There is general consensus that explainable artificial intelligence is valuable, but there is significant divergence when we try to articulate why, exactly, it is desirable. This question must be distinguished from two other kinds of questions asked in the XAI literature that are sometimes asked and addressed simultaneously. The first and most obvious is the ‘how’ question—some version of: ‘how do we develop technical strategies to achieve XAI?’ Another question is specifying what kind of explanation is worth having in the (...) first place. As difficult and important as the challenges are in answering these questions, they are distinct from a third question: why do we want XAI at all? There is vast literature on this question as well, but I wish to explore a different kind of answer. The most obvious way to answer this question is by describing a desirable outcome that would likely be achieved with the right kind of explanation, which would make the explanation valuable instrumentally. That is, XAI is desirable to attain some other value, such as fairness, trust, accountability, or governance. This family of arguments is obviously important, but I argue that explanations are also intrinsically valuable, because unexplainable systems can be dehumanizing. I argue that there are at least three independently valid versions of this kind of argument: an argument from participation, from knowledge, and from actualization. Each of these arguments that XAI is intrinsically valuable is independently compelling, in addition to the more obvious instrumental benefits of XAI. (shrink)

Nathan R. Colaner articulates a notion of knowledge that is characteristically Aristotelian without being dependent on his metaphysics. Simultaneously, Colaner places Aristotle’s epistemology in dialogue with modern thinkers’ works to create a bridge between classical and modern philosophy.

A substantial body of literature in the management discipline has evolved to make the case for and analyze the impacts of cross‐sector partnerships (CSPs). Yet, not all of these CSPs manifest the requisite collaborative propensities to achieve much more than superficial sustainability. Moreover, other disciplines like economics need to be brought to bear on analyses of such partnerships. In this article, we frame sustainable development challenges as collective action problems. We argue that over‐emphasizing the role of a single actor or (...) institution will not yield genuine sustainability. Instead, we propose that a collaborative orientation is necessary for business managers as they deal with challenges as expansive and complex as those presented by goals of the sustainability of the natural environment. Cross‐sector collaborative partnerships (CSCPs) are needed to achieve collective responsibility, wherein dialogic CSCPs issue in a new paradigm of collaborative markets. Market‐based solutions that ignore or minimize the important contributions that may be made by government, academia, and civil society organizations must give way to new models of collaboration across sectors. We identity specific challenges and opportunities for cross‐sector collaboration and provide case examples. There are important limits to addressing environmental and ethics problems from a single sector focus, and we show how meaningful sustainability can be facilitated within a dialogic cross‐sector collaborative perspective. (shrink)

Although actual human omniscience is unimaginable, it is not obvious what it means to be limited with regard to thought. One of Kant's significant contributions to epistemology was his redefinition of the limits of thought. He is explicit about this when he contrasts human, receptive intuition, and the creative intuition that an infinite being would have. Importantly, judging and reasoning are only necessary for a mind that is first affected by an object through sensibility, which is not the case for (...) a being with creative intuition, since this kind of intuition creates its own object. This means that the intellect of Kant's God is distinct from the human intellect in kind, since judging and reasoning are essentially finite activities; they are already evidence of a finite, human cognition. In contrast, Aristotle argues that human cognition - beyond its capacity for discursivity - is able to contemplate; as we will see, Aristotle argues that contemplation is divine, and so a limited intellect can become more or less like an omniscient intellect depending on the quality of one's contemplative life. In this work, I want to 1) establish that Kant and Aristotle have incompatible conceptions of non-omniscience, 2) trace the epistemological commitments that motivate their rival positions on non-omniscience, 3) show that their particular views on the legitimacy of metaphysical judgments presuppose their particular interpretations of non-omniscience, and 4) argue that Kant provides a superior analysis of non-omniscience. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

