O livro em questão, O Pecado: do descrédito ao aprofundamento, é uma bela obra para pesquisa, estudo e ensino. O autor, além de denunciar o pecado, mostra caminhos de conversão e aponta valores que possam remir do pecado qualquer ser humano, independente de raça, crença, posição social ou religiosa.

Falar sobre missão provoca um “interesse” sobre o tema que se mantém sempre em evidência, independentemente da época em que se esteja vivendo. O livro em questão, Introdução à teologia da missão: convocar e enviar: servos e testemunhas do Reino, é uma bela obra de pesquisa, estudo e ensino de forma didática, apresentando uma visão panorâmica sobre o que vem a ser missão. Mostra caminhos de conversão e aponta valores que podem contribuir para o conhecimento da trilogia: Jesus Cristo, Igreja (...) e ser humano, proporcionando uma profunda reflexão sobre a missão como atividades da Igreja e sua “natureza missionária”, a qual, segundo o autor, tem origem no envio do Filho e na missão do Espírito Santo, segundo o desígnio de Deus Pai. (shrink)

This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? Does quantum mechanics support the existence of any other fundamental entities, e.g. particles? What is the nature of the fundamental space of quantum mechanics? What is the relationship between the fundamental ontology of quantum mechanics and ordinary, macroscopic objects like tables, chairs, and (...) persons? This collection includes a comprehensive introduction with a history of quantum mechanics and the debate over its metaphysical interpretation focusing especially on the main realist alternatives. (shrink)

Este texto é a síntese de alguns anos de estudos e de pesquisas onde as proposições da Biologia-cultural, da Biologia do Amor e da Biologia do Conhecimento, do pensador chileno Humberto Maturana Romesín (1928-2021) serão tomadas como a principal referência epistemológica. Nosso objetivo principal é fazer uma reflexão sobre o entendimento do processo de aprendizagem como um devir Biológico-cultural e que se realiza num contexto ecológico de aprendizagem. A ênfase de nossa reflexão neste momento será no sentido de contribuir para (...) a construção de um processo de _aprendizagem humana_, que tenha como ponto de partida alguns fundamentos, tais como: a cooperação, o respeito mútuo, a colaboração, a aceitação mútua, reconhecimento da legitimidade e dignidade do outro(a), o deixar aparecer, enfim, uma educação na qual a aprendizagem tenha como orientação o amar. (MATURANA, DÁVILA, 1997, 2009, 2005, 2016, 2019, 2021). Neste texto refletiremos a proposição de Maturana do amor como o princípio epistemológico para a construção de uma aprendizagem que privilegie a cooperação entre os seres humanos e não a competição. Nosso argumento principal provém da proposição de que a competição pressupõe, via de regra, a negação, o aniquilamento, a anulação do outro. Nossa proposta está ancorada na proposição apresentada por Maturana de que nos construímos humanos não pela competição, mas, sim, pela cooperação. Para concluir, e como forma de viabilizar essa aprendizagem, apresentamos o que denominamos dos três momentos da aprendizagem, a saber: o conhecer, o entender e o compreender, onde_ Conhecer_ é conseguir descrever o fenômeno (problema/conflito) que se apresenta no contexto do cotidiano vivido; (2) _Entender __-_ é perceber, as relações sistêmicas/ecológicas relacionais no contexto local onde os fenômenos acontecem e (3) _Compreender -_ é perceber a trama sistêmica relacional onde o fenômeno ocorre para dar-se conta das suas possíveis consequências. Compreender é dar-se conta de onde, como e quando deveremos atuar no sentido de evitar e/ou resolver um determinado problema que surja no local e com a particularidade com a qual acontece. (shrink)

The article discusses two bioart projects that bring the symbolically core human substances of blood, sweat and tears into technologically mediated relationships with plants and fungi to explore human kinship with other species: Tarah Rhoda’s BS&T (short for ‘blood, sweat and tears’) and OurGlass, and Saša Spačal’s MycoMythologies: Patterning. The article analyses the art projects through the lens of the molecular gaze and different perspectives on kinning, bringing anthropological conceptualizations of kinship together with Haraway’s pathways to connect with other species. (...) How can bioart use technologies to explore interspecies kinship through a molecular gaze? And may such artworks contribute to the toning down of human exceptionality in the face of a precarious future? We find that artworks providing a molecular gaze on interspecies biological processes may risk a decontextualized approach to complex relational processes but may also create new visions of filiation even with biological organisms imagined to be genetically distant from humans, thus spurring awareness of the fragile interrelationships among species. (shrink)

In Setting Limits, Daniel Callahan advances the provocative thesis that age be a limiting factor in decisions to allocate certain kinds of health services to the elderly. However, when one looks at available data, one discovers that there are many more elderly women than there are elderly men, and these older women are poorer, more apt to live alone, and less likely to have informal social and personal supports than their male counterparts. Older women, therefore, will make the heaviest demand (...) on health care resources. If age were to become a limiting factor, as Dr. Callahan suggests it should, the limits that will be set are limits that will affect women more drastically than they affect men. This review essay examines the implications of Callahan's thesis for elderly women. (shrink)

This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? What is the nature of the fundamental space (or space-time manifold) of quantum mechanics?

"What are the ontological implications of quantum theories, that is, what do they tell us about the fundamental objects that make up our world? How should quantum theories make us reevaluate our classical conceptions of the basic constitution of material objects and ourselves? Is there fundamental quantum nonlocality? This book articulates several rival approaches to answering these questions, ultimately defending the wave function realist approach. It is a way of interpreting quantum theories so that the central object they describe is (...) the quantum wave function, interpreted as a field, and that the nonseparability and nonlocality we seem to find in quantum mechanics are ultimately manifestations of a more intuitive, separable and local picture in higher dimensions. quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, wave function, wave function realism, measurement problem, macro-object problem, primitive ontology, quantum entanglement, quantum nonlocality, quantum ontology"--. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by the default (...) skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

Metaphors abound in both the arts and in science. Due to the traditional division between these enterprises as one concerned with aesthetic values and the other with epistemic values there has unfortunately been very little work on the relation between metaphors in the arts and sciences. In this paper, we aim to remedy this omission by defending a continuity thesis regarding the function of metaphor across both domains, that is, metaphors fulfill any of the same functions in science as they (...) do in the arts. Importantly, this involves the claim that metaphors in arts as well as science have both epistemic and aesthetic functions. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim has argued that unless mental events are reducible to subvening physical events, they are at best overdeterminers of their effects. Recently, nonreductive physicalists have endorsed this consequence claiming that the relationship between mental events and their physical bases is tight enough to render any such overdetermination nonredundant, and hence benign. I focus on instances of this strategy that appeal to the notion of constitution. Ultimately, I argue that there is no way to understand the relationship between irreducible mental (...) events and their physical bases such as to both eliminate causal redundancy and preserve the efficacy of mental events. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay argues that there was a sense in which Shelley actively approved of “jingling verse.” His poetic energy was sustained by a substratum of popular and tuneful versifying, such as impromptus, bouts-rimés, anagrams, enigmas, ballads, Mother Goose rhymes, proverbs, hymns, and drinking songs. He hybridizes the registers and meters of these humble forms with elevated, sublime, and erudite ones. This hybridization is, arguably, connected to the characteristic coexistence of the direct and clear with the knotty and puzzling in his (...) poetry. After a brief account of Shelley’s submerged youthful reading, noting in passing that Shelley’s lyrics proved amenable during the early twentieth century to recycling as Shelleyesque jingles, the essay illustrates its thesis from unfamiliar fragments in Shelley’s notebooks, such as the late lyric fragment “Time is flying,” and from more familiar matter such as “Dirge for the Year,” “Mont Blanc,” “The Cloud,” “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci,” “The Sensitive... (shrink)

Structural gaslighting arises when conceptual work functions to obscure the non-accidental connections between structures of oppression and the patterns of harm they produce and license. This paper examines the role that structural gaslighting plays in white feminist methodology and epistemology using Fricker’s (2007) discussion of hermeneutical injustice as an illustration. Fricker’s work produces structural gaslighting through several methods: i) the outright denial of the role that structural oppression plays in producing interpretive harm, ii) the use of single-axis conceptual resources to (...) understand intersectional oppression, and iii) the failure to recognize the legacy of women of color’s epistemic resistance work surrounding the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. I argue that Fricker’s whitewashed discussion of epistemic resistance to sexual harassment in the United States is a form of structural gaslighting that fails to treat women of color as knowers and exemplifies the strategic forgetting that is a central methodological tactic of white feminism. (shrink)

In the past few years, we have seen emerging new work that brings into focus the role of historical change and its moral implications in Iris Murdoch's philosophy. This paper strengthens this reading of her work and investigates the implications of this aspect of Murdoch's thinking for education in general and for moral education in particular. It resituates the Platonic imagery of the individual's ascent towards the true and the good in a framework where our conceptions of the true and (...) the good are in a process of historical reconfiguration. (shrink)

A key component of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that pe...

Four detailed cases of delusions of misidentification (DM) are presented: two cases of misidentification of the reflected self, one of reverse intermetamorphosis, and one of reduplicative paramnesia. The cases are discussed in the context of three levels of interpretation: neurological, cognitive and phenomenological. The findings are compared to previous work with DM patients, particularly the work of Ellis and Young (1990; Young, 1998) who found that loss of the normal affective response to familiar faces was a contributing factor in the (...) Capgras delusion. The four cases presented suggest that this particular deficit is not a critical factor in the development of other forms of DM. (shrink)

The so-called “conciliatory” norm in epistemology and meta-ethics requires that an agent, upon encountering peer disagreement with her judgment, lower her confidence about that judgment. But whether agents actually abide by this norm is unclear. Although confidence is excessively researched in the empirical sciences, possible effects of disagreement on confidence have been understudied. Here, we target this lacuna, reporting a study that measured confidence about moral beliefs before and after exposure to moral discourse about a controversial issue. Our findings indicate (...) that participants do not abide by the conciliatory norm. Neither do they conform to a rival “steadfast” norm that demands their confidence to remain the same. Instead, moral discourse seems to boost confidence. Interestingly, we also find a confidence boost for factual beliefs, and a correlation between the extremity of moral views and confidence. One possible explanation of our findings is that when engaging in moral discourse participants become more extreme in their opinions, which leads them to become more confident about them, or vice versa: they become more confident and in turn more extreme. Although our work provides initial evidence for the former mechanism, further research is needed for a better understanding of confidence and moral discourse. (shrink)

DIVIn The State Park Movement in America, Ney Landrum, recipient of almost two dozen honors and awards for his service to state and national parks, places the movement for state parks in the context of the movements for urban and local ...

Epistemologies have power. They have the power not only to transform worlds, but to create them. And the worlds that they create can be better or worse. For many people, the worlds they create are predictably and reliably deadly. Epistemologies can turn sacred land into ‘resources’ to be bought, sold, exploited, and exhausted. They can turn people into ‘labor’ in much the same way. They can not only disappear acts of violence but render them unnamable and unrecognizable within their conceptual (...) architectures. Settler systems of epistemic and conceptual resources and the relations among them are constructed to preclude certain forms of knowledge. This is not an accident; it is a central goal of colonial violence. Colonization and land dispossession would not be possible without the violent disruption of Indigenous knowledge systems and ongoing organized attempts to disrupt their survival. Violently disrupting the relationships of people to land is as much an epistemic project as it is a material one, and these two projects are inherently linked. The task of theorizing epistemic oppression is not only about epistemic oppression. Epistemic oppression is a story that gives language to a phenomenon in order to get past it, to carry on with the maintaining and reviving the forms of Indigenous and diasporic knowledge that colonialism has worked tirelessly to corrupt and silence. (shrink)

Bringing together recent case studies and insights into current developments, this collection introduces philosophers to a range of experimental methods from neuroscience. Chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the discipline, covering neuroimaging such as EEG and MRI, causal interventions like brain stimulation, advanced statistical methods, and approaches drawing on research into the development of human individuals and humankind. -/- A team of experts combine clear explanations of complex methods with reports of cutting-edge research, advancing our understanding of how these tools (...) can be applied to further philosophical inquiries into agency, emotions, enhancement, perception, personhood and more. With contributions organised by neuroscientific method, this volume provides an accessible overview for students and scholars coming to neurophilosophy for the first time, presenting a range of topics from responsibility to metacognition. (shrink)

This Element introduces major issues in the epistemology of experimental physics through discussion of canonical physics experiments and some that have not yet received much philosophical attention. The primary challenge is to make sense of how physicists justify crucial decisions made in the course of empirical research. Judging a result as epistemically significant or as calling for further technical scrutiny of the equipment is one important context of such decisions. Judging whether the instrument has been calibrated, and which data should (...) be included in the analysis are others. To what extent is it possible to offer philosophical analysis, systematization, and prescriptions regarding such decisions? To what extent can there be explicit epistemic justification for them? The primary aim of this Element is to show how a nuanced understanding of science in practice informs an epistemology of experimental physics that avoids strong social constructivism. (shrink)

Realists wanting to capture the facts of quantum entanglement in a metaphysical interpretation find themselves faced with several options: to grant some species of fundamental nonseparability, adopt holism, or to view localized spacetime systems as ultimately reducible to a higher-dimensional entity, the quantum state or wave function. Those adopting the latter approach and hoping to view the macroscopic world as grounded in the quantum wave function face the macro-object problem. The challenge is to articulate the metaphysical relation obtaining between three-dimensional (...) macro-objects and the wave function so that the latter may be seen in some sense as constituting the former. This paper distinguishes several strategies for doing so and defends one based on a notion of partial instantiation. (shrink)

We argue that social deliberation may increase an agent’s confidence and credence under certain circumstances. An agent considers a proposition H and assigns a probability to it. However, she is not fully confident that she herself is reliable in this assignment. She then endorses H during deliberation with another person, expecting him to raise serious objections. To her surprise, however, the other person does not raise any objections to H. How should her attitudes toward H change? It seems plausible that (...) she should increase the credence she assigns to H and, at the same time, increase the reliability she assigns to herself concerning H. A Bayesian model helps us to investigate under what conditions, if any, this is rational. (shrink)

There is good reason to believe that scientific realism requires a commitment to the objective modal structure of the physical world. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability all feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation, and each one is a modal notion. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept the modal nature of the physical world. But what does the scientific realist’s commitment to physical modality require? We consider whether scientific realism (...) is compatible with Humeanism about the laws of nature, and we conclude that it is not. We specifically identify three major problems for the best-systems account of lawhood: its central concept of strength cannot be formulated non-circularly, it cannot offer a satisfactory account of the laws of the special sciences, and it can offer no explanation of the success of inductive inference. In addition, Humeanism fails to be naturalistically motivated. For these reasons, we conclude that the scientific realist must embrace natural necessity. (shrink)

This is a commentary on Mathias Frisch's book Causal Reasoning in Physics (Cambridge 2014). This commentary was presented at the 2016 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in a session sponsored by the Society for the Metaphysics of Science.

While the pursuitworthiness of philosophical ideas has changed over time, philosophical practice and methodology have not kept pace. The worthiness of a philosophical pursuit includes not only the ideas and objectives one pursues but also the methods with which one pursues them. In this paper, we articulate how empirical approaches benefit philosophy of science, particularly advocating for the use of qualitative methods for understanding the social and normative aspects of scientific inquiry. After situating qualitative methods within empirical philosophy of science, (...) we discuss how to adapt these traditionally sociological methods to empirically inform philosophical questions. Our aim is to normalize and legitimize qualitative methods for philosophical purposes and discuss how they can elucidate descriptive and normative components of scientific practice in a more generalizable non-idealized manner. We contend that qualitative methods are particularly well suited to philosophical interest in the social norms of science, their achievability, and their mutability. Furthermore, unlike more historical case studies in philosophy, qualitative methods enable more confidence in generalizability, albeit limited, from a concrete sample to a larger class. We conclude by addressing anxieties about the distinctness of empirical philosophy of science from social epistemology and from sociology of science. (shrink)

Claims for improving migrants’ access to care often draw on universalistic ethical notions, such as the principle of equity as it is specified in human rights law and public health ethics. These claims contrast with political realities across most welfare states. In the underlying public discourses, the frontline arguments against greater inclusion have often focused on practical concerns, such as the costs of healthcare provision. Yet it has also been suggested that ultimately context‐specific moral frameworks play a key role in (...) demarcating legitimate right‐holders from undeserving others. Hence, is this a conflict between ethical principles and practical concerns? Or between different ethical perspectives? And why would that question matter? We propose that awareness of the nature of the arguments involved and respect for different ethical views are critical for coherent and constructive debates. This paper looks at the ways in which ethical concepts are used to justify exclusionary policy decisions. In particular, it examines the rationales that inform health policies towards documented and undocumented labor migrants in two welfare states, Germany and Israel, through the qualitative analysis of policy documents and 71 in‐depth interviews. The study points to the central role of particular concepts of health‐related deservingness. These results lead to the proposition that the fundamental clash in the discussion on migrants’ access to care is one, albeit not solely, between contrasting ethical perspectives. Drawing on process‐oriented approaches to ethical decision‐making, the paper concludes with three suggestions for moving forward with the migrant health rights debate. (shrink)

Metacognitive mental states are mental states about mental states. For example, I may be uncertain whether my belief is correct. In social discourse, an interlocutor’s metacognitive certainty may constitute evidence about the reliability of their testimony. For example, if a speaker is certain that their belief is correct, then we may take this as evidence in favour of their belief, or its content. This paper argues that, if metacognitive certainty is genuine evidence, then it is disproportionate evidence for extreme beliefs. (...) In support of the argument, we report findings from five studies with different participant samples, designs, and measures. These studies show that, the more extreme an agent’s belief (positive or negative), the more certain they are about it, and vice versa. This relationship might contribute to moralism, virtue signalling, and polarisation, which in turn may be epistemically and morally problematic. Therefore, we caution against taking metacognitive certainty as genuine evidence. (shrink)

Empirical research into moral decision-making is often taken to have normative implications. For instance, in his recent book, Greene (2013) relies on empirical findings to establish utilitarianism as a superior normative ethical theory. Kantian ethics, and deontological ethics more generally, is a rival view that Greene attacks. At the heart of Greene’s argument against deontology is the claim that deontological moral judgments are the product of certain emotions and not of reason. Deontological ethics is a mere rationalization of these emotions. (...) Accordingly Greene maintains that deontology should be abandoned. This paper is a defense of deontological ethical theory. It argues that Greene’s argument against deontology needs further support. Greene’s empirical evidence is open to alternative interpretations. In particular, it is not clear that Greene’s characterization of alarm-like emotions that are relative to culture and personal experience is empirically tenable. Moreover, it is implausible that such emotions produce specifically deontological judgments. A rival sentimentalist view, according to which all moral judgments are determined by emotion, is at least as plausible given the empirical evidence and independently supported by philosophical theory. I therefore call for an improvement of Greene’s argument. (shrink)

Artikkelen undersøker hvordan NIPT ble vedtatt implementert i det norske fosterdiagnostiske systemet gjennom en fagligpolitisk prosess mellom 2012 og 2017. Prosessen innebar at Nasjonalt kunnskapssenter for helsetjenesten, Helsedirektoratet, Bioteknologirådet og Helse- og Omsorgsdepartementet ga sine vurderinger av testen og sine råd omkring en eventuell innføring. Artikkelen viser at det i denne prosessen foregikk en forsiktig tilnærming eller sammensmelting mellom de tradisjonelt helt ulike måtene å forstå og å ramme inn fosterdiagnostikk på i Norge, dvs. i en ‘autonomi/ behandlingsramme’ og en (...) ‘sorteringsramme’. Artikkelen argumenterer videre for at denne tilnærmingen eller konvergensen var mulig fordi prosessen ble holdt innenfor de fagligpolitiske byråkratiene, og de ulike etatene var innstilt på å ‘samarbeide’ om å inkludere både kunnskap og verdier fra begge rammene i sine tilrådninger. Politikk for fosterdiagnostikk er imidlertid et svært politisk betent område i Norge, og denne konvergensen var et skjørt byggverk. Den sprakk da også opp i løpet av tre uker i mai 2020, da Fremskrittspartiet plutselig inngikk et ‘bioteknologiforlik’ med Arbeiderpartiet og SV etter at de hadde gått ut av Solbergregjeringen. Dermed endte spørsmålet om implementeringen av NIPT i Stortinget, hvor konvergensen i den fagpolitiske prosessen ble erstattet av de tradisjonelle frontene, og de gamle innrammingene igjen ble ‘satt i arbeid’. Artikkelen diskuterer avslutningsvis kort de bortimot uløselige dilemmaene disse innrammingene både representerer og produserer. Nøkkelord: NIPT, fosterdiagnostikk, humanmedisinsk bioteknologi, regulering English Title: Fetal diagnostics between medicine and ethics: Implementation of Prenatal Invasive Testing in a turbulent policy area: The article examines how the decision to implement Prenatal Invasive Testing in the Norwegian Fetal Diagnostic System was reached through a professional policy process between 2012 and 2017. The process involved the Norwegian Research Centre for Health Services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board and the Ministry of Health and Care Services, which provided their individual assessments and advice regarding the potential implementation of the test. The article finds that a careful convergence took place between traditionally opposing ways to understand and frame fetal diagnostics in Norway – either as a ‘treatment frame’ or a ‘sorting frame’. The article further argues that this convergence was possible because the process was kept within these bureaucracies, and that the different agencies were willing to collaborate to include knowledge and values from both frames in their recommendations. However, policy for fetal diagnostics is a very turbulent political area in Norway, and this convergence was a fragile construction. During three weeks in May 2020, the convergence collapsed when the Norwegian Progress Party suddenly entered a “biotechnology settlement” with the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party after exiting the conservative Government coalition. Hence, the question of implementing NIPT ended up in the Norwegian Parliament, where the convergence from the professional policy process was replaced by the traditional fronts, and the old framings were again set in motion. Lastly, the article briefly discusses the almost unsolvable dilemmas these framings both produce and represent. Keywords: NIPT, non-invasive prenatal testing, fetal diagnostics, medical biotechnology, regulation. (shrink)

... composed by Herms Niel as a Durchhaltefanfare, a fanfare of perseverance, for the German troops that had been surrounded on the Crimea peninsula by ...

Metaphysics: An Introduction combines comprehensive coverage of the core elements of metaphysics with contemporary and lively debates within the subject. It provides a rigorous and yet accessible overview of a rich array of topics , connecting the abstract nature of metaphysics with the real world. Topics covered include: Basic logic for metaphysics An introduction to ontologyobjects Material objects Critiques of metaphysics Free Will Time Modality Persistence Causation Social ontology: the metaphysics of race This outstanding book not only equips the reader (...) with a thorough knowledge of the fundamentals of metaphysics but provides a valuable guide to contemporary metaphysics and metaphysicians. Additional features such as exercises, annotated further reading, a glossary and a companion website www.routledge.com/cw/ney will help students find their way around this subject and assist teachers in the classroom. (shrink)

Traditionally, empiricism has relied on the specialness of human observation, yet science is rife with sophisticated instrumentation and techniques. The present article advances a conception of empirical evidence applicable to actual scientific practice. I argue that this conception elucidates how the results of scientific research can be repurposed across diverse epistemic contexts: it helps to make sense of how evidence accumulates across theory change, how different evidence can be amalgamated and used jointly, and how the same evidence can be used (...) to constrain competing theories in the service of breaking local underdetermination. (shrink)

This paper defends wave function realism against the charge that the view is empirically incoherent because our evidence for quantum theory involves facts about objects in three-dimensional space or space-time . It also criticizes previous attempts to defend wave function realism against this charge by claiming that the wave function is capable of grounding local beables as elements of a derivative ontology.

Some philosophers argue that many contemporary debates in metaphysics are “illegitimate,” “shallow,” or “trivial,” and that “contemporary analytic metaphysics, a professional activity engaged in by some extremely intelligent and morally serious people, fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pursuit of objective truth, and should be discontinued” (Ladyman and Ross, Every thing must go: Metaphysics naturalized , 2007 ). Many of these critics are explicit about their sympathies with Rudolf Carnap and his circle, calling themselves ‘neo-positivists’ or ‘neo-Carnapians.’ Yet (...) despite the fact that one of the main conclusions of logical positivism was that metaphysical statements are meaningless, many of these neo-positivists are themselves engaged in metaphysical projects. This paper aims to clarify how we may see a neo-positivist metaphysics as proceeding in good faith, one that starts with serious engagement with the findings of science, particularly fundamental physics, but also has room for traditional, armchair methods. (shrink)

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals was Iris Murdoch’s major philosophical testament and a highly original and ambitious attempt to talk about our time. Yet in the scholarship on her philosophical work thus far it has often been left in the shade of her earlier work. This volume brings together 16 scholars who offer accessible readings of chapters and themes in the book, connecting them to Murdoch’s larger oeuvre, as well as to central themes in 20th century and contemporary thought. (...) The essays bring forth the strength, originality, and continuing relevance of Murdoch’s late thought, addressing, among other matters, her thinking about the Good, the role and nature of metaphysics in the contemporary world, the roles of art in human understanding, questions of unity and plurality in thinking, the possibilities of spiritual life without God, and questions of style and sensibility in intellectual work. (shrink)

There are now several, realist versions of quantum mechanics on offer. On their most straightforward, ontological interpretation, these theories require the existence of an object, the wavefunction, which inhabits an extremely high-dimensional space known as configuration space. This raises the question of how the ordinary three-dimensional space of our acquaintance fits into the ontology of quantum mechanics. Recently, two strategies to address this question have emerged. First, Tim Maudlin, Valia Allori, and her collaborators argue that what I have just called (...) the ‘most straightforward’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is not the correct one. Rather, the correct interpretation of realist quantum mechanics has it describing the world as containing objects that inhabit the ordinary three-dimensional space of our manifest image. By contrast, David Albert and Barry Loewer maintain the straightforward, wavefunction ontology of quantum mechanics, but attempt to show how ordinary, three-dimensional space may in a sense be contained within the high-dimensional configuration space the wavefunction inhabits. This paper critically examines these attempts to locate the ordinary, three-dimensional space of our manifest image “within” the ontology of quantum mechanics. I argue that we can recover most of our manifest image, even if we cannot recover our familiar three-dimensional space. (shrink)

Within the field of quantum gravity, there is an influential research program developing the connection between quantum entanglement and spatiotemporal distance. Quantum information theory gives us highly refined tools for quantifying quantum entanglement such as the entanglement entropy. Through a series of well-confirmed results, it has been shown how these facts about the entanglement entropy of component systems may be connected to facts about spatiotemporal distance. Physicists are seeing these results as yielding promising methods for better understanding the emergence of (...) (the dynamical) spacetime (of general relativity) from more fundamental quantum theories, and moreover, as promising for the development of a nonperturbative theory of quantum gravity. However, to what extent does the case for the entanglement entropy-distance link provide evidence that spacetime structure is nonfundamental and emergent from nongravitational degrees of freedom? I will show that a closer look at the results lends support only to a weaker conclusion, that the facts about quantum entanglement are constrained by facts about spatiotemporal distance, and not that they are the basis from which facts about spatiotemporal distance emerge. (shrink)

It is widely noted that physicalism, taken as the doctrine that the world contains just what physics says it contains, faces a dilemma which, some like Tim Crane and D.H. Mellor have argued, shows that “physicalism is the wrong answer to an essentially trivial question”. I argue that both problematic horns of this dilemma drop out if one takes physicalism not to be a doctrine of the kind that might be true, false, or trivial, but instead an attitude or oath (...) one takes to formulate one’s ontology solely according to the current posits of physics. (shrink)

This article discusses recent disagreements over the correct formulation of physicalism. Although there appears to be a consensus outside those who discuss the issue that physicalists believe that what exists is what is countenanced by physics, as we will see, this orthodoxy faces an important puzzle now frequently referred to as 'Hempel's Dilemma'. After surveying the historical trajectory from Enlightenment-era materialism to contemporary physicalism, I examine several mainstream approaches that respond to Hempel's dilemma, and the benefits and drawbacks of each.

To integrate social robots in real-life contexts, it is crucial that they are accepted by the users. Acceptance is not only related to the functionality of the robot but also strongly depends on how the user experiences the interaction. Established design principles from usability and user experience research can be applied to the realm of human–robot interaction, to design robot behavior for the comfort and well-being of the user. Focusing the design on these aspects alone, however, comes with certain ethical (...) challenges, especially regarding the user’s privacy and autonomy. Based on an example scenario of human–robot interaction in elder care, this paper discusses how established design principles can be used in social robotic design. It then juxtaposes these with ethical considerations such as privacy and user autonomy. Combining user experience and ethical perspectives, we propose adjustments to the original design principles and canvass our own design recommendations for a positive and ethically acceptable social human–robot interaction design. In doing so, we show that positive user experience and ethical design may be sometimes at odds, but can be reconciled in many cases, if designers are willing to adjust and amend time-tested design principles. (shrink)