To date, both sides in the conventionality of simultaneity debate grant that transformations from "standard" to "nonstandard" coordinates are possible without any empirically significant effects. However, it is argued here that the very possibility of defining nonstandard coordinates vanishes if one represents special relativity, not by real four-vectors (as has been the case so far in the debate), but by complex spinors as used in the representation of half-integer spin. Thus, in the topologically simplest representation of the Lorentz group, the (...) transformation over which the debate has been fought does not exist and one of the most basic foundations of the conventionalist thesis is challenged. (shrink)

Is it possible to construct an alternative framework for the description of physical reality that is not based on space and time? According to Kant, because of the incorrigibility of the spatiotemporal scheme, the contents of any such alternative will be beyond our cognitive grasp. Nonetheless, the possibility of constructing such a descriptive scheme poses itself as an intriguing challenge. In this paper, we attempt to answer this challenge by exploiting an analytical tool extensively used by physicists and engineers: the (...) utilisation of multiple representations of the same data using integral transforms – for example, the Fourier transform. According to the spectral picture we propose, frequencies and wavelengths, related to time and space by the Fourier transform, form an adequate alternative basis for describing physical systems, and one that is of equal richness to the spatiotemporal picture. Furthermore, the routine use of Fourier analysis applied to familiar physical systems suggests ways in which sense organs might be constructed such that they naturally give rise to a spectral representation of the world. Although we might never be able to imagine perceiving the world in this way, we can nonetheless describe the contents of such a mode of perception and relate them precisely to our own world-view. Hence, we suggest in a Kantian spirit, that the spatiotemporal description of the world is not unique. (shrink)

Several authors have recently attempted to provide a physicalist analysis of causation by appealing to terms from physics that characterise causal processes. Accounts based on forces, energy/momentum transfer and fundamental interactions have been suggested in the literature. In this paper, I wish to show that the former two are untenable when the effect of enclosed electromagnetic fluxes in quantum theory is considered. Furthermore, I suggest that even in the classical and non-relativistic limits, a theory of fundamental interactions should not be (...) reduced to either a theory of forces or of energy/momentum transfer, but should be understood as a classical account of mutual interactions. Causal links are therefore correctly characterised by generalised potentials. This leads to some speculation regarding the fundamental ontology of interactions and, in particular, the role of the quantum mechanical phase. (shrink)

Is it possible to construct an alternative framework for the description of physical reality that is not based on space and time? According to Kant, because of the incorrigibility of the spatiotemporal scheme, the contents of any such alternative will be beyond our cognitive grasp. Nonetheless, the possibility of constructing such a descriptive scheme poses itself as an intriguing challenge. In this paper, we attempt to answer this challenge by exploiting an analytical tool extensively used by physicists and engineers: the (...) utilisation of multiple representations of the same data using integral transforms – for example, the Fourier transform. According to the “spectral” picture we propose, frequencies and wavelengths, related to time and space by the Fourier transform, form an adequate alternative basis for describing physical systems, and one that is of equal richness to the spatiotemporal picture. Furthermore, the routine use of Fourier analysis applied to familiar physical systems suggests ways in which sense organs might be constructed such that they naturally give rise to a spectral representation of the world. Although we might never be able to imagine perceiving the world in this way, we can nonetheless describe the contents of such a mode of perception and relate them precisely to our own world-view. Hence, we suggest in a Kantian spirit, that the spatiotemporal description of the world is not unique. (shrink)

We analyse aspects of the Big Bang program in modern cosmology, with special focus on the strategies employed by its adherents both in defending the theory against anomalous data and in dismissing rival accounts. We illustrate this by critically examining four aspects of Big Bang cosmology: the interpretation of the cosmic red-shift, the explanation of the cosmic background radiation, the inflation hypothesis and the search for dark matter. We conclude that the Big Bang's dominance of contemporary cosmology is not justified (...) by the degree of experimental support it receives relative to rival theories. (shrink)

Is Bayesian decision theory a panacea for many of the problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science, or is it philosophical snake-oil? For years a debate had been waged amongst specialists regarding the import and legitimacy of this body of theory. Mark Kaplan had written the first accessible and non-technical book to address this controversy. Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision theory does in fact have (...) the most profound consequences for the way in which philosophers think about inquiry, criticism and rational belief. The new variant on Bayesian theory is presented in such a way that a non-specialist will be able to understand it. The book also offers new solutions to some classic paradoxes. It focuses on the intuitive motivations of the Bayesian approach to epistemology and addresses the philosophical worries to which it has given rise. (shrink)

This book analyzes the different ways mathematics is applicable in the physical sciences, and presents a startling thesis--the success of mathematical physics ...