This is the 1991 (2nd) edition of the 1986 book (MIT Press), considered to be the classic defense of Millianism. The nature of the information content of declarative sentences is a central topic in the philosophy of language. The natural view that a sentence like "John loves Mary" contains information in which two individuals occur as constituents is termed the naive theory, and is one that has been abandoned by most contemporary scholars. This theory was refuted originally by philosopher Gottlob (...) Frege. His argument that the naive theory did not work is termed Frege's puzzle, and his rival account of information content is termed the orthodox theory. In this detailed study, Nathan Salmon defends a version of the naive theory and presents a proposal for its extension that provides a better picture of information content than the orthodox theory gives. He argues that a great deal of what has generally been taken for granted in the philosophy of language over the past few decades is either mistaken or unsupported, and consequently, much current research is focused on the wrong set of questions. Salmon dissolves Frege's puzzle as it is usually formulated and demonstrates how it can be reconstructed and strengthened to yield a more powerful objection to the naive theory. He then defends the naive theory against the new Frege puzzle by presenting an idea that yields both a surprisingly rich and powerful extension of the naive theory and a better picture of information content than that of the original orthodox theory. Nathan Salmon is Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Santa Barbara. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that logic, whatever it may be, is normative. While accounting for the normativity of logic is a challenge for any view of logic, in this paper I argue that it is particularly problematic for certain types of logical pluralists, due to what I call the normative problem for logical pluralism. I introduce the NPLP, distinguish it from other problems that logical pluralists may face, and show that it is unsolvable for one prominent type of logical pluralism.

The concept of a proposition is important in several areas of philosophy and central to the philosophy of language. This collection of readings investigates many different philosophical issues concerning the nature of propositions and the ways they have been regarded through the years. Reflecting both the history of the topic and the range of contemporary views, the book includes articles from Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, the Russell-Frege Correspondence, Alonzo Church, David Kaplan, John Perry, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Mark Richard, Scott (...) Soames, and Nathan Salmon. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts the philosophical positions of Hobbes and Rousseau from the standpoint of interpersonal communication theory. Although both men argued from the state of nature, they differed fundamentally on the nature of humankind and the purpose of relationships. These differences should be of concern for interpersonal scholars insofar as they reflect differing sets of axioms from which to begin theorizing. The second part of the paper establishes a link between Hobbes' philosophy and the social exchange tradition: The (...) Hobbes-social exchange tradition begins with the assumption that individuals form relationships to maximize rewards and minimize costs; a Rousseauist position must begin with the assumption that individuals form relationships in pursuit of some common goal. Thus, relational continuity and quality are not a function of cost-benefit ratios, but of how well partners work together toward their common good. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that contemporary truth pluralists have undersold the connection between their views and the semantic realism/anti-realism debate. I argue that pluralist theories of truth are essentially a combination of accepting both realist and anti-realist intuitions, and that we should take this lesson to heart. I show how we can categorize pluralist views by how realist or anti-realist they are, and introduce two notions to do so: methodological fundamentality and theoretical fundamentality. I show how viewing the pluralist (...) literature in this way reveals the core principles behind rival pluralist accounts and cuts across another influential way to divide up the truth pluralist literature. I conclude by introducing a new version of truth pluralism: methodological pluralism about truth. Methodological pluralism about truth stays methodologically neutral between its realist and anti-realist poles, and thus better accounts for both of its key theoretical motivations. (shrink)

In their article, Crutchfield and Redinger (2024) outline the conditions that they have identified as situations in which it is ethically permissible to use chemical restraints, defined as medicati...

Research shows that people often do not intervene to stop immoral action from happening. However, limited information is available on why people fail to intervene. Two preregistered studies (Ns = 248, 131) explored this gap in the literature by staging a theft in front of participants and immediately interviewing them to inquire about their reasons for intervening or not intervening. Across both studies, most participants did not try to stop the theft or even report it to the experimenter afterward. Furthermore, (...) many participants reported confusion and inattention as precursors to nonintervention, yielding insight into what inhibits moral courage. (shrink)

