John Wyclif’s rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation has received a considerable amount of attention over the last six centuries. To this day scholars continue to reflect upon it, offering a variety of perspectives on Wyclif’s rationale. This study specifically considers the question in connection with Wyclif’s opposition to the more radical element in the fourteenth-century schools. Vehemently opposed to the reckless application of logical-grammatical methods which had led some to question of the truth of biblical propositions, Wyclif would insist (...) that within Scripture there exist no contradictions; its veracity can never be doubted. And most importantly, Christ himself is truthful; he cannot lie. Hence, when Christ spoke the words «Hoc est corpus meum», he was not positing a deception. (shrink)

SCIENCE CHAPTER I THE CHANGING PATTERN § i THE case presented in this book is not likely to survive criticism in every detail. There never was and there ...

We are constantly called upon to evaluate the evidential weight of testimony, and to balance its deliverances against our own independent thinking. ‘Intellectual autonomy’ is the virtue that is supposed to be displayed by those who engage in cognition in this domain well. I argue that this is at best a misleading label for the virtue, because virtuous cognition in this domain consists in thinking with others, and intelligently responding to testimony. I argue that the existing label supports an excessively (...) individualistic conception of good thinking, both within and outside philosophy. I propose replacing ‘intellectual autonomy’ with ‘intellectual interdependence’, which properly emphasises the depth of our reliance on one another, without suggesting we ought ever to be epistemically servile. (shrink)

How does valuing something for its own sake differ from valuing an entity for the sake of other things? Although numerous answers come to mind, many of them rule out substantive views about what is valuable for its own sake. I therefore seek to provide a more neutral way to distinguish the two valuing attitudes. Drawing from existing accounts of valuing, I argue that the two can be distinguished in terms of a conative-volitional feature. Focusing first on “non-final valuing”—i.e. valuing_ (...) x_ for the sake of something else—I argue that it involves adopting certain reasons on account of a desire for _x_ to contribute to other things. I then show how this contrasts final valuing. The result, I argue, is a plausible account of how the two modes of valuing differ that leaves open substantive views about what all can be valued for its own sake. This is helpful because it develops a popular methodology used to explore the value of a wide range of things, including natural entities, family heirlooms, and artworks, as well as, more broadly, entities that might have “extrinsic final value.”. (shrink)

In The Enterprise of Knowledge, I proposed a general theory of rational choice which I intended as a characterization of a prescriptive theory of ideal rationality. A cardinal tenet of this theory is that assessments of expected value or expected utility in the Bayesian sense may not be representable by a numerical indicator or indeed induce an ordering of feasible options in a context of deliberation. My reasons for taking this position are related to my commitment to the inquiry-oriented approach (...) to human knowledge and valuation favored by the American pragmatists, Charles Peirce and John Dewey. A feature of any acceptable view of inquiry ought to be that during an inquiry points under dispute ought to be kept in suspense pending resolution through inquiry. (shrink)

A number of writers argue that objects can be valuable for their own sakes on account of their extrinsic features. No one has offered an account, though, that shows exactly how or why objects have this sort of value. I seek to provide such an account. I suggest that an object can have final value on account of its relation to someone one loves or admires, where it is one’s warranted love or admiration for the person that renders the related (...) object valuable for its own sake. I identify a feature of love and admiration that shows exactly why this is the case. I then end by suggesting how this account locates a reason to value non-intrinsically good things for their own sakes that avoids a “wrong reason” objection facing alternative views. (shrink)

Regnant public accounts of Jewish sexual ethics—both external and internal—fall short of what they could accomplish. Using a Twitter thread on sexual ethics which falls into some key errors as a case study, I argue that Jewish ethicists are poised to address the thread's errors by offering sources for alternative moral frameworks. I examine how thinking with this Twitter thread can help us clarify what we mean by public scholarship more generally, what is wrong with some common public deployments of (...) specifically Jewish sources, and some implications of this for both Jewish and non‐Jewish publics. I conclude with some reflections about the role of traditional academic venues, such as the Journal of Religious Ethics, within this. (shrink)

