Presents profiles of one hundred philosophers, from ancient times to the present day.

The norm of assertion, to be in force, is a social norm. What is the content of our social norm of assertion? Various linguistic arguments purport to show that to assert is to represent oneself as knowing. But to represent oneself as knowing does not entail that assertion is governed by a knowledge norm. At best these linguistic arguments provide indirect support for a knowledge norm. Furthermore, there are alternative, non-normative explanations for the linguistic data (as in recent work from (...) Van Elswyk). Direct arguments would rely on normative judgments about the permissibility or impermissibility of assertions with and without the speaker knowing the content asserted. John Turri's work experimental results purport to show that our norm of assertion is factive, and probably knowledge. But as a number of recent experimentalists (Kneer, Reuter and Broessel, Marsili and Wiegmann) have shown, Turri's results rely on the problemmatic use of 'should' as in 'Maria should assert that she owns a 1990 watch.' Correcting for this, these experimentalists provide strong evidence that our norm of assertion is not factive. The standard reply to evidence like this from the assertion of unlucky falsehoods is the excuse maneuver. But Marsili and Wiegmann, following Turri's protocol for testing for excuse validation, show that participants who judge that assertions unlucky falsehoods are permissible are not guilty of excuse validation. Given our current understanding of the experimental evidence, knowledge is not our norm of assertion. (shrink)

Acknowledgments 1. Culture Is Essential 2. Culture Exists 3. Culture Evolves 4. Culture Is an Adaptation 5. Culture Is Maladaptive 6. Culture and Genes Coevolve 7. Nothing about Culture Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution.

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

This paper argues for the general proper functionalist view that epistemic warrant consists in the normal functioning of the belief-forming process when the process has forming true beliefs reliably as an etiological function. Such a process is reliable in normal conditions when functioning normally. This paper applies this view to so-called testimony-based beliefs. It argues that when a hearer forms a comprehension-based belief that P (a belief based on taking another to have asserted that P) through the exercise of a (...) reliable competence to comprehend and filter assertive speech acts, then the hearer's belief is prima facie warranted. The paper discusses the psychology of comprehension, the function of assertion, and the evolution of filtering mechanisms, especially coherence checking. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to set out, and argue for, a theory of what makes acts morally permissible. The claims about morality that I shall be advancing will be minimalist. By this I mean that the scope of the theory will be restricted to as small a class of acts or courses of action as possible, and its bearing on the members of that class to as narrow a range of characteristics as possible. My starting point is that, as (...) Dostoevsky put it, 'everything is permitted'– unless there prove to be good reasons why it cannot be. (shrink)

Our view is that fundamental appetitive and defensive motivation systems evolved to mediate a complex array of adaptive behaviors that support the organism’s drive to survive—defending against threat and securing resources. Activation of these motive systems engages processes that facilitate attention allocation, information intake, sympathetic arousal, and, depending on context, will prompt tactical actions that can be directed either toward or away from the strategic goal, whether defensively or appetitively determined. Research from our laboratory that measures autonomic, central, and somatic (...) reactions when processing emotional scenes is described which indicates that motivationally relevant cues, whether appetitive or defensive, capture attention preferentially, prompt enhanced perceptual processing and information gathering, and occasion metabolic arousal that mobilizes the organism for coping actions. (shrink)

The accuracy-first program attempts to ground epistemology in the norm that one’s beliefs should be as accurate as possible, where accuracy is measured using a scoring rule. We argue that considerations of scientific progress suggest that such a monism about epistemic value is untenable. In particular, we argue that counterexamples to the standard scoring rules are ubiquitous in the history of science, and hence that these scoring rules cannot be regarded as a precisification of our intuitive concept of epistemic value.

The article shows that Habermas’s modernism and Lyotard’s postmodernism are not as antithetical as they are often taken to be. First, we argue that Habermas is not a strong foundationalist concerned with identifying universal rules for language, as postmodern critiques have often interpreted him. Instead, he develops a social pragmatics in which the communicative use of language is the fundamental presupposition of any meaningful interaction. Second, we argue that Lyotard is not a relativist who denies any universal linguistic structure. Instead, (...) he claims that language involves a universal element of dissensus that cannot be subordinated to consensus. Third, we show that neither does Habermas defend a new version of the kind of philosophy of history characteristic of the Enlightenment, nor is Lyotard a historical relativist, but instead they both seek alternatives to these positions. The conclusion calls for more nuance in the interpretation of both perspectives. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

The first section of this paper asks why the notion of consensus has recently come to the fore in the medical humanities, and suggests that the answer is a function of growing technological and professional complexity. The next two sections examine the concept of consensus analytically, citing some of the recent philosophical literature. The fourth section looks at committee deliberations and their desirable outcomes, and questions the degree to which consensus serves those outcomes. In the fifth and last section it (...) is suggested that if I am to subscribe to a consensual outcome responsibly I must be personally committed to it, and that this requires a form of knowledge I call ‘fiduciary’, in this case knowledge of the competence and trustworthiness of other participants in deliberation whose expertise may have influenced my agreement. (shrink)

In his contribution, the author discusses the deep and surprising similarities between the philosophies of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche. The author argues that these stem from their shared conception of naturalism. Their naturalism is primarily an explanatory one and primarily aimed at explaining human thought and practice. In Nietzsche, this form of naturalism is expressed in his adoption of a genealogical approach to various topics, most famously that of morality. The author shows that Hume’s naturalism is similarly genealogical. The (...) author also argues that their conceptions of morality and the self are closer than popular images of the two philosophers might have it. (shrink)

Letter to the Editors in response to Alasdair Richmond's 'Time Travelers'.

1. Argument. Questions that have arisen about the “existence” of elementary particles and other entities of physics have often been dismissed as unprofitable, with the tacit assumption that the categories suitable for the discussion of everyday knowledge are not suitable for the discussion of physical knowledge, which requires mathematical treatment. But for the layman who stumbles at the discontinuity between his world and that of mathematical physics, and for the physicist who wishes his knowledge of the world to have some (...) kind of unity, a scheme which will embrace both kinds of knowledge is essential. Such a scheme is developed from a consideration of the dependence on mind, and conceptual modes of thought, common to science and all other intellectual approaches to the world, which is seen clearly in the growth of science from more primitive concepts. It begins with the concept as the most elementary category of the organization of experience, and moves to the construct, a distinctly scientific category arising out of the concept, and the isolate, corresponding to elements of reality not directly perceived. An escape from certain paradoxes generated by the incomplete nature of perceptual experience is thus provided. (shrink)

Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics. Why? Not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions-the theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate (...) understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical world-view in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small-and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and anybody else interested in how science informs our world-view. (shrink)

"These essays are the work of a genial, literate mind exploring a wide range of issues mainly centered on the philosophy of science and epistemology, but including considerations of literature, language, and social practice. Caws's work, in general, represents an independent and alternative current in the philosophy of science, one which is informed by a broader conception of scientific thought and activity than are the usual approaches of either the traditional logical-empiricists or the more recent post-positivists. And he has a (...) knack for deflating the latest fashionable claims early in the game, even before fashion has set in."--Marx Wartofsky, Editor, "The Philosophical Forum". (shrink)

What is the biological function of perception? I hold perception, especially visual perception in humans, has the biological function of accurately representing the environment. Tyler Burge argues this cannot be so in Origins of Objectivity (Oxford, 2010), for accuracy is a semantical relationship and not, as such, a practical matter. Burge also provides a supporting example. I rebut the argument and the example. Accuracy is sometimes also a practical matter if accuracy partly explains how perception contributes to survival and reproduction.

Definition is viewed in this paper as a cohesive element of theory, providing links between scientific constructs. The problem is approached first in terms of three orders--the historical, the logical, and the heuristic--in which the structure of science may be put together; a study of these is necessary if difficulties about priority of definition are to be resolved. The main part of the paper is devoted to an exercise in theory-construction which illustrates the five principal functions of definition--the grounding of (...) constructs in observation, their descriptive interrelation, the development of logico-mathematical calculi, the interpretation of these calculi, and the provision of precise, quasi-mathematical relations between the constructs themselves. Reference is made throughout to the many names for the defining process found in earlier works, and problems of contextual definition, reduction, stipulative and lexical definition, etc., are dealt with briefly. The theory thus constructed is represented diagrammatically. It is shown that the analysis may be simplified, in general terms, by the use of two new categories, "internal" and "external" definition; and that this innovation may prove helpful in clarifying some traditional obscurities, and in preserving a necessary balance between a purely logical and a purely empirical approach to the philosophy of science. (shrink)