Hume’s argument against believing the testimony of miracles is the most influential treatment of the topic, but there is not yet a consensus on how to interpret his argument. Two arguments are attributed to him. First, Hume seems to start with the infrequency of miracles and uses this to infer that the testimony of a miracle is exceedingly unlikely, and this then creates strong but defeasible evidence against the testimony of any miracle. Second, perhaps Hume takes the constancy of our (...) experience of the laws of nature as decisive or indefeasible evidence against the testimony of any miracle. I explain the basis for each of these interpretations of Hume’s argument, and then develop a novel criticism of his view: namely, any inductive inference depends on the relevant similarity between the observed and the unobserved, but we may have reason for thinking that purported miracles are not relevantly similar, and thus our past experience cannot be used as reliable evidence about the testimony of (some) miracles. (shrink)

This paper is broadly concerned with Deleuze’s distinction between ‚la loi et les lois’ on the one hand, and jurisprudence on the other. Jurisprudence is the␣creative action of legal practice, the process by which it is forced to think constructively and anew. In such circumstances legal thought is akin to Deleuze’s concept of the event. I explore the distinction between law and jurisprudence by way of Deleuze’s comments on control societies, arguing that, under control, law ceases to be a juridical (...) hierarchy conforming to disciplinary modes to become a regulatory practice of interminable modulation. In order to begin to explore the relations and connections between law/jurisprudence and control, the paper will look to the semiotics of C.S. Peirce (who influenced Deleuze’s work on cinema). In particular it will argue that control operates predominantly through icons. As a consequence I argue that the proper ground of the sign, the event, is co-opted and, following from this, that control functions through the confusing of sense and meaning. (shrink)

Metaphysics, Mathematics, and Meaning brings together Nathan Salmon's influential papers on topics in the metaphysics of existence, non-existence, and fiction; modality and its logic; strict identity, including personal identity; numbers and numerical quantifiers; the philosophical significance of Godel's Incompleteness theorems; and semantic content and designation. Including a previously unpublished essay and a helpful new introduction to orient the reader, the volume offers rich and varied sustenance for philosophers and logicians.

Whether intentional suppression of an unpleasant or unwanted memory reduces the ability to recall that memory subsequently is a contested issue in contemporary memory research. Building on findings that similar processes are recruited when individuals remember the past and imagine the future, we measured the effects of thought suppression on memory for imagined future scenarios. Thought suppression reduced the ability to recall emotionally negative scenarios, but not those that were emotionally positive. This finding suggests that intentionally avoiding thoughts about emotionally (...) negative episodes may inhibit representations of those memories, progressively reducing their availability to recall. (shrink)

This paper is on Descartes’ account of modality and, in particular, his account of the necessity of the laws of nature. He famously argues that the necessity of the “eternal truths” of logic and mathematics depends on God’s will. Here I suggest he has the same view about the necessity of the laws of nature. Further, I argue, this is a plausible theory of laws. For philosophers often talk about something being nomologically or physically necessary because of the laws of (...) nature, but this necessity is thought to be metaphysically contingent. However, they struggle to explain how the laws could be genuinely necessary while being metaphysically contingent. The chief advantage of Descartes view, I argue, is that God’s will can plausibly explain both the necessity of the laws and the contingency of the laws. So, Descartes’ theistic account of laws provides a plausible explanation, perhaps the best explanation, of the contingent-necessity of laws of nature. (shrink)

In his recent article, Ben-Moshe offers an account of conscientious objection in terms of the truth of the underlying moral objections, as judged by the standards of an impartial spectator. He seems to advocate for the view that having a valid moral objection to X is the sole criteria for the instantiation of a right to conscientiously object to X, and seems indifferent to the moral status of the prevailing moral attitudes. I argue that the moral status of the prevailing (...) moral attitudes is relevant, and that a good faith disagreement between those who condone the relevant act and those who object to it is a criterion for CO. In this light, I suggest that CO is a sociopolitical device for managing differing ethical perspectives, particularly in the context of collective moral change. Thus, it is misguided to equate having a valid moral objection with the recognition of a CO. (shrink)