Pain sensation in autism spectrum disorder has been a growing research field in the last two decades. Existing pain research has focused on pain sensitivity, suggesting either hyposensitivity or hypersensitivity to pain in individuals with ASD. However, research about other aspects of pain experience is scarce. Moreover, most pain-related research in ASD focused on quantitative measures, such as neuroimaging or parental reports. Instead, this paper aimed to illuminate the various aspects of pain experience as perceived by adults with ASD. Its (...) descriptive qualitative research design incorporated semi-structured interviews and deductive thematic analysis. This phenomenological approach captured the subjective pain experience through the lens of people with ASD. Four primary themes emerged from the data: physical pain experience, including the sequence of pain sensitivity, pain awareness, pain-related emotional aspects, and pain communication; direct and indirect coping strategies; function and participation outcomes; and suggestions for Healthcare Providers. The findings echo the crucial role of pain awareness and communication in the pain experience of people with ASD. These two factors have been reported as profoundly influencing coping strategies, function, and participation. The results emphasize the need to expand the exploration of pain in this population, calling for greater understanding, and listening to this population’s unique pain profiles and experiences to promote better-suited evaluation, diagnosis, and intervention in pain conditions. (shrink)

In this article, I begin developing what I call the genre view of public lands. It holds that public land designations fall into different genres of land management. I focus on one designation in particular—US national monuments created under the Antiquities Act—to develop the view and illustrate its significance. I characterize the national monument genre in terms of two norms stated in the Act and show how they shape public space in distinctive ways. I then illustrate how the genre view (...) opens avenues for evaluating land designations. By way of example, I evaluate national monuments according to aesthetic considerations. I argue that the genre is, perhaps surprisingly, aesthetically vexed and that there is an aesthetic reason for presidents to depart from the original intent and meaning of the Act. This also lends support for some of the most controversial national monuments. Drawing from case law, I then show how aesthetic evaluations may hold legal weight. Such considerations can also influence decisions about whether to protect an area as a monument. In these ways, the genre view offers a framework for philosophers, and particularly aestheticians, to contribute to environmental law and policy. (shrink)

In his Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Ted Porter asks how to account for the prestige and power of quantitative methods in the modern world. His answer involves two theses. One reverses a standard claim by asserting that quantification in basic sciences can often be driven by quantification in more applied areas such as government and business. The second thesis, which I call judgment replacement, asserts that quantification overcomes lack of trust in humans (...) by replacing human judgment in scientific communities and public life. Some aspects of the latter thesis are insightful and convincing. However, as a general claim, the judgment replacement thesis says that quantification and objectivity imply shallowness, superficiality and lack of subtlety. I examine one of Porter's key examples and show that as a general proposition the judgment replacement thesis gives a warped account of governmental decisions that involve a great deal of scientific input, an activity that colleagues and I have called mandated science. I show that Porter obfuscates the very features of mandated science that need the most clarification. The quantitative mentality can be superficial but it can also be complex and profound, and quantification can actually increase human judgment. The virtues of quantitative methods help account for their prestige and power. (shrink)

Aesthetic and historical values are commonly distinguished from each other. Yet there has not been sustained discussion of what, precisely, differs between them. In fact, recent scholarship has focused on various ways in which the two are related. I argue, though, that historical value can differ in an interesting way from aesthetic value and that this difference may have significant implications for environmental preservation. In valuing something for its historical significance, it need not always be the case that there is (...) a reason to want people to experience the entity. Valuing something for its aesthetic merit, by contrast, does imply a reason to want people to experience the entity. I suggest that in virtue of this difference, some historical values may offer better justification for preserving natural environments than do aesthetic considerations. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of the first Critique’s category of totality based on Kant’s analysis of totality in the third Critique’s Analytic of the mathematical sublime. I show, firstly, that in the latter Kant delineates the category of totality — however general it may be — in relation to the essentially singular standpoint of the subject. Despite the fact that sublime and categorial totality have a significantly different scope and function, they do share such a singular baseline. Secondly, I argue (...) that Kant’s note (in the first Critique’s metaphysical deduction) that deriving the category of totality requires a special act of the understanding can be seen as a ‘mark’ of that singular baseline. This way, my aesthetical ‘detour’ has the potential of revealing how the subjective aspects of object-constitution might be accounted for in the very system of the categories (of quantity) itself. (shrink)

Mitcham, Borgmann, and others argue the character of technology is at odds with the character of Christian life. This paper challenges that claim in two moves. First, I examine ways Christian theology has been formed by Roman crucifixion, the printing press, and transoceanic navigation; Christology, biblical studies, and missiology are critically dependent upon technologies that facilitated the death of Jesus, the spread of Protestant literature, and the migration of missionaries. Second, I contend that these technologies shed light on a complicated (...) relationship between the realm of the “sacred” and technologies. Technologies can have the character of being sacred or sacramental. As sacred, technologies fall within the purview of religious devotion like relics or icons. As sacramental, they influence the field of theology, through augmentation or restriction. Thus, technologies can be compatible with Christianity and have a positive effect on religion, expanding the fields of theological reflection and religious devotion. (shrink)

‘Where have you been?’ I expect philosophers to ask me this when I tell them that this paper is on the Gettier Problem. I found it difficult to participate in the discussion of the problem until now because instead of wanting to consider what could be done to revive the project of identifying necessary and conditions for knowledge after the apparent damage done to it by Gettier counter-examples, I wanted to question the legitimacy of the project itself.

