The publication of Form and Object: A Treatise on Things by Tristan Garcia, Prix de Flore-winning novelist, philosopher, essayist, and screenwriter is a genuine event in the history of philosophy. Situating this event within classical, modern, and contemporary dialectical space, Jon Cogburn evaluates Garcia's metaphysics, differential ontology, and militant anti-reductionism through a series of seemingly incompatible oppositions concerning: substance and process, analysis and dialectic, simple and whole, and discovery and creation. Cogburn also includes a critical assessment of the (...) consequences of Garcia's philosophy, the various unresolved problems in his treatise, and the future prospects of speculative metaphysics. (shrink)

The term “virtual reality” was first coined by Antonin Artaud to describe a value-adding characteristic of certain types of theatrical performances. The expression has more recently come to refer to a broad range of incipient digital technologies that many current philosophers regard as a serious threat to human autonomy and well-being. Their concerns, which are formulated most succinctly in “brain in a vat”-type thought experiments and in Robert Nozick's famous “experience machine” argument, reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that (...) such technologies would probably have to work. They also considerably underestimate the positive contributions that virtual reality technologies could make to the growth of human knowledge. Here, we examine and critique Nozick's claim that no reasonable person would want to plug into his hypothetical experience machine in light of a broadly enactivist understanding of how future VR technologies might be expected to function. We then sketch out a tentative theory of the phenomenon of truth in fiction, in order to characterize some of the distinct epistemic opportunities that VR technologies promise to provide. (shrink)

How can _Wii Sports_ teach us about metaphysics? Can playing _World of Warcraft_ lead to greater self-consciousness? How can we learn about aesthetics, ethics and divine attributes from _Zork_, _Grand Theft Auto_, and _Civilization_? A variety of increasingly sophisticated video games are rapidly overtaking books, films, and television as America's most popular form of media entertainment. It is estimated that by 2011 over 30 percent of US households will own a Wii console - about the same percentage that owned a (...) television in 1953. In _Philosophy Through Video Games, _Jon Cogburn and Mark Silcox - philosophers with game industry experience - investigate the aesthetic appeal of video games, their effect on our morals, the insights they give us into our understanding of perceptual knowledge, personal identity, artificial intelligence, and the very meaning of life itself, arguing that video games are popular precisely because they engage with longstanding philosophical problems. Topics covered include: * The Problem of the External World * Dualism and Personal Identity * Artificial and Human Intelligence in the Philosophy of Mind * The Idea of Interactive Art * The Moral Effects of Video Games * Games and God's Goodness Games discussed include: _Madden Football_, _Wii Sports_, _Guitar Hero_, _World of Warcraft_, _Sims Online_, _Second Life_, _Baldur's Gate_, _Knights of the Old Republic_, _Elder Scrolls_, _Zork_, _EverQuest_ _Doom_, _Halo 2_, _Grand Theft Auto_, _Civilization_, _Mortal Kombat_, _Rome: Total War_, _Black and White_, _Aidyn Chronicles_. (shrink)

Standard accounts of semantics for counterfactuals confront the true–true problem: when the antecedent and consequent of a counterfactual are both actually true, the counterfactual is automatically true. This problem presents a challenge to safety-based accounts of knowledge. In this paper, drawing on work by Angelika Kratzer, Alan Penczek, and Duncan Pritchard, we propose a revised understanding of semantics for counterfactuals utilizing machinery from generalized quantifier theory which enables safety theorists to meet the challenge of the true–true problem.

I, player : the puzzle of personal identity (MMORPGS and Virtual Communities) -- The game inside the mind, the mind inside the game (The Nintendo Wii Gaming Console) -- Realistic blood and gore : do violent games make violent gamers? (First-person Shooters) -- Games and God's goodness (World-builder and Tycoon Games) -- The metaphysics of interactive art (Puzzle and Adventure Games) -- Artificial and human intelligence (Single-player RPGS) -- Epilogue: Video games and the meaning of life.