In this clear, concise account, Siderits makes the Buddhist tradition accessible to a Western audience, offering generous selections from the canonical Buddhist texts and providing an engaging, analytical introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhist thought.

What is the relationship between information and representation? Dating back at least to Dretske (1981), an influential answer has been that information is a rung on a ladder that gets one to representation. Representation is information, or representation is information plus some other ingredient. In this paper, I argue that this approach oversimplifies the relationship between information and representation. If one takes current probabilistic models of cognition seriously, information is connected to representation in a new way. It enters as a (...) property of the represented content as well as a property of the vehicles that carry that content. This offers a new, conceptually and logically distinct way in which information and representation are intertwined in cognition. (shrink)

"This work is designed to introduce some of the more important fruits of Indian Buddhist metaphysical theorizing to philosophers with little or no prior knowledge of classical Indian philosophy. It is widely known among non-specialists that Buddhists deny the existence of a self. Less widely appreciated among philosophers currently working in metaphysics is the fact that the Indian Buddhist tradition contains a wealth of material on a broad assortment of other issues that have also been foci of recent debate. Indian (...) Buddhist philosophers have argued for a variety of interesting claims about the nature of the causal relation, about persistence, about abstract objects, about the consequences of presentism, about the prospects for a viable ontological emergentism. They engaged in a spirited debate over illusionism in the philosophy of consciousness. Some espoused global anti-realism while others called its coherence into question. And so on. This work is meant to introduce the views of such major Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti and Nāgārjuna on these and other issues. And it presents their arguments and analyses in a manner meant to make them accessible to students of philosophy who lack specialist knowledge of the Indian tradition. Analytic metaphysicians who are interested in moving beyond the common strategy of appealing to the intuitions of "the folk" should find much of interest here"--. (shrink)

This paper examines the justification for the hypothesis of extended cognition. HEC claims that human cognitive processes can, and often do, extend outside our head to include objects in the environment. HEC has been justified by inference to the best explanation. Both advocates and critics of HEC claim that we can infer the truth value of HEC based on whether HEC makes a positive or negative explanatory contribution to cognitive science. I argue that IBE cannot play this epistemic role. A (...) serious rival to HEC exists with a differing truth value, and this invalidates IBEs for both the truth and the falsity of HEC. Explanatory value to cognitive science is not a guide to the truth value of HEC.Keywords: Extended mind; Extended cognition; Embedded cognition; Externalism; Inference to the best explanation; Functionalism. (shrink)

Predictive coding – sometimes also known as ‘predictive processing’, ‘free energy minimisation’, or ‘prediction error minimisation’ – claims to offer a complete, unified theory of cognition that stretches all the way from cellular biology to phenomenology. However, the exact content of the view, and how it might achieve its ambitions, is not clear. This series of articles examines predictive coding and attempts to identify its key commitments and justification. The present article begins by focusing on possible confounds with predictive coding: (...) claims that are often identified with predictive coding, but which are not predictive coding. These include the idea that the brain employs an efficient scheme for encoding its incoming sensory signals; that perceptual experience is shaped by prior beliefs; that cognition involves minimisation of prediction error; that the brain is a probabilistic inference engine; and that the brain learns and employs a generative model of the world. These ideas have garnered widespread support in modern cognitive neuroscience, but it is important not to conflate them with predictive coding. (shrink)

We present statistical analyses of the large‐scale structure of 3 types of semantic networks: word associations, WordNet, and Roget's Thesaurus. We show that they have a small‐world structure, characterized by sparse connectivity, short average path lengths between words, and strong local clustering. In addition, the distributions of the number of connections follow power laws that indicate a scale‐free pattern of connectivity, with most nodes having relatively few connections joined together through a small number of hubs with many connections. These regularities (...) have also been found in certain other complex natural networks, such as the World Wide Web, but they are not consistent with many conventional models of semantic organization, based on inheritance hierarchies, arbitrarily structured networks, or high‐dimensional vector spaces. We propose that these structures reflect the mechanisms by which semantic networks grow. We describe a simple model for semantic growth, in which each new word or concept is connected to an existing network by differentiating the connectivity pattern of an existing node. This model generates appropriate small‐world statistics and power‐law connectivity distributions, and it also suggests one possible mechanistic basis for the effects of learning history variables (age of acquisition, usage frequency) on behavioral performance in semantic processing tasks. (shrink)

More is known about the pervasiveness of college cheating than reasons why students cheat. This article reports the results of a study that applied the theory of reasoned action and partial least squares methodology to analyze the responses of 144 students to a survey on cheating behavior. Approximately 60% of the business students and 64% of the non-business students admitted to such behavior. Among cheaters, a "desire to get ahead" was the most important motivating factor - a surprising result given (...) the comprehensive set of factors tested in the study. Among non-cheaters, the presence of a "moral anchor" such as an ethical professor was most important. The article also includes a set of important caveats that might limit this study and suggests some avenues for further study. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the growing promise of cultural evolutionary theory as a new approach to bringing human behaviour fully within the broader evolutionary synthesis. This review of two recent seminal works on this topic argues that cultural evolution now holds the potential to bring together fields as disparate as neuroscience and social anthropology within a unified explanatory and ontological framework.

In November 2018 the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) administered the first Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certification examination to 138 candidates, 136 of whom (98.5 percent) passed and were “certified” as “healthcare ethics consultants.” I believe this certification process is both premature and inadequate.Certification for ethics consultants is premature because, as Kornfeld and Prager state repeatedly in their article in this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, “The Clinician as Clinical Ethics Consultant: An Empirical Method of Study,” there (...) is a lack of “empirical data on the nature of the problems that prompt ethics consultation requests and on the functions required to address them.” These authors proceed to provide a model for the kind of empirical data collection that is needed.Even more relevant, the ASBH model that certifies clinical ethics consultants is inadequate. First, it is inappropriate for a nonclinical organization such as the ASBH to claim the right to certify a clinical process, ethics consultation, involving patients and health professionals. Second, the current certification process requires only a written examination in contrast to the two-step quality attestation process proposed in 2013 by Eric Kodish, MD, and 11 other senior members of the ASBH, including its then president.Third and most importantly, the eligibility criteria for being certified to work on hospital units and to make clinical recommendations for patients and families are minimal and insufficient. The only stated requirements are a bachelor’s degree and 400 hours of healthcare ethics consulting experience. By contrast, practicing physicians and nurses train for many years to gain clinical experience that enables them to apply clinical ethical standards in the care and management of all inpatients and outpatients, not just the small percent for whom an ethics consultation is requested. (shrink)

The first part of the essay describes how mathematics, in particular mathematical concepts, are applicable to nature. mathematical constructs have turned out to correspond to physical reality. this correlation between the world and mathematical concepts, it is argued, is a true phenomenon. the second part of this essay argues that the applicability of mathematics to nature is mysterious, in that not only is there no known explanation for the correlation between mathematics and physical reality, but there is a good reason (...) to except no such correlation. it is argued that there is a subjective element in the decision as to what constitutes a mathematical concept. a number of purported solutions to the mystery of the applicability of mathematics to nature are discarded, until we are left with eugene wigner's thesis that we are here confronted with a "miracle that we neither understand nor deserve.". (shrink)

Contrary to many interpreters, I argue that Thomas Aquinas’s account of divine simplicity is compatible with the accounts of divine simplicity given by John Duns Scotus and Gregory Palamas. I synthesize their accounts of divine simplicity in a way that can answer the standard objections to the doctrine of divine simplicity more effectively than any of their individual accounts can. The three objections that I consider here are these: the doctrine of divine simplicity is inconsistent with distinguishing divine attributes, with (...) the doctrine of the Trinity, and with the doctrine of divine freedom. (shrink)

We present statistical analyses of the large‐scale structure of 3 types of semantic networks: word associations, WordNet, and Roget's Thesaurus. We show that they have a small‐world structure, characterized by sparse connectivity, short average path lengths between words, and strong local clustering. In addition, the distributions of the number of connections follow power laws that indicate a scale‐free pattern of connectivity, with most nodes having relatively few connections joined together through a small number of hubs with many connections. These regularities (...) have also been found in certain other complex natural networks, such as the World Wide Web, but they are not consistent with many conventional models of semantic organization, based on inheritance hierarchies, arbitrarily structured networks, or high‐dimensional vector spaces. We propose that these structures reflect the mechanisms by which semantic networks grow. We describe a simple model for semantic growth, in which each new word or concept is connected to an existing network by differentiating the connectivity pattern of an existing node. This model generates appropriate small‐world statistics and power‐law connectivity distributions, and it also suggests one possible mechanistic basis for the effects of learning history variables (age of acquisition, usage frequency) on behavioral performance in semantic processing tasks. (shrink)

Over the past years, a number of probabilistic measures of coherence have been proposed. As shown in the paper, however, many of them do not conform to the intuitition that equivalent testimonies are highly coherent, regardless of their prior probability.

Discussions of the applicability of mathematics in the natural sciences have been flawed by failure to realize that there are multiple senses in which mathematics can be ‘applied’ and, correspondingly, multiple problems that stem from the applicability of mathematics. I discuss semantic, metaphysical, descriptive, and and epistemological problems of mathematical applicability, dwelling on Frege's contribution to the solution of the first two types. As for the remaining problems, I discuss the contributions of Hartry Field and Eugene Wigner. Finally, I argue (...) that there are epistemological problems concerning the applicability of mathematics that nobody in the philosophical community has yet confronted, though the problems are well known to physicists. (shrink)

Michael Devitt has argued that a satisfactory explanation of the authority of linguistic intuitions need not assume that they are derived from tacit knowledge of principles of grammar. Devitt’s Modest Explanation is based on a controversial construal of linguistic intuitions as meta-linguistic central-processor judgements. I will argue that there are non-judgemental responses to linguistic strings, linguistic seemings, which are evidence for linguistic theories. Devitt cannot account for their epistemic authority. This spoils his ‘modest explanation’. Devitt’s opponent, the Voice of Competence (...) View, is back in business. (shrink)

This collection features 10 essays on a variety of topics in Kant's ethics. Part 1 addresses questions about the interpretation and justification of the categorical imperative. Part 2 is concerned with the doctrine of virtue, while part 3 delves into various issues pertaining to Kant's moral psychology of evil.

This paper shows how reflection on habit leads in nineteenth-century French philosophy to Henri Bergson’s idea of duration in 1888 as a non-quantifiable dimension irreducible to time as measured by clocks. Historically, I show how Albert Lemoine’s 1875 L’habitude et l’instinct was crucial, since he holds – in a way that is both Ravaissonian and Bergsonian avant la lettre – that for the being capable of habit, the three elements of time are fused together. For that habituated being, Lemoine claims, (...) it is not true to say that the past is no longer, nor even that the future is not yet. This historical link between Ravaisson and Bergson, however, only sharpens the philosophical question of how a dynamic conception of habit involves and requires a conception of real duration, of a temporality more original than clock-time, and, conversely, of how reflection on duration prior to clock-time involves a notion of habit. With reference to the work of Gilles Deleuze, the paper concludes by showing that there is an internal connection between these two grand philosophical themes of nineteenth- and then twentieth-century French thought: habit and time. (shrink)

A study of the philosophy and theology of the spiritual life that takes religious sensibility or the practice of religious life, rather simply creedal commitment, as a starting point.

Common sense takes the physical world to be populated by mind-independent particulars. Why and with what right do we hold this view? Early phenomenologists argue that the common sense view is our natural starting point because we experience objects as mind-independent. While it seems unsurprising that one can perceive an object being red or square, the claim that one can experience an object as mind-independent is controversial. In this paper I will articulate and defend the claim that we can experience (...) mind-independence by mainly drawing on the work of the Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker who, in turn, built on Husserl’s work. In the development of this claim the notion of a limit – either a maximum or minimum – of perception will play an important role. (shrink)

According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong results; but with the provisos in place, it is (...) of no use for Frege’s purposes. This is connected to what Frege took to be the ‘greatest difficulty for philosophy’: natural language sentences don’t just express thoughts; they convey evaluations and communicative hints. Because of this, Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts cannot be applied to them and we cannot make logical progress by ‘recognising a thought in different linguistic guises’. (shrink)

Moritz Schlick’s work shaped Logical Empiricism and thereby an important part of philosophy in the first half of the 20th century. A continuous thread that runs through his work is a philosophical diagnosis of the ‘great errors in philosophy’: philosophers assume that there is intuitive knowledge/knowledge by acquaintance. Yet acquaintance, it is not knowledge, but an evaluative attitude. In this paper I will reconstruct Schlick’s arguments for this conclusion in the light of his early practical philosophy and his reading of (...) Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea. Having the historical roots of Schlick’s position in view will put us in a position to explore and question its presuppositions. (shrink)

Common sense takes the physical world to be populated by mind-independent particulars. Why and with what right do we hold this view? Early phenomenologists argue that the common sense view is our natural starting point because we experience objects as mind-independent. While it seems unsurprising that one can perceive an object being red or square, the claim that one can experience an object as mind-independent is controversial. In this paper I will articulate and defend the claim that we can experience (...) mind-independence by mainly drawing on the work of the Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker who, in turn, built on Husserl’s work. In the development of this claim the notion of a limit – either a maximum or minimum – of perception will play an important role. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schopenhauer's Pessimism and the Unconditioned Good MARK MIGOTTI SCHOPENHAUERTOOK PESSIMISMtO be a profound doctrine that had long been accepted by the majority of humanity, albeit usually in the allegorical form given to it by one or another religious creed. Accordