primarily by appeal to mathematical facts. Philosophers disagree about whether there are extra-mathematical explanations, the correct account of them if they exist, and their implications (e.g., for the philosophy of scientific explanation and for the metaphysics of mathematics) (Baker 2005, 2009; Bangu 2008; Colyvan 1998; Craver and Povich 2017; Lange 2013, 2016, 2018; Mancosu 2008; Povich 2019, 2020; Steiner 1978). In this discussion note, I present three desiderata for any account of extra-mathematical explanation and argue (...) that Baron’s (2020) U-Counterfactual Theory fails to meet each of them. I conclude with some reasons for pessimism that a successful account will be forthcoming. (shrink)

The main thesis that is discussed in this article is based on the criticism of the prevalent interpretative models of adolescence developed during the twentieth century. Models that today appear inadequate in grasping the socio-cultural and educational transformations that deeply mark the ways of experiencing adolescents born in the second millennium. The effects of the historical and social practices that shape the adolescent experience in the 2000s represent an essential key to understanding the forms that the adolescent system assumes (...) because of social, cultural, economic, historical, and material changes. (shrink)

Le premier volume d'inédits de Levinas comprend un hommage à Bergson rédigé en 1946. Levinas voit en Bergson celui qui s'est opposé au temps de la science et des machines au nom du temps vécu ; ceci a rendu possible la conception heideggérienne du temps comme être. Levinas souscrit à la grande découverte de Bergson. Il souligne l'intérêt de la critique bergsonienne du néant comme être biffé, mais rejette la critique du désordre qui ne serait qu'un ordre différent ; pour (...) lui, le désordre est le chaos préalable à tout ordre. Surtout, il voit dans la durée un temps fondamental, une diachronie première, qui rend possibles les trois dimensions du temps. Et il note que la durée est une vie que la mort ne limite pas ; le temps n'est pas la marque de notre finitude. Pour Bergson, seule la matière meurt, par manque d'énergie. Bien qu'il n'ait pas suivi la méthode bergsonienne, Levinas reconnaît la supériorité de l'analyse de la durée et la prolonge dans le sens d'un immémorial subjectif. The first volume of Levinas' unpublished texts includes a tribute paid to Bergson in 1946. Levinas considers Bergson as the philosopher who opposed the time of science and machines in the name of time experienced, and this in turn paved the way to Heidegger's concept of time as being. Levinas subscribes to that major insight of Bergson. He underlines the interest of Bergson's criticism of nothingness as « being scratched out », but rejects his criticism of disorder as but a different kind of order. For Levinas, disorder is the chaos preliminary to any kind of order. Above all, he sees in duration a fundamental time, a primary diachrony which makes possible the three dimensions of time. He remarks that duration is life not limited by death: time is not the mark of our finitude. For Bergson, matter alone dies, for lack of energy. While he does not follow Bergson's method, Levinas acknowledges the superiority of his analysis of duration and takes it further in the direction of immemorial subjectivity. (shrink)

This book examines the reception of the works of the baron d'Holbach throughout francophone Europe. It insists that d'Holbach's historical importance has been understated, argues the case for the existence of a significant 'Christian Enlightenment', and much more.

This paper proposes an intermediate account of personhood, based on the capacity to participate in intersubjective interactions. We articulate our proposal as a reply to liberal and restrictive accounts, taking Mark Rowlands’ and Stephen Darwall’s proposals as contemporary representatives of each view, respectively. We argue that both accounts fall short of dealing with borderline cases and defend our intermediate view: The criteria of personhood based on the second-person perspective of mental state attribution. According to it, a person should be (...) able to participate in intersubjective interactions. We apply our proposal to the borderline cases of non-human primates and human infants. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes and evaluates six types of ethics of virtue, Taking the mark of an ethics of virtue to be the denial that it is a necessary condition of perfectly moral personhood that one be governed by a sense of what one morally ought to do. Appealing to charles taylor's notion of strong evaluation, I argue that all such ethics of virtue are inadequate because they fail to leave room for a distinction between valuing and desiring.

Pierre le Pesant Boisguilbert was considered by Marx as one of the founders of classical political economy. His writings contain a large number of concepts and ideas that reappear in the writings of Quesnay, Cantillon and Adam Smith. George Berkeley - a major figure in the history of philosophical idealism - was the author of 'The Querist', a treatise on the nature of Irish under-development and cures for Irish poverty. Baron de Montesquieu - one of the great 18th century (...) polymaths - is author of the masterpiece 'The Spirit of the Laws' (1748) which, while ostensibly a treatise on law, is actually a study of political organization, types of government, national character and the determining ethos of different societies. It enjoyed enormous success in the 18th century and was almost certainly read and studied by Adam Smith. Ferdinando Galiani was a leading critic of physiocracy and a major 18th century proponent of the subjective theory of value. In 1751 he published 'Della Moneta' which contains some notable chapters on monetary theory, and some brilliant pages on the utility theory of value. James Anderson was a Scottish farmer and a prolific author of tracts on the agricultural development of Scotland and the outstanding policy issues of the last quarter of the 18th century. Dugald Stewart was author of 'Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith LLD' (1793) which is one of the earliest, extended commentaries on the works of Adam Smith by one who knew him well. (shrink)

This book is a good idea, well-executed. The setup of the book mirrors one way of dividing up normative ethics. We divide theorists into Kantians, consequentialists and virtue theorists on the assumption that these are distinct and incompatible approaches to ethics. Each position is represented by one of the co-authors with Baron representing Kantians, Pettit consequentialists and Slote virtue theorists. What emerges is that each approach has virtues, but also that the division is neither neat nor exhaustive. As Pettit (...) notes, the issue that divides consequentialists from non-consequentialists is whether it is always right to promote agent-neutral value. While Kantians answer no where the consequentialists answer yes, a consequentialist can agree with Kantians about many other issues. And while Kantians are often portrayed as being exclusively interested in the rightness of actions, their actual emphasis on motivation and reasons for action make it difficult to distinguish their views from virtue theories that focus on the way an agent’s character and practical wisdom is reflected in her choices. The complexity of the positions defended by the authors highlight these difficulties for the standard division of the terrain. (shrink)

In De Anima II.6, Aristotle divides the objects of perception into three kinds: “special perceptibles" (idia aisthêta) such as colours, sounds and flavours, which can be perceived in their own right by only one sense; “common perceptibles" (koina aisthêta) such as shapes, sizes and movements, which can be perceived in their own right by multiple senses; and “incidental perceptibles,” such as the son of Diares, which can be perceived only “incidentally” (kata sumbebêkos). In this paper, I examine this division of (...) perceptibles and consider what it amounts to. First, I argue that Aristotle’s distinction between perceiving something in its own right (kath' hauto) and perceiving it incidentally marks a causal distinction: what is perceived in its own right causes perception as such, whereas what is perceived incidentally coincides with what is perceived in its own right. Second, I argue that for Aristotle special perceptibles, unlike common perceptibles, belong to homogeneous bodies on account of their chemical composition. Finally, I explain the primacy Aristotle assigns to special perceptibles and his claim that perception of them alone is free from error. I conclude with some brief remarks on Aristotle and the primary/secondary quality distinction. (shrink)

Weak emergence is the view that a system’s macro properties can be explained by its micro properties but only in an especially complicated way. This paper explains a version of weak emergence based on the notion of explanatory incompressibility and “crawling the causal web.” Then it examines three reasons why weak emergence might be thought to be just in the mind. The first reason is based on contrasting mere epistemological emergence with a form of ontological emergence that involves irreducible downward (...) causation. The second reason is based on the idea that attributions of emergence are always a reflection of our ignorance of non-emergent explanations. The third reason is based on the charge that complex explanations are anthropocentric. Rather than being just in the mind, weak emergence is seen to involve a distinctive kind of complex, macro-pattern in the mind-independent objective micro-causal structure that exists in nature. The paper ends by addressing two further questions. One concerns whether weak emergence applies only or mainly to computer simulations and computational systems. The other concerns the respect in which weak emergence is dynamic rather than static. (shrink)

Weak emergence has been offered as an explication of the ubiquitous notion of emergence used in complexity science (Bedau 1997). After outlining the problem of emergence and comparing weak emergence with the two other main objectivist approaches to emergence, this paper explains a version of weak emergence and illustrates it with cellular automata. Then it explains the sort of downward causation and explanatory autonomy involved in weak emergence.

This paper describes and defends the view that minimal chemical life essentially involves the chemical integration of three chemical functionalities: containment, metabolism, and program (Rasmussen et al. in Protocells: bridging nonliving and living matter, 2009a ). This view is illustrated and explained with the help of CMP and Rasmussen diagrams (Rasmussen et al. In: Rasmussen et al. (eds.) in Protocells: bridging nonliving and living matter, 71–100, 2009b ), both of which represent the key chemical functional dependencies among containment, metabolism, and (...) program. The CMP model of minimal chemical life gains some support from the broad view of life as open-ended evolution, which I have defended elsewhere (Bedau in The philosophy of artificial life, 1996 ; Bedau in Artificial Life, 4:125–140, 1998 ). Further support comes from the natural way the CMP model resolves the puzzle about whether life is a matter of degree. (shrink)

An innocent form of emergence—what I call "weak emergence"—is now a commonplace in a thriving interdisciplinary nexus of scientific activity—sometimes called the "sciences of complexity"—that include connectionist modelling, non-linear dynamics (popularly known as "chaos" theory), and artificial life.1 After defining it, illustrating it in two contexts, and reviewing the available evidence, I conclude that the scientific and philosophical prospects for weak emergence are bright.

The robust behavior of the patent citation network is a complex target of recent bottom-up models in science. This paper investigates the purpose and testing of three especially simple bottom-up models of the citation count distribution observed in the patent citation network. The complex causal webs in the models generate weakly emergent patterns of behavior, and this explains both the need for empirical observation of computer simulations of the models and the epistemic harmlessness of the resulting epistemic opacity.

This article provides new information on the printing and readership history of the fifth edition of De iure belli ac pacis. Building on our earlier research on the way that the dispute between Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius influenced the publication of the 1631 edition of the text, this article studies how Blaeu harnessed his position to make the 1632 edition more reputable than the earlier version published by his rival. The article considers how, over four centuries, readers have (...) appreciated the quality of the production and three engaged with the text for radically different ends: Remigius Faesch, Baron von Boineburg, and Wendell Phillips. The article draws attention to the changes and continuities in reading and annotation patterns and offers preliminary insights into the themes that these influential readers focused on. We hope that it will inspire readers to bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

Artificial life uses computer models to study the essential nature of the characteristic processes of complex adaptive systems proceses such as self-organization, adaptation, and evolution. Work in the field is guided by the working hypothesis that simple computer models can capture the essential nature of these processes. This hypothesis is illustrated by recent results with a simple population of computational agents whose sensorimotor functionality undergo open-ended adaptive evolution. These might illuminate three aspects of complex adaptive systems in general: punctuated equilibrium (...) dynamics of diversity, a transition separating genetic order and disorder, and a law of adaptive evolutionary activity. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends the view that minimal chemical life essentially involves the chemical integration of three chemical functionalities: containment, metabolism, and program. This view is illustrated and explained with the help of CMP and Rasmussen diagrams in Protocells: bridging nonliving and living matter, 71–100, 2009b), both of which represent the key chemical functional dependencies among containment, metabolism, and program. The CMP model of minimal chemical life gains some support from the broad view of life as open-ended evolution, which (...) I have defended elsewhere. Further support comes from the natural way the CMP model resolves the puzzle about whether life is a matter of degree. (shrink)

This experiment examined the effects of three elements comprising Jones' (1991) moral intensity construct, (social consensus, personal proximity, and magnitude of consequences) in a cross-cultural comparison of ethical decision making within a human resource management (HRM) context. Results indicated social consensus had the most potent effect on judgments of moral concern and judgments of immorality. An analysis of American, Eastern European, and Indonesian responses also indicted socio-cultural differences were moderated by the type of HRM ethical issue. In addition, individual differences (...) in personal ethical ideology (relativism and idealism) varied reliably with moral judgments after controlling for issue characteristics and socio-cultural background. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: The Roots of Artificial Life The Methodology of Artificial Life Emergence Adaptationism Evolutionary Progress The Nature of Life Strong Artificial Life Philosophical Methodology.

The dynamical patterns in mental phenomena have a characteristic suppleness&emdash;a looseness or softness that persistently resists precise formulation&emdash;which apparently underlies the frame problem of artificial intelligence. This suppleness also undermines contemporary philosophical functionalist attempts to define mental capacities. Living systems display an analogous form of supple dynamics. However, the supple dynamics of living systems have been captured in recent artificial life models, due to the emergent architecture of those models. This suggests that analogous emergent models might be able to explain (...) supple dynamics of mental phenomena. These emergent models of the supple mind, if successful, would refashion the nature of contemporary functionalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The basic bimodal systemK/K can be interpreted as an analysis of the logic of ability developed in [1]. Where in [1] we would express the claimI can bring it about that P using the formula, with its non-normal operator, we will now use the formula. Here is a normal alethic possibilitation operator.is a normal necessitation operator, but it is independent of, and not subject to an alethic interpretation. Rather, is interpreted to meanI bring it about that P. The result is (...) a simplification and clarification of a combined logic of ability and action like that in [2], but employing only normal operators.A number of extensions of the basic systemK/K are constructed, first by strengthening the two normal sublogics independently and then by linking the two sublogics via axiom schemata involving both operators. The result is a series of increasingly strong systems which more and more adequately fulfill our expectations for a satisfactory logic of action and ability. (shrink)

This book is a must-read for researchers interested in taking a high-level, non-mechanistic approach to answering age-old fundamental questions in the brain ...

Individual differences in ethical ideology are believed to play a key role in ethical decision making. Forsyths (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) is designed to measure ethical ideology along two dimensions, relativism and idealism. This study extends the work of Forsyth by examining the construct validity of the EPQ. Confirmatory factor analyses conducted with independent samples indicated three factors – idealism, relativism, and veracity – account for the relationships among EPQ items. In order to provide further evidence of the instruments (...) nomological and convergent validity, correlations among the EPQ subscales, dogmatism, empathy, and individual differences in the use of moral rationales were examined. The relationship between EPQ measures of idealism and moral judgments demonstrated modest predictive validity, but the appreciably weaker influence of relativism and the emergence of a veracity factor raise questions about the utility of the EPQ typology. (shrink)

Ligation is a form of chemical self-assembly that involves dynamic formation of strong covalent bonds in the presence of weak associative forces. We study an extremely simple form of ligation by means of a dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model extended to include the dynamic making and breaking of strong bonds, which we term dynamically bonding dissipative particle dynamics (DDPD). Then we use a chemical genetic algorithm (CGA) to optimize the model’s parameters to achieve a limited form of ligation of trimers—a (...) proof of principle for the evolutionary design of self-assembling chemical systems. (shrink)

Top-down synthetic biology makes partly synthetic cells by redesigning simple natural forms of life, and bottom-up synthetic biology aims to make fully synthetic cells using only entirely nonliving components. Within synthetic biology the notions of complexity and emergence are quite controversial, but the imprecision of key notions makes the discussion inconclusive. I employ a precise notion of weak emergent property, which is a robust characteristic of the behavior of complex bottom-up causal webs, where a complex causal web is one that (...) is incompressible and its behavior cannot be derived except by crawling through all of the gory details of the interactions in the web. The central thesis of this article is that synthetic biology centrally is the activity of engineering the desired weak emergent properties of synthetic cells. Synthetic biology has many different ways to engineer desired weak emergent properties of synthetic cells, including Edisonian trial and error, standardized parts, refactoring, and reprogramming synthetic genomes. The article ends by noting two philosophical consequences of engineering weak emergence. One is epistemological: synthesis is crucial for discovering weak emergent properties. The other is metaphysical: simple life forms are nothing but complex chemical mechanisms. (shrink)

Synthetic biology has spawned a debate about how society and the international community should go about policy‐making, especially given the potential for both transformative benefits and existential threats. One of the significant contributions of “The Ethics of Synthetic Biology: Next Steps and Prior Questions,” by Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray, is its exploration of the difficulties of devel­oping policy that appropriately addresses the risks and benefits of synthetic biology. In this comment I want to develop this point further and emphasize how (...) the proper methodology for addressing synthetic biology's ethical and public policy issues are affected by the unpredictable and complex causal webs in synthetic biology (which have analogs in other new and emerging technologies). (shrink)

The concept of living technology can be applied to any technology that is powerful and useful specifically because it has some of the fundamental features of living systems. This article is a brief general overview of living technology's current state and projected future. After illustrating living technology and discussing why it is complicated to define, I explain how it is related to so-called NBIC convergence (see below) and discuss some of the larger social, ethical and aesthetic issues that it raises.

Those interested in the relationship betw een environment structure and behavior — the topic of this special issue of Adaptive Behavior — w ill find much of value in Peter Godfrey-Smith's new book, Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (hereafter CFMN; all page citations are to CFMN unless otherw ise indicated). The w riting is clear and concise, aptly balancing precision and breadth, and a host of relevant issues are raised and advanced. Although my comments here w ill (...) focus only on the book's fundamental conceptual framew ork for how organisms relate to their environments, I enthusiastically recommend the entire book. (shrink)