That believing truly as a matter of luck does not generally constitute knowing has become epistemic commonplace. Accounts of knowledge incorporating this anti-luck idea frequently rely on one or another of a safety or sensitivity condition. Sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge have a well-known problem with necessary truths, to wit, that any believed necessary truth trivially counts as knowledge on such accounts. In this paper, we argue that safety-based accounts similarly trivialize knowledge of necessary truths and that two ways of responding (...) to this problem for safety, issuing from work by Williamson and Pritchard, are of dubious success. (shrink)

Frederic Fitch’s celebrated reasoning to the conclusion that all truths are known can be interpreted as a reductio of the claim that all truths are knowable. Given this, nearly all of the proof’s reception has involved canvassing the prospects for some form of verificationism. Unfortunately, debates of this sort discount much of the philosophical import of the proof. In addition to its relevance for verificationism, Fitch’s proof is also an argument for the existence of God, one at least as strong (...) as the traditional demonstrations. Perhaps unlike other such proofs, Fitch’s also operates as a key lemma in a proof that establishes that God can’t exist. (shrink)

According to an influential contextualist solution to skepticism advanced by Keith DeRose, denials of skeptical hypotheses are, in most contexts, strong yet insensitive. The strength of such denials allows for knowledge of them, thus undermining skepticism, while the insensitivity of such denials explains our intuition that we do not know them. In this paper we argue that, under some well-motivated conditions, a negated skeptical hypothesis is strong only if it is sensitive. We also consider how a natural response on behalf (...) of DeRose appears to be equally available to his primary rival (viz., the sensitivity theorist). (shrink)

We first discuss Michael Dummett’s philosophy of mathematics and Robert Brandom’s philosophy of language to demonstrate that inferentialism entails the falsity of Church’s Thesis and, as a consequence, the Computational Theory of Mind. This amounts to an entirely novel critique of mechanism in the philosophy of mind, one we show to have tremendous advantages over the traditional Lucas-Penrose argument.

We build on some of Daniel Dennett’s ideas about predictive indispensability to characterize properties of video games discernable by people as computationally emergent if, and only if: (1) they can be instantiated by a computing machine, and (2) there is no algorithm for detecting instantiations of them. We then use this conception of emergence to provide support to the aesthetic ideas of Stanley Fish and to illuminate some aspects of the Chomskyan program in cognitive science.

A central tenet of cognitivism is that knowing how is to be explained in terms of tacitly knowing that a theory is true. By critically examining canonical anti-behaviorist arguments and contemporary appeals to tacit knowledge, I have devised a more explicit characterization in which tacitly known theories must act as justifiers for claims that the tacit knower is capable of explicitly endorsing. In this manner the new account is specifically tied to verbal behavior. In addition, if the analysis is correct (...) then it follows that the scope and nature of cognitivist appeals to tacit knowledge are largely mistaken. (shrink)

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy presents twenty-one chapters by different writers, all D&D aficionados but with starkly different insights and points of view. The book is divided into three parts. The first, "Heroic Tier: The Ethical Dungeon-Crawler," explores what D&D has to teach us about ethics. Part II, "Paragon Tier: Planes of Existence," arouses a new sense of wonder about both the real world and the collaborative world game players create. The third part, "Epic Tier: Leveling Up," is at the (...) crossroads of philosophy and the exciting new field of Game Studies. (shrink)

We argue that A. Damasio’s (1994) Somatic Marker hypothesis can explain why humans don’t generally suffer from the frame problem, arguably the greatest obstacle facing the Computational Theory of Mind. This involves showing how humans with damaged emotional centers are best understood as actually suffering from the frame problem. We are then able to show that, paradoxically, these results provide evidence for the Computational Theory of Mind, and in addition call into question the very distinction between easy and hard problems (...) in the contemporary philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It is often helpful in metaphysics to reflect upon the principles that govern how existence claims are made in logic and mathematics. Consider, for example, the different ways in which mathematicians construct inductive definitions. In order to provide an inductive definition of a class of mathematical entities, one must first define a base class and then stipulate further conditions for inclusion by reference to the properties of members of the base class. These conditions can be deflationary, so that the target (...) class is a subclass of the base class, or inflationary, so that the base class is an important subclass of the target class. For example, in defining the set of well-formed sentences of first order logic, one can begin with the set of all possible strings and, in a deflationary manner, exclude the nonsentences. Or one can begin with the set of atomic formulae, and in an inflationary manner, build more complicated sentences out of the atomic formulae. (shrink)

In Chapter 7 of The Taming of the True, Neil Tennant provides a new argument from Michael Dummett's ``manifestation requirement'' to the incorrectness of classical logic and the correctness of intuitionistic logic. I show that Tennant's new argument is only valid if one interprets crucial existence claims occurring in the proof in the manner of intuitionists. If one interprets the existence claims as a classical logician would, then one can accept Tennant's premises while rejecting his conclusion of logical revision. Thus, (...) Tennant has provided no evidence that should convince anyone who is not already an intuitionist. Since his proof is a proof for the correctness of intuitionism, it begs the question. (shrink)

In Chapter 7 of The Taming of the True, Neil Tennant provides a new argument from Michael Dummett's ``manifestation requirement'' to the incorrectness of classical logic and the correctness of intuitionistic logic. I show that Tennant's new argument is only valid if one interprets crucial existence claims occurring in the proof in the manner of intuitionists. If one interprets the existence claims as a classical logician would, then one can accept Tennant's premises while rejecting his conclusion of logical revision. Thus, (...) Tennant has provided no evidence that should convince anyone who is not already an intuitionist. Since his proof is a proof for the correctness of intuitionism, it begs the question. (shrink)

If correct, Christopher Peacocke’s [20] “manifestationism without verificationism,” would explode the dichotomy between realism and inferentialism in the contemporary philosophy of language. I first explicate Peacocke’s theory, defending it from a criticism of Neil Tennant’s. This involves devising a recursive definition for grasp of logical contents along the lines Peacocke suggests. Unfortunately though, the generalized account reveals the Achilles’ heel of the whole theory. By inventing a new logical operator with the introduction rule for the existential quantifier and the elimination (...) rule for the universal quantifier, I am able to show that Peacocke’s theory only avoids verificationism to the extent that it does not satisfy manifestationism. (shrink)

Neil Tennant and Joseph Salerno have recently attempted to rigorously formalize Michael Dummett's argument for logical revision. Surprisingly, both conclude that Dummett commits elementary logical errors, and hence fails to offer an argument that is even prima facie valid. After explicating the arguments Salerno and Tennant attribute to Dummett, I show how broader attention to Dummett's writings on the theory of meaning allows one to discern, and formalize, a valid argument for logical revision. Then, after correctly providing a rigorous statement (...) of the argument, I am able to delineate four possible anti-Dummettian responses. Following recent work by Stewart Shapiro and Crispin Wright, I conclude that progress in the anti-realist's dialectic requires greater clarity about the key modal notions used in Dummett's proof. (shrink)

Vague Objects and Vague Identity: New Essays on Ontic Vagueness By AkibaKen and AbasnezhadAliSpringer, 2014. x + 360 pp. £117.00.

© The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] key virtue of Vague Objects and Vague Identity is how it includes so many essays that consider the particular ways vagueness manifests in different kinds of entities, including meanings, part-whole relations, the very small as understood by quantum mechanics, people, sensations, sets, ordinals, cardinals and abstractions. In every case, the author has something interesting to say not just (...) about vagueness but about the metaphysical category in question.One theme that unifies the diverse discussions is Gareth Evans’s brief 1978 note, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ Let ‘▽’ stands for ‘it is indeterminate whether’, ‘λ’ stands for what it does in the lambda calculus, and ‘⊥’ be the absurdity constant. Then, Evans’s initial argument is: ▽ assumptionλx[▽]b 1... (shrink)

criticism defend the idea that an individual reader's understanding of a text can be a factor in determining the meaning of what is written in that text, and hence must play a part in determining the very identity conditions of works of literary art. We examine some accounts that have been given of the type of readerly ‘competence’ that a reader must have in order for her responses to a text to play this sort of constitutive role. We argue that (...) the analogy drawn by Stanley Fish and Jonathan Culler between literary and linguistic competence is philosophically flawed and explanatorily unfruitful, and that a better way of understanding the notion of literary competence can be constructed by appeal to some limitation results in formal logic and computability theory. (shrink)

Neil Tennant and Joseph Salerno have recently attempted to rigorously formalize Michael Dummett's argument for logical revision. Surprisingly, both conclude that Dummett commits elementary logical errors, and hence fails to offer an argument that is even prima facie valid. After explicating the arguments Salerno and Tennant attribute to Dummett, I show how broader attention to Dummett's writings on the theory of meaning allows one to discern, and formalize, a valid argument for logical revision. Then, after correctly providing a rigorous statement (...) of the argument, I am able to delineate four possible anti-Dummettian responses. Following recent work by Stewart Shapiro and Crispin Wright, I conclude that progress in the anti-realist's dialectic requires greater clarity about the key modal notions used in Dummett's proof. (shrink)

Many contemporary scholars argue that Schelling’s version of intellectual intuition retains certain central features of the Kantian and Fichtean conceptions. One of the common claims is that, as with Kant and Fichte, Schelling’s intellectual intuition is the power of the subject’s productive understanding. However, we show that for the Schelling of the Identitätsphilosophie period, intellectual intuition is the power not of an understanding that intuits, or a productive intellect, but of a receptive and penetrating sensibility that understands.

Michael Dummett, Neil Tennant, and Crispin Wright all appeal to a priori restrictions on a philosophical explanation of linguistic competence to criticize classical logic and semantics. They also use these restrictions to defend verificationsim. In the negative part of my project I uncover interesting structural analogies between the Dummettian arguments for logical revision to show that they all require the truth of a stronger, and less plausible, form of verificationism than even the logical positivists were willing to countenance. This result, (...) I argue, genuinely is a modus tollens from which we should conclude that the explanatory demands Dummett and others place on the theory of meaning are mistaken. I then draw from the linguistic, lexicographic, and psychological literature to undermine the Dummettian view that an explanation of competence should recursively correlate dispositions necessary and sufficient for grasp of meaning with the aspects of meanings generated by a compositional semantics. Thus is eliminated the Dummettian impetus to identify such dispositions with the ability to recognize verifications. ;In the positive discussion I: characterize and defend a conception of tacit knowledge which renders the postulation of the mental reality of classical semantics both explanatory and plausible, show that many traditional philosophical questions concerning the epistemology of language can and should be recast as questions concerning how the theory of sentence meaning interacts with the theory of word meaning , and defend a roughly Davidsonian alternative to Dummett's theory of grasp of meaning. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has argued that his basis-relative anti-luck construal of a safety condition on knowing avoids the problem with necessary truths that safety conditions are often thought to have, viz., that beliefs the contents of which are necessarily true are trivially safe. He has further argued that adding an ability condition to truth, belief, and his anti-luck safety conditions yields an adequate account of knowledge. In this paper, we argue that not only does Pritchard’s anti-luck safety condition have a problem (...) with necessary truths, adding an ability condition is of no help. Indeed, the same sort of case that precipitates Pritchard’s introduction of an ability condition shows the inadequacy of his completed anti-luck account of knowledge. Moreover, reconstruing safety as an anti-risk condition as Pritchard has recently done does not fix the problem we’ve identified. We conclude by entertaining a radical suggestion to the effect that the failures of safety-based accounts of modal knowledge are due to failures of doxastic success rather than failures to satisfy an anti-luck (or anti-risk) condition. Accepting this radical suggestion makes available the view that there is, after all, no special problem between safety and necessary truths. (shrink)

In ``Revising the Logic of LogicalRevision'' J. Salerno attempts to undermineCrispin Wright 's recent arguments forintuitionism, and to replace Wright andDummett's arguments with a revisionary argumentof his own. I show that Salerno's criticismsof Wright involve both attributing an inferenceto Wright that no intuitionist would make andfallaciously treating a negative universal asan existential negative. Then I show how verygeneral considerations about the nature ofwarrant undermine both Wright and Salerno'sarguments, when these arguments are applied todiscourses with defeasible warrants. WhileSalerno explicitly restricts his (...) discussion tomathematics, Wright and Dummett intend theirrevisionary arguments to have much widerscope. (shrink)

What is a thing? What is an object? Tristan Garcia decisively overturns 100 years of Heideggerian orthodoxy about the supposedly derivative nature of objects to put forward a new theory of ontology that gives us deep insights into the world and our place in it."e.

This chapter presents an overview of the major interpretations of probability followed by an outline of the objective Bayesian interpretation and a discussion of the key challenges it faces. I discuss the ramifications of interpretations of probability and objective Bayesianism for the philosophy of mathematics in general.

In this volume a diverse group of economists, philosophers, political scientists, and psychologists address the problems, principles, and practices involved in comparing the well-being of different individuals. A series of questions lie at the heart of this investigation: What is the relevant concept of well-being for the purposes of comparison? How could the comparisons be carried out for policy purposes? How are such comparisons made now? How do the difficulties involved in these comparisons affect the status of utilitarian theories? This (...) collection constitutes the most advanced and comprehensive treatment of one of the cardinal issues in social theory. (shrink)

The Problem of Iterated Ground is to explain what grounds truths about ground: if Γ grounds φ, what grounds that Γ grounds φ? This paper develops a novel solution to this problem. The basic idea is to connect ground to explanatory arguments. By developing a rigorous account of explanatory arguments we can equip operators for factive and non-factive ground with natural introduction and elimination rules. A satisfactory account of iterated ground falls directly out of the resulting logic: non- factive grounding (...) claims, if true, are zero-grounded in the sense of Fine. (shrink)

Modern philosophy recognizes two major ethical theories: deontology, which encourages adherence to rules and fulfillment of duties or obligations; and consequentialism, which evaluates morally significant actions strictly on the basis of their actual or anticipated outcomes. Both involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality. Professional societies promulgate codes of ethics with which engineers are expected to comply, while courts and the public generally assign liability to engineers primarily in accordance with the (...) results of their work, whether intended or unintended. A third option, prominent in ancient philosophy, has reemerged recently: virtue ethics, which recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore rightly focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Beneficial character traits—i.e., virtues—are identified within a specific social practice in light of the internal goods that are unique to it. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for implementing virtue ethics within engineering. (shrink)

In this paper, I link philosophical discussion of policies for trans inclusion or exclusion, to a method of policy making. I address the relationship between concerns about safety, fairness, and inclusion in policy making about the inclusion of transwomen athletes into women’s sport. I argue for an approach based on lexical priority rather than simple ‘balancing’, considering the different values in a specific order. I present justifying reasons for this approach and this lexical order, based on the special obligations of (...) International Federations such as World Rugby. As a result, I provide a justificatory framework for the WR Guidelines that exclude transwomen from the women’s game in WR competitions. Finally, I give an account of a maximally safe, maximally fair and maximally inclusive form of sex categorisation in sport. (shrink)

I discuss three recent counterexamples to the transitivity of grounding due to Jonathan Schaffer. I argue that the counterexamples don’t work and draw some conclusions about the relationship between grounding and explanation.

Most authors on metaphysical grounding have taken full grounding to be an internal relation in the sense that it's necessary that if the grounds and the grounded both obtain, then the grounds ground the grounded. The negative part of this essay exploits empirical and provably nonparadoxical self-reference to prove conclusively that even immediate full grounding isn't an internal relation in this sense. The positive, second part of this essay uses the notion of a “completely satisfactory explanation” to shed light on (...) the logic of ground in the presence of self-reference. This allows us to develop a satisfactory logic of ground and recover a sense in which grounding is still an internal relation. (shrink)

Language maps signals onto meanings through the use of two distinct types of structure. First, the space of meanings is discretized into categories that are shared by all users of the language. Second, the signals employed by the language are compositional: The meaning of the whole is a function of its parts and the way in which those parts are combined. In three iterated learning experiments using a vast, continuous, open-ended meaning space, we explore the conditions under which both structured (...) categories and structured signals emerge ex nihilo. While previous experiments have been limited to either categorical structure in meanings or compositional structure in signals, these experiments demonstrate that when the meaning space lacks clear preexisting boundaries, more subtle morphological structure that lacks straightforward compositionality—as found in natural languages—may evolve as a solution to joint pressures from learning and communication. (shrink)

PurposeInternational organizations are working on an unprecedented number of development initiatives relevant to people with disabilities. This makes it essential for the global disability community to be able to participate effectively in the decision-making processes associated with these programs. In light of this, this study aims to explore whether information technologies can help create a more inclusive global governance, forming the basis for equitable development for people with disabilities.Design/methodology/approachThe results of a global survey of disabled people’s organizations’ leaders are discussed. (...) This asked disability rights advocates about their experiences with accessibility and barriers to effective participation, low-cost accessible technological solutions for remote participation and freely available “off-the-shelf” online technologies – in particular social media platforms – to bridge the gap between the disability community and global governance processes.FindingsAlthough only a small number of international conferences offer accessible virtual participation through web conferencing and other tools, responses from DPO advocates suggest that there is a strong demand for this technology and provide evidence of its potential for improving accessibility in global governance. Furthermore, disability organizations all over the world have embraced social media platforms to liaise with their grassroots and enable them to part-take in policy-making processes.Originality/valueThis study highlights community-backed technological solutions to persisting barriers that systematically exclude people with disabilities from fundamental global governance processes, illuminating the nexus of disability, accessibility, and participation. (shrink)