Although arguments for and against competing theories of vagueness often appeal to claims about the use of vague predicates by ordinary speakers, such claims are rarely tested. An exception is Bonini et al. (1999), who report empirical results on the use of vague predicates by Italian speakers, and take the results to count in favor of epistemicism. Yet several methodological difficulties mar their experiments; we outline these problems and devise revised experiments that do not show the same results. We then (...) describe three additional empirical studies that investigate further claims in the literature on vagueness: the hypothesis that speakers confuse ‘P’ with ‘definitely P’, the relative persuasiveness of different formulations of the inductive premise of the Sorites, and the interaction of vague predicates with three different forms of negation. (shrink)

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as a legitimate field of (...) scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)

Aristotle holds that individual substances are ontologically independent from nonsubstances and universal substances but that non-substances and universal substances are ontologically dependent on substances. There is then an asymmetry between individual substances and other kinds of beings with respect to ontological dependence. Under what could plausibly be called the standard interpretation, the ontological independence ascribed to individual substances and denied of non-substances and universal substances is a capacity for independent existence. There is, however, a tension between this interpretation and the (...) asymmetry between individual substances and the other kinds of entities with respect to ontological independence. I will propose an alternative interpretation: to weaken the relevant notion of ontological independence from a capacity for independent existence to the independent possession of a certain ontological status. (shrink)

Abstract“Scaling-up” is the next hurdle facing the local food movement. In order to effect broader systemic impacts, local food systems (LFS) will have to grow, and engage either more or larger consumers and producers. Encouraging the involvement of mid-sized farms looks to be an elegant solution, by broadening the accessibility of local food while providing alternative revenue streams for troubled family farms. Logistical, structural and regulatory barriers to increased scale in LFS are well known. Less is understood about the way (...) in which scale developments affect the perception and legitimacy of LFS. This value-added opportunity begs the question: Is the value that adheres to local food scalable? Many familiar with local food discourse might suggest that important pieces of added value within LFS are generated by the reconnection of producer and consumer, the direct exchange through which this occurs, and the shared goals and values that provide the basis for reconnection. However, these assertions are based on tenuous assumptions about how interactions within the direct exchange produce value, and how LFS are governed. Examination shows that existing assumptions do not properly acknowledge the hybridity, diversity, and flexibility inherent in LFS. A clear analysis of the potential of scale in LFS will depend on understanding both how value is determined within LFS, and the processes through which these systems are governed. Such an analysis shows that, while scaled-up LFS will be challenged to maintain legitimacy and an identity as “alternative”, the establishment of an open governance process—based on a “negotiation of accommodations”—is likely to enhance their viability. (shrink)

Kelly Aguirre, Phil Henderson, Cressida J. Heyes, Alana Lentin, and Corey Snelgrove engage with different aspects of Robert Nichols’ Theft is Property! Dispossession and Critical Theory. Henderson focuses on possible spaces for maneuver, agency, contradiction, or failure in subject formation available to individuals and communities interpellated through diremptive processes. Heyes homes in on the ritual of antiwill called “consent” that systematically conceals the operation of power. Aguirre foregrounds tensions in projects of critical theory scholarship that aim for dialogue and (...) solidarity with Indigenous decolonial struggles. Lentin draws attention to the role of race in undergirding the logic of Anglo-settler colonial domination that operates through dispossession, while Snelgrove emphasizes the link between alienation, capital, and colonialism. In his reply to his interlocutors, Nichols clarifies aspects of his “recursive logics” of dispossession, a dispossession or theft through which the right to property is generated. (shrink)

The greatest existential threats to humanity stem from increasingly powerful advanced technologies. Yet the “risk potential” of such tools can only be realized when coupled with a suitable agent who; through error or terror; could use the tool to bring about an existential catastrophe. While the existential risk literature has provided many accounts of how advanced technologies might be misused and abused to cause unprecedented harm; no scholar has yet explored the other half of the agent-tool coupling; namely the agent. (...) This paper aims to correct this failure by offering a comprehensive overview of what we could call “agential riskology.” Only by studying the unique properties of different agential risk types can one acquire an accurate picture of the existential danger before us. (shrink)

This book, published in 2000, is a clear account of causation based firmly in contemporary science. Dowe discusses in a systematic way, a positive account of causation: the conserved quantities account of causal processes which he has been developing over the last ten years. The book describes causal processes and interactions in terms of conserved quantities: a causal process is the worldline of an object which possesses a conserved quantity, and a causal interaction involves the exchange of conserved quantities. Further, (...) things that are properly called cause and effect are appropriately connected by a set of causal processes and interactions. The distinction between cause and effect is explained in terms of a version of the fork theory: the direction of a certain kind of ordered pattern of events in the world. This particular version has the virtue that it allows for the possibility of backwards causation, and therefore time travel. (shrink)

Inspired by the vision of care in Vincent van Gogh's depiction of the parable of the Good Samaritan, this article offers a paradigm for inhabiting compassion. Compassion is understood in this article as a moral emotion that is also a pathocentric virtue. This definition creates a dynamic view of compassion as a desire to alleviate the suffering of others, the capacity to act on behalf of others and a commitment to sustain engagement with the suffering other. To weave this vision (...) of compassion as a habitus rather than a theoretical construct, the article develops three phases of compassion: seeing, companioning and sighing. This framework deepens and augments a pastoral theological paradigm of compassion with the aim of inculcating an inhabited compassion in caregivers and the communities in which they participate. (shrink)

Changing patterns of political participation observed by political scientists over the past half-century undermine traditional democratic theory and practice. The vast majority of democratic theory, and deliberative democratic theory in particular, either implicitly or explicitly assumes the need for widespread citizen participation. It requires that all citizens possess the opportunity to participate and also that they take up this opportunity. But empirical evidence gathered over the past half-century strongly suggests that many citizens do not have a meaningful opportunity to participate (...) in the ways that many democratic theorists require, and do not participate in anything like the numbers that they believe is necessary. This paper outlines some of the profound changes that have been experienced by liberal democratic states in the 20th and early 21st Centuries, changes which are still ongoing, and which have resulted in declines in citizens participation and trust, the marginalisation of citizens from democratic life, and the entrenchment of social and economic inequalities which have damaged democracy. The paper challenges the conventional wisdom in rejecting the idea that the future of democracy lies in encouraging more widespread participation. The paper takes seriously the failure of the strategies adopted by many states to increase participation, especially among the poor, and suggests that instead of requiring more of citizens, we should in fact be requiring less of them. Instead of seeking to encourage more citizen participation, we should acknowledge that citizens will probably not participate in the volume, or in the ways, many democratic theorists would like, and that therefore we need an alternative approach: a regime which can continue to produce democratic outcomes, and which satisfies the requirements of political equality, in the absence of widespread participation by citizens. (shrink)

A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different types of statistical information affect listeners’ memory for auditory stimuli. We used a combination of behavioral and computational methods to investigate memory for non-linguistic auditory sequences. Participants repeatedly heard (...) tone sequences varying systematically in their information-theoretic properties. Expectedness ratings of tones were collected during three listening sessions, and a recognition memory test was given after each session. Information-theoretic measures of sequential predictability significantly influenced listeners’ expectedness ratings, and variations in these properties had a significant impact on memory performance. Predictable sequences yielded increasingly better memory performance with increasing exposure. Computational simulations using a probabilistic model of auditory expectation suggest that listeners dynamically formed a new, and increasingly accurate, implicit cognitive model of the information-theoretic structure of the sequences throughout the experimental session. (shrink)

This chapter argues that dual-use emerging technologies are distributing unprecedented offensive capabilities to nonstate actors. To counteract this trend, some scholars have proposed that states become a little “less liberal” by implementing large-scale surveillance policies to monitor the actions of citizens. This is problematic, though, because the distribution of offensive capabilities is also undermining states’ capacity to enforce the rule of law. I will suggest that the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is (...) the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.” In making this argument, the present chapter offers a novel reason for prioritizing the “control problem,” i.e., the problem of ensuring that a greaterthan-human-level AI will positively enhance human well-being. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of modeling-based abductive reasoning as a disciplinary practice of inquiry in the domain of earth science. The study was based on an undergraduate course of a university of education, Korea, offered for preservice elementary teachers majoring in science as their specialty. The course enrollees participated in an inquiry project in which they were asked to abductively generate models representing past geologic events in order to explain how two units in a (...) sedimentary rock outcrop had been formed. Three students were selected as major informants for the study, and multiple types of qualitative data were collected, including the students’ sketchbook records, audio-recording of whole-class presentation and discussion, and interviews with the students. The data were analyzed according to the method of analytical induction, which yielded three assertions as the findings of the study. First, while an explanatory model can be generated by combining resource models, the combination of resource models does not necessarily result in a scientifically sound explanatory model. Second, a systemic approach can help activate a critical resource model which can in turn lead to a scientifically sound explanatory model. Third, simulations with a model can enhance the plausibility of the model. Based on these findings, causal combinations of resource models, a systemic approach to earth scientific problem-solving, and simulations with a model are suggested and discussed as implications for science education and relevant research. (shrink)

Despite much discussion over the existence of moral facts, metaethicists have largely ignored the related question of their possibility. This paper addresses the issue from the moral error theorist’s perspective, and shows how the arguments that error theorists have produced against the existence of moral facts at this world, if sound, also show that moral facts are impossible, at least at worlds non-morally identical to our own and, on some versions of the error theory, at any world. So error theorists’ (...) arguments warrant a stronger conclusion than has previously been noticed. This may appear to make them vulnerable to counterarguments that take the possibility of moral facts as a premise. However, I show that any such arguments would be question-begging. (shrink)

Jeffrey Stout claims that John Rawls's idea of public reason (IPR) has contributed to a Christian backlash against liberalism. This essay argues that those whom Stout calls “antiliberal traditionalists” have misunderstood Rawls in important ways, and goes on to consider Stout's own critiques of the IPR. While Rawls's idea is often interpreted as a blanket prohibition on religious reasoning outside church and home, the essay will show that the very viability of the IPR depends upon a rich culture of deliberation (...) in which all forms of reasoning can be put forth for consideration. This clarification addresses the perception that the IPR imposes an “asymmetrical burden” upon believers. In fact, the essay suggests that there are good reasons why believers, qua believers, might endorse the IPR. (shrink)

This paper examines Wesley Salmon's "process" theory of causality, arguing in particular that there are four areas of inadequacy. These are that the theory is circular, that it is too vague at a crucial point, that statistical forks do not serve their intended purpose, and that Salmon has not adequately demonstrated that the theory avoids Hume's strictures about "hidden powers". A new theory is suggested, based on "conserved quantities", which fulfills Salmon's broad objectives, and which avoids the problems discussed.

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that our collective existetial predicment is unprecedentedly dangerous due to climate change and terrorism. Given these global risks to human prosperity and survival, Persson and Savulescu argue that we should explore the radical possibility of moral bioenhancement in addition to cognitive enhancement. In this article, I argue that moral bioenhancements could nontrivially exacerbate the threat posed by certain kinds of malicious agents, while reducing the threat of other kinds. This (...) introduces a previously undiscussed complication to Persson and Savulescu's proposal. In the final section, I present a novel argument for why moral bioenhancement should either be compulsory or not be made available to the public at all. (shrink)

The relation of ontological dependence or grounding, expressed by the terminology of separation and priority in substance, plays a central role in Aristotle’s Categories, Metaphysics, De Anima and elsewhere. The article discusses three current interpretations of this terminology. These are drawn along the lines of, respectively, modal-existential ontological dependence, essential ontological dependence, and grounding or metaphysical explanation. I provide an opinionated introduction to the topic, raising the main interpretative questions, laying out a few of the exegetical and philosophical options that (...) influence one’s reading, and locating questions of Aristotle scholarship within the discussion of ontological dependence and grounding in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Both literalism, the view that mathematical objects simply exist in the empirical world, and fictionalism, the view that mathematical objects do not exist but are rather harmless fictions, have been both ascribed to Aristotle. The ascription of literalism to Aristotle, however, commits Aristotle to the unattractive view that mathematics studies but a small fragment of the physical world; and there is evidence that Aristotle would deny the literalist position that mathematical objects are perceivable. The ascription of fictionalism also faces a (...) difficult challenge: there is evidence that Aristotle would deny the fictionalist position that mathematics is false. I argue that, in Aristotle's view, the fiction of mathematics is not to treat what does not exist as if existing but to treat mathematical objects with an ontological status they lack. This form of fictionalism is consistent with holding that mathematics is true. (shrink)

Philosophical Dilemmas: A Pro and Con Introduction to the Major Questions and Philosophers, Fourth Edition, outlines the classic arguments made by philosophers through the ages. It features sixty-three brief topical essays by author Phil Washburn organized around thirty-one fundamental philosophical questions like "Does God exist?" "Is morality relative?" and "Are we free?" Each essay takes a definite stand and promotes it vigorously, creating a sharp contrast between the two positions and giving each abstract theory a more personal and believable (...) "voice." The accessible writing style and conflicting answers encourage students to examine the different positions and to think carefully about which essay makes the stronger case. This fourth edition, a major revision, now enriches the discussion of each philosophical question by adding fifty-four brief essays--two in each chapter--on great philosophers who held conflicting viewpoints on the issues covered. Additionally, the chapters have been rearranged so that these essays and the philosophers discussed appear in approximate chronological order, from Plato and Protagoras to Wittgenstein and Searle. The text is enhanced by numerous pedagogical features including an introduction to each issue, key terms, chapter summaries, study questions after each essay, chronologies, a glossary, and an appendix on how to write an essay. A Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/washburn contains online sources and self-test questions for students and numerous instructor resources: introductions to the issues; summaries of the topical essays; summary points, PowerPoint-based slides, and test questions for the historical essays; answers to the critical questions that follow each essay; test questions on the topical essays; suggestions for class discussions; and a list of online resources. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been fascinated by the connection between cause and effect: are 'causes' things we can experience, or are they concepts provided by our minds? The study of causation goes back to Aristotle, but resurged with David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and is now one of the most important topics in metaphysics. Most of the recent work done in this area has attempted to place causation in a deterministic, scientific, worldview. But what about the unpredictable and chancey world we (...) actually live in: can one theory of causation cover all instances of cause and effect? _Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World _is a collection of specially written papers by world-class metaphysicians. Its focus is the problem facing the 'reductionist' approach to causation: the attempt to cover all types of causation, deterministic and indeterministic, with one basic theory. Contributors: Stephen Barker, Helen Beebee, Phil Dowe, Dorothy Edgington, Doug Ehring, Chris Hitchcock, Igal Kwart, Paul Noordhof, Murali Ramachandran and Michael Tooley. (shrink)

A predicate logic typically has a heterogeneous semantic theory. Subjects and predicates have distinct semantic roles: subjects refer; predicates characterize. A sentence expresses a truth if the object to which the subject refers is correctly characterized by the predicate. Traditional term logic, by contrast, has a homogeneous theory: both subjects and predicates refer; and a sentence is true if the subject and predicate name one and the same thing. In this paper, I will examine evidence for ascribing to Aristotle the (...) view that subjects and predicates refer. If this is correct, then it seems that Aristotle, like the traditional term logician, problematically conflates predication and identity claims. I will argue that we can ascribe to Aristotle the view that both subjects and predicates refer, while holding that he would deny that a sentence is true just in case the subject and predicate name one and the same thing. In particular, I will argue that Aristotle's core semantic notion is not identity but the weaker relation of constitution. For example, the predication ‘All men are mortal’ expresses a true thought, in Aristotle's view, just in case the mereological sum of humans is a part of the mereological sum of mortals. (shrink)

Causal pluralists hold that that there is not just one determinate kind of causation. Some causal pluralists hold that ‘cause’ is ambiguous among these different kinds. For example, Hall (2004) argues that ‘cause’ is ambiguous between two causal relations, which he labels dependence and production. The view that ‘cause’ is ambiguous, however, wrongly predicts zeugmatic conjunction reduction, and wrongly predicts the behaviour of ellipsis in causal discourse. So ‘cause’ is not ambiguous. If we are to disentangle causal pluralism from the (...) ambiguity claim, we need to consider what other linguistic approaches are available to the causal pluralist. I consider and reject proposals that ‘cause’ is a general term, that the term is an indexical, and that the term conveys different kinds of causation through implicature or presupposition. Finally, I argue that causal pluralism is better handled by treating ‘cause’ as a univocal term within a dynamic interpretation framework. (shrink)

Attributed to Phil Smith ("the Crab Man") on the publisher's webite.

There is, no doubt, a temptation to treat preventions, such as ‘the father’s grabbing the child prevented the accident’, and cases of ‘causation’ by omission, such as ‘the father’s inattention was the cause of the child’s accident’, as cases of genuine causation. I think they are not, and in this paper I defend a theory of what they are. More specifically, the counterfactual theory defended here is that a claim about prevention or ‘causation’ by omission should be understood not as (...) being directly about actual genuine causation but primarily as a counterfactual claim about genuine causation.1 The relation between actual causation and the mere possibility of causation allows my theory to explain both the difference and the similarity between the two notions (causation and prevention/omission). Further, the difference explains certain intuitions we have and the similarity justifies and explains the fact that for practical purposes we usually treat preventions and omissions as if they were genuine causation. Finally, the fact that this counterfactual theory of prevention and omission takes causation as primitive suggests that it is consistent with any theory of causation. This allows us to construct two arguments against what I will call genuinism, the view that cases of prevention and ‘causation’ by omission really are cases of genuine causation. In section II I show that genuinism does not account for the so-called intuition of difference. In section III I outline a number of problems that various theories of causation have with preventions and ‘causation’ by omission. These problems are ipso facto problems for genuinism, whereas I show in section V how the counterfactual theory solves those problems. Further, I answer a genuinist argument based on another type of intuition—the genuinist intuition—by showing why we have that intuition and how it should be handled (section VI). (shrink)

This research applies the impression management theory of exemplification in an accounting study by identifying and measuring differences in both auditor and public perceptions of exemplary behaviors. The auditors were divided into two groups, one of which reported self-perceptions (A-S) while the other group reported their perceptions of a typical auditor (A-O). There were two separate public groups, which gave their perceptions of a typical auditor and were divided based on their levels of accounting sophistication. The more sophisticated public group (...) was comprised of bank loan officers (LO) while the less sophisticated public group consisted of investment club members (IC). Comparisons were made on 30 behaviors contained in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, which served as the basis for the research instrument. Profile analysis, a special form of MANOVA technique, was used to analyze the results. A-S perceptions were the highest of the four treatment levels and were significantly higher (i.e., more exemplary) than the perceptions of both the A-O and LO groups. The more sophisticated user group (LO) provided the lowest perceptions of the four treatment levels. For at least four of the six measures, the LO treatment group perceived the typical auditor to be less exemplary than both the IC and A-O treatments. There were no differences in perceptions between the A-O group and IC. Additional analysis revealed that auditors overrated the degree to which the public relied on financial statements. However, both public groups reported a reasonably high level of reliance on financial statements when making decisions. (shrink)

The expression tode ti, commonly translated as ‘a this’, plays a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Drawing lightly on theories of demonstratives in contemporary linguistics, I discuss the expres...

Discussion of the Aristotelian syllogistic over the last sixty years has arguably centered on the question whether syllogisms are inferences or implications. But the significance of this debate at times has been taken to concern whether the syllogistic is a logic or a theory, and how it ought to be represented by modern systems. Largely missing from this discussion has been a study of the few passages in the Prior Analytics where Aristotle provides explicit guidance on how to individuate syllogisms. (...) I argue that syllogisms are individuated by unordered premise pairs and so may be fruitfully thought of as multi-succedent sequents. I conclude by drawing a few consequences for the representation of the syllogistic. (shrink)

In recent years, the field of music therapy has increasingly embraced the use of technology for conducting therapy sessions and enhancing patient outcomes. Amidst a worldwide pandemic, we sought to examine whether this is now true to an even greater extent, as many music therapists have had to approach and conduct their work differently. The purpose of this survey study is to observe trends in how music therapists from different regions around the world have had to alter their practice, especially (...) in relation to their use of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, because of limited options to conduct in-person therapy due to social distancing measures. Further, the findings aim to clarify music therapists’ perspectives on the benefits and limitations of technology in MT, as well as online MT. In addition, this survey investigated what changes have been necessary to administer MT during COVID-19, in terms of virtual therapy and online tools, and how the changes made now may affect MT in the future. We also explored music therapists’ views on whether special technology-focused training might be helpful to support the practice of MT in the future. This is the first survey, to our knowledge, to break down opinions of and trends in technology use based on geographical region, and several noteworthy differences were apparent across regions. We hope our findings provide useful information, guidance, and a global reference point for music therapists on effectively continuing the practice of MT during times of crisis, and can encourage reflection and improvement in administering MT. (shrink)

Although diagnosis is integral to the theory and practice of psychiatry, social scientists have not developed a comprehensive approach to diagnosis. This paper presents a preliminary outline of the issues which a sociology of diagnosis should integrate. These include bias and social control in psychiatric diagnosis, diagnosis as part of a new extension of the biopsychiatric medical model, and flaws in contemporary diagnostic categorization. These issues are then viewed in terms of professional practice styles, diagnostic biases, psychiatry's professional dominance over (...) the mental health field, and psychiatric hegemony over the clinical interaction with patients. (shrink)

This enterprising book, written in the spirit of William James, urges our appreciation of the intensely personal character of spiritual transcendence. Phil Oliver's work has important implications for specialists concerned with the Jamesian concept of "pure experience," and it illuminates significant interdisciplinary ties among philosophy, literature, and other intellectual domains.