Deleuze's Difference and Repetition is a notoriously difficult work of philosophy. Moreover, it is a work of philosophy that has led to quite divergent interpretations. How are we to account for this phenomenon of generating such distinct interpretations and appropriations? In this article, I apply Deleuze's theory of problems, questions and individuation to Deleuze's text as a way of understanding the stylistic strategy of his writing. Given Deleuze's critique of identity and representation, he would fall into a performative contradiction if (...) his writing were designed to transmit an identical thought from sender to receiver such that the receiver then could be said to represent Deleuze's thought. Rather, I argue, Deleuze aims to write ‘machinic’ or ‘productive’ works that lead to the production of something new through the reader's encounter with the work. Not only does Difference and Repetition theorise the process of creative individuation in the production of beings, I contend, but it also forces the reader to undergo a process of creative individuation, through which they produce a non-identical double of the work in the process of their reading that then takes on a life of its own. It is this phenomenon of the book as a machine for producing difference, I contend, that helps to account for the tremendous creative fecundity it has generated in being appropriated by a wide variety of disciplines and practices. (shrink)

There is good evidence that many people harbour attitudes that conflict with those they endorse. In the language of social psychology, they seem to have implicit attitudes that conflict with their explicit beliefs. There has been a great deal of attention paid to the question whether agents like this are responsible for actions caused by their implicit attitudes, but much less to the question whether they can rightly be described as racist in virtue of harbouring them. In this paper, I (...) attempt to answer this question using three different standards, providing by the three dominant kinds of accounts of racism. I argue that on none of these accounts should agents like this be described as racists. However, it would be misleading to say, without qualification, that they are not racists. On none of these accounts are agents like this entirely off the hook. (shrink)

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by training (de Miranda). The second (...) round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

We present a minimal pragmatic restriction on the interpretation of the weights in the “Equal Weight View” regarding peer disagreement and show that the view cannot respect it. Based on this result we argue against the view. The restriction is the following one: if an agent, $$\hbox {i}$$ i, assigns an equal or higher weight to another agent, $$\hbox {j}$$ j,, he must be willing—in exchange for a positive and certain payment—to accept an offer to let a completely rational and (...) sympathetic $$\hbox {j}$$ j choose for him whether to accept a bet with positive expected utility. If $$\hbox {i}$$ i assigns a lower weight to $$\hbox {j}$$ j than to himself, he must not be willing to pay any positive price for letting $$\hbox {j}$$ j choose for him. Respecting the constraint entails, we show, that the impact of disagreement on one’s degree of belief is not independent of what the disagreement is discovered to be. (shrink)

Philosophical tradition and conspiracy theorists converge in suggesting that ordinary people ought to do their own research, rather than accept the word of others. In this paper, I argue that it’s no accident that conspiracy theorists value lay research on expert topics: such research is likely to undermine knowledge, via its effects on truth and justification. Accepting expert testimony is a far more reliable route to truth. Nevertheless, lay research has a range of benefits; in particular, it is likely to (...) lead to greater understanding, even when it does not lead to knowledge. I argue that we can reap most of the genuine benefits of lay research while minimizing the risks by engaging in exploratory, rather than truth-directed, inquiry. To engage in exploratory inquiry is to engage dogmatically, expecting to be unable to confirm the expert view or to disconfirm rivals. (shrink)

Implicit attitudes are mental states that appear sometimes to cause agents to act in ways that conflict with their considered beliefs. Implicit attitudes are usually held to be mere associations between representations. Recently, however, some philosophers have suggested that they are, or are very like, ordinary beliefs: they are apt to feature in properly inferential processing. This claim is important, in part because there is good reason to think that the vocabulary in which we make moral assessments of ourselves and (...) of others is keyed to folk psychological concepts, like ‘belief’, and not to concepts that feature only in scientific psychology: if implicit attitudes are beliefs there is a prima facie case for thinking that they can serve as the basis for particular kinds of moral assessment. In this paper I argue that while implicit attitudes have propositional structure, their sensitivity and responsiveness to other mental representations is too patchy and fragmented for them to properly be considered beliefs. Instead, they are a sui generis kind of mental state, a state I dub patchy endorsements. (shrink)

There is a robust scientific consensus concerning climate change and evolution. But many people reject these expert views, in favour of beliefs that are strongly at variance with the evidence. It is tempting to try to explain these beliefs by reference to ignorance or irrationality, but those who reject the expert view seem often to be no worse informed or any less rational than the majority of those who accept it. It is also tempting to try to explain these beliefs (...) by reference to epistemic overconfidence. However, this kind of overconfidence is apparently ubiquitous, so by itself it cannot explain the difference between those who accept and those who reject expert views. Instead, I will suggest that the difference is in important part explained by differential patterns of epistemic deference, and these patterns, in turn, are explained by the cues that we use to filter testimony. We rely on cues of benevolence and competence to distinguish reliable from unreliable testifiers, but when debates become deeply politicized, asserting a claim may itself constitute signalling lack of reliability. (shrink)

An argument is advanced to show why E-admissibility should be preferred over maximality as a principle of rational choice where rationality is understood as minimal rationality. Consideration is given to the distinction between second best and second worst options in three way choice that is ignored according to maximality. It is shown why the behavior exhibited in addressing the problems posed by Allais (Econometrica 21:503–546, 1952) and by Ellsberg (Q Econ 75:643–669, 1961) do not violate the independence postulate according to (...) minimal rationality. (shrink)

Cases in which we find ourselves irrationally worried about whether we have done something we habitually do are familiar to most people, but they have received surprisingly little attention in the philosophical literature. In this paper, I argue that available accounts designed to explain superficially similar mismatches between agents’ behavior and their beliefs fail to explain these cases. In the kinds of cases which have served as paradigms for extant accounts, contents are poised to drive behavior in a belief-like way. (...) But the contents of these irrational worries are not poised in a belief-like way. Nor do they cause behavior due to a deficit of rational scrutiny. Rather, these representations cause behavior deviantly: by generating anxiety, which in turn motivates actions aimed at assuaging it. (shrink)

I argue that the intellectualist account of knowledge-how, according to which agents have the knowledge-how to \ in virtue of standing in an appropriate relation to a proposition, is only half right. On the composition view defended here, knowledge-how at least typically requires both propositional knowledge and motor representations. Motor representations are not mere dispositions to behavior because they have representational content, and they play a central role in realizing the intelligence in knowledge-how. But since motor representations are not propositional, (...) propositional knowledge is not sufficient for knowledge-how. (shrink)

Public support for responses to the coronavirus pandemic has sharply diverged on partisan lines in many countries, with conservatives tending to oppose lockdowns, social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines, and liberals far more supportive. This polarization may arise from the way in which the attitudes of each side is echoed back to them, especially on social media. In this paper, I argue that echo chambers are not to blame for this polarization, even if they are causally responsible for it. They (...) are not to blame, because belief calibration in an echo chamber is a rational process; moreover, the epistemically constitutive properties of echo chambers are not optional for epistemically social animals like us. There is no special problem of echo chambers; rather, there is a problem of misleading evidence (especially higher-order evidence). Accordingly, we ought to respond to misinformation about COVID neither by attempting to dismantle echo chambers nor by attempting to make people more rational, but rather by attempting to supplant unreliable higher-order evidence with better evidence. (shrink)

A little-known movie by Alfred Hitchcock, Torn Curtain — admittedly not one of his best — tells a story of spying and science. It features a strange scene, where two physicists confront one another on some theoretical question. Their “discussion”, if it may be so called, consists solely in one of them writing some equations on the blackboard, only to have the other angrily grabbing the eraser and wiping out the formulas to write new ones of his own, etc., without (...) ever uttering a single word. This picture of theoretical physics as an aphasic knowledge entirely consisting of mathematical symbols, as common as it may be in popular representations, we know to be wrong, of course, and we have to acknowledge that, far from being mute, we are a very talkative kind; physics is made out of words. What I wish to question here, however, is the very nature of our relationship with language, particularly as concerns quantum theory. My thesis will be that we have been somewhat offhand and rather indifferent with respect to the words we use, or rather without respect for them, and that this attitude has reinforced, and sometimes perhaps even produced some of the persisting epistemological and pedagogical difficulties in our field — not to speak of the new cultural problems that we are facing. (shrink)

The accusation of virtue signalling is typically understood as a serious charge. Those accused usually respond by attempting to show that they are doing no such thing. In this paper, I argue that we ought to embrace the charge, rather than angrily reject it. I argue that this response can draw support from cognitive science, on the one hand, and from social epistemology on the other. I claim that we may appropriately concede that what we are doing is virtue signalling, (...) because virtue signalling is morally appropriate. It neither expresses vices, nor is hypocritical, nor does it degrade the quality of public moral discourse. Signalling our commitment to norms is a central and justifiable function of moral discourse, and the same signals provide evidence that is appropriately taken into account in forming moral beliefs. (shrink)