This chapter examines the nature of deception and lying by attempting to find an understanding of lying which can make sense of the Earth Kingdom citizens' behavior. It deals with analyzing the concepts of deception and lying, and briefly discusses what makes them such a dangerous and problematic phenomenon. Bald‐faced lies are lies where the liar has no intention of deceiving their audience. Sorensen introduces the idea of bald‐faced lies by giving examples of various statements which citizens of oppressive and (...) totalitarian states are forced to make. Bald‐faced lies are the norm within totalitarian states. These lies undermine the trust which serves as the foundation of the communities, and thus split them further apart. In addition, the more falsehoods there are, the harder it becomes to recognize and believe the truth. In communities in which lying is expected, the truth fails to have meaning. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to explain why Locke thinks religious belief requires evidence and, on his view, what evidence there is for religious belief. I will explain and defend Locke’s view that revelation can provide evidence for religious beliefs so long as there is evidence that God revealed it. Further, I will show how he takes the historical evidence of the miracles of Jesus as justification for belief in Christianity.

In this discussion I shall argue that some fairly widely held views about human habits are mistaken. These misconceptions are important because of the pervasiveness of the habitual in human behavior and because it is the concept of habit that has served as the prototype of various conceptions of conditioned response which are used in psychological explanation. One major task of this analysis is to show that accounts in which actions are explained by reference to rules are not incompatible with (...) accounts in which the same behavior is seen as the product of habit. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, the present study seeks to understand how ethical leaders channel followers’ responses to positive treatment from the organization into a dutiful mindset, resulting in in-role and extra-role performance. Specifically, it examines the influence of perceived organizational support on both followers’ job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, and the mediating effects of duty orientation on such relationships. In addition, it examines whether the mediated effects are contingent on the ethical leadership exhibited by the team leader. Based (...) on multi-source, multi-level data obtained from 233 employees in 60 teams from the Chinese public sector, we found that ethical leadership moderated the mediated relationship between perceived organizational support and follower work behaviors through duty orientation, such that this relationship was stronger in the presence of higher ethical leadership. (shrink)

With few exceptions, the literature on withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment considers the bare fact of withdrawing or withholding to lack any ethical significance. If anything, the professional guidelines on this matter are even more uniform. However, while no small degree of progress has been made toward persuading healthcare professionals to withhold treatments that are unlikely to provide significant benefit, it is clear that a certain level of ambivalence remains with regard to withdrawing treatment. Given that the absence of clinical (...) benefit means treating patients is not only ethically questionable but also taxing on resources that could meet the needs of others, this ambivalence is troubling. Equally, the enduring ambivalence of professionals might be taken to indicate that the issue warrants further attention. In this paper, we review the academic literature on the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding medical treatment. While we are not in outright disagreement with the arguments presented, we suggest that asserting theoretical and decontextualized claims about the ethical equivalence of withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment does not fully illuminate the moral questions associated with the relevant clinical realities. We argue that what is required is a broader perspective, one rooted in an understanding that withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment are different practices, the meanings of which are fully comprehensible only through an appreciation of their place within the practice of healthcare more generally. Such an account suggests that if one is to engage with the inappropriate protraction of life-saving treatment resulting from healthcare professionals’ disinclination to withdraw it, then the differences between these practices should be taken seriously. (shrink)

Charles Carlini interviews Nathan Salmón about the philosophical work of his mentor and friend, the late Saul Kripke, one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th Century.

It is proposed to remove the difficulty of nonitegrability of length in the Weyl geometry by modifying the law of parallel displacement and using “standard” vectors. The field equations are derived from a variational principle slightly different from that of Dirac and involving a parameter σ. For σ=0 one has the electromagnetic field. For σ<0 there is a vector meson field. This could be the electromagnetic field with finite-mass photons, or it could be a meson field providing the “missing mass” (...) of the universe. In cosmological models the two natural gauges are the Einstein gauge and the cosmic gauge. With the latter the universe has a fixed size, but the sizes of small systems decrease with time and their masses and energies increase, thus producing the Hubble effect. The field of a particle in this gauge is investigated, and it leads to an interesting solution of the Einstein equations that raises a question about the Schwarzschild solution. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Locke takes sensitive knowledge (i.e. knowledge from sensation) to be genuine knowledge that material objects exist. Samuel Rickless has recently argued that, for Locke, sensitive knowledge is merely an “assurance”, or a highly probable judgment that falls short of certainty. In reply, I show that Locke sometimes uses “assurance” to describe certain knowledge, and so the use of the term “assurance” to describe sensitive knowledge does not entail that it is less than certain. Further, (...) I show that sensitive knowledge includes the perception of a relation between ideas, and thus it satisfies Locke’s definition of knowledge. He also repeatedly claims that sensitive knowledge is certain. So, despite recent challenges to this interpretation raised in the secondary literature, Locke really does take sensitive knowledge to be certain knowledge. (shrink)

Until recently, Northern Ireland was infamous for having one of the most restrictive legal frameworks for abortion in Europe. This meant that few were performed in the country, and those who wished to terminate a pregnancy were forced to travel to other parts of the UK or further afield. In 2019 a continuing political stalemate in Northern Ireland has indirectly resulted in the relevant legislation recently being repealed by the UK government. For a short time, this meant that the legal (...) position in Northern Ireland regarding abortion became one of the most permissive in Europe. This short paper sets out the current position and, in the light of the political and legislative roadmap set out by the Northern Ireland Office, identifies and briefly discusses some potential problems that might arise. Most notable are the points raised with regard to conscientious objection. Specifically, the potential for developments in Northern Ireland to further calls for healthcare professional’s ability to rely upon conscientious objection to be removed. (shrink)

This paper takes the philosophical notion of suberogatory acts or morally permissible moral mistakes and, via a reinterpretation of a thought experiment from the medical ethics literature, offers an initial demonstration of their relevance to the field of medical ethics. That is, at least in regards to this case, we demonstrate that the concept of morally permissible moral mistakes has a bearing on medical decision-making. We therefore suggest that these concepts may have broader importance for the discourse on medical ethics (...) and should receive fuller consideration by those working the field. The focus of the discussion we present is on a particular thought experiment originally presented by Sulmasy and Sugarman. Their case formed the basis of an exchange about the moral equivalence of withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment. The analysis Sulmasy and Sugarman set out is significant because, contrary to common bioethical opinion, it implies that the difference between withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment holds, rather than lacks, moral significance. Following a brief discussion of rejoinders to Sulmasy and Sugarman’s article, we present a constructive reinterpretation of the thought experiment, one that draws on the idea of suberogatory acts or “morally permissible moral mistakes.” Our analysis, or so we suggest, accounts for the differing moral intuitions that the case prompts. However, it also calls into question the degree to which this thought experiment can be thought of as illustrating the moral equivalence of withdrawing and withholding life-saving treatment. Rather, we conclude that it primarily illuminates something about the ethical parameters of healthcare when family members, particularly parents, are involved in decision-making. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bergson and the Transformations of the Notion of Intuition NATHAN ROTENSTREICH THE CONCEPT "INTUITION",like many other concepts referring to the particular or the singular mode of philosophic cognition, is by no means a univocal concept. In different philosophical systems this concept was given different meanings and directions in accordance with the general trend of the system at stake. We are about to attempt to understand the meaning of (...) the concept of intuition in Bergson's system against the transformations that concept underwent in some major philosophical world-views. Let us observe in the first place: the term 'intuition' derives from the root intu~rL Like several other concepts in the philosophical vocabulary referring to modes of knowledge this term too denotes seeing, a mode of cognition brought about by a direct visual encounter with the world. It belongs to a family of concepts like theoria, speculatio, contemplatio. It is a conjecture that the first use of the term 'intuition' connoting a singular mode of knowledge appears in the mystical literature. The mystic conception stresses the mode of seeing whereby the light is seen; pursuing the Platonic notion, the light of vision makes the very seeing possible. From the mystical literature the concept intuition was absorbed into the philosophical vocabulary.1 Intuition is a mode of knowledge. Yet it conveys a particular ingredient in the sum-total of knowledge, making this mode of knowledge different from other modes. The ingredient conveyed is that of the certainty of the achievement reached by knowledge. From this point of view 'intuition' denotes the position of knowledge in terms of its ultimate consummation, taking consummation as being different from the procedure leading to the final outcome. This component characteristic of 'intuition' is present in Bergson's doctrine, though possibly does not occupy a central place in it. From here we can proceed to the discernment of an additional meaning of 'intuition', a meaning which to some extent seems to be the most common one. 1 Shlomo Pines, translator's Introduction to Maimonides' The Guide oJ the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963),p. Iv. [335] 336 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 'Intuition" is knowledge which takes place directly, without mediation. As such it does not stand in a need of a method, since every method is a way leading to knowledge as well as a wall between the step taken and the final objective of knowledge. A method is essentially a mediation, as a way is a mediation between the point of departure and the destination. Knowledge acquired through a method is thus different from knowledge acquired directly or immediately. We do not confine the notion of method to any particular method, whether experimental or analytic. Any method is reasoning, comparison, verification and a procedure for deriving conclusions. Against these aspects of method intuition is presented precisely as seeing. Seeing is that visual encounter with objects which does not take on a methodical character. It might be preceded by methodological knowledge, but the act of seeing per se is trans-methodical. A close reading of Bergson's text will show that this aspect of intuition again is present in his doctrine, but it is by far not the most prominent aspect of his own rendering of intuition. It can be said in a general way that in different philosophical systems we find a kind of a conjunction of the first meaning of 'intuition' in terms of certainty with the second meaning in terms of directness. Different philosophers in different contexts maintained the view that the unqualified certainty of knowledge can refer only to the ultimate stratum of reality or to God, and that this stratum or God can be known directly. Plato's view (to look to the absolute and eternal) could be a paradigm of this trend. 2 This view re-emerges in Spinoza. The mode of knowledge which is the highest and most certain achievement on the ladder of modes of knowledge, as Spinoza puts it, is true and necessary: "He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived." 3 This mode of knowledge is adequate to its... (shrink)

The standard objection to Locke’s epistemology is that his conception of knowledge inevitably leads to skepticism about external objects. One reason for this complaint is that Locke defines knowledge as the perception of a relation between ideas, but perceiving relations between ideas does not seem like the kind of thing that can give us knowledge that tables and chairs exist. Thus Locke’s general definition of knowledge seems to be woefully inadequate for explaining knowledge of external objects. However, this interpretation and (...) subsequent criticism ignore a special category of knowledge Locke calls “real knowledge”, which is Locke’s own account of how we can have knowledge of the real world. In in this paper I argue that real knowledge of substances requires that, in addition to the perception of a relation between ideas, there be a necessary connection between our ideas and the external objects they represent. It is because Locke thinks there is a necessary connection between these ideas and reality that he thinks the perception of ideas can give us knowledge of the actual world. (shrink)

Understanding individual differences in cognitive performance is an important part of understanding how variations in underlying cognitive processes can result in variations in task performance. However, the exploration of individual differences in the components of the decision process—such as cognitive processing speed, response caution, and motor execution speed—in previous research has been limited. Here, we assess the heritability of the components of the decision process, with heritability having been a common aspect of individual differences research within other areas of cognition. (...) Importantly, a limitation of previous work on cognitive heritability is the underlying assumption that variability in response times solely reflects variability in the speed of cognitive processing. This assumption has been problematic in other domains, due to the confounding effects of caution and motor execution speed on observed response times. We extend a cognitive model of decision‐making to account for relatedness structure in a twin study paradigm. This approach can separately quantify different contributions to the heritability of response time. Using data from the Human Connectome Project, we find strong evidence for the heritability of response caution, and more ambiguous evidence for the heritability of cognitive processing speed and motor execution speed. Our study suggests that the assumption made in previous studies—that the heritability of cognitive ability is based on cognitive processing speed—may be incorrect. More generally, our methodology provides a useful avenue for future research in complex data that aims to analyze cognitive traits across different sources of related data, whether the relation is between people, tasks, experimental phases, or methods of measurement. (shrink)

Do Descartes, Locke, and Hume have an internalist or externalist view of epistemic justification? Internalism is, roughly, the view that a belief that p is justified by a mental state, such as the awareness of evidence. By contrast, externalism is, roughly, the view that a belief that p is justified by facts about the belief-forming process, such as the reliability of the belief-forming process. I argue that they all think that the awareness of evidence is required for justification, but none (...) of them think that the awareness of evidence alone is sufficient for justification. Similarly, I argue that they all think that reliability of the belief-forming process is required for justification, but none of them think reliability alone is sufficient for justification. So, neither a fully internalist position nor a fully externalist position adequately captures their views of justification; rather, both the supporting evidence and the reliability of the belief-forming process explain why we should hold those beliefs, and hence explain why those beliefs are justified. Thus, they each have a partly internalist, partly externalist view of justification. (shrink)

In this essay I consider whether the political perspective of third wave science studies – ‘elective modernism’ – offers a suitable framework for understanding the policy-making contributions that (bio)ethical experts might make. The question arises as a consequence of the fact that I have taken inspiration from the third wave in order to develop an account of (bio)ethical expertise. I offer a précis of this work and a brief summary of elective modernism before considering their relation. The view I set (...) out suggests that elective modernism is a political philosophy and that although its use in relation to the use of scientific expertise in political and policy-making process has implications for the role of (bio)ethical expertise it does not, in the final analysis, provide an account that is appropriate for this latter form of specialist expertise. Nevertheless, it is an informative perspective, and one that can help us make sense of the political uses of (bio)ethical expertise. (shrink)

This paper argues that the inclusion of “fields” in speculative realist ontologies better explains human experience, encourages the inclusion of systems thinking, and avoids some of the unusual conclusions speculative realists currently accept. The paper begins by summarizing the philosophies of Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman, as well as major criticisms of each. Second, it explores the “math as structure” theories of Stewart Shapiro and Michael Resnik, and the ways relativity and quantum physics account for objects. Using these ideas, the (...) paper argues that Meillassoux’s reference to math and Harman’s account of objects are insufficient without including a concept of “fields.” Third, the paper defines a concept of “field” and discusses how it can be applied to speculative realism. Finally, the paper shows how incorporating the concept of “fields” allows speculative realism to answer critics more effectively by showing how transcendental structures are embedded in reality. (shrink)

This essay argues for the philosophical standing of Walter Benjamin’s early work and posits a deeper continuity between this early work as a philosopher and the subsequent development of his work as a writer. When these fragments are read in proper relation to each other, they reveal for the first time many of the key innovations of Benjamin as a philosopher, as well as his points of influence on Horkheimer and Adorno. His early ‘Program’ critiques the Enlightenment conception of experience (...) as a means for gaining empirical knowledge, and announces the need for a new concept of experience. Benjamin follows through on this program with a method of philosophical enquiry that is by turns fragmentary and constellational, developing a series of provisional notions of experience, which form a constellation with one another: perception, mimesis, language as a medium of experience, observation and memory. (shrink)

The alt-right claims it responsibly advocates for its positions while the Ku Klux Klan was “ad-hoc.” This allows them to accept the philosophy of white nationalism while rejecting comparisons with prior white nationalist organizations. I confront this by comparing the methodologies of alt-right trolls and the KKK. After studying each movement’s genesis in pranks done for amusement, I demonstrate that each uses threats to police behavior, encourages comradery around ethnic heritage, and manipulates politics to exclude voices from public deliberation. Differences (...) between alt-right trolls and the KKK originate in the technologies they use, not out of a concern for responsible advocacy. (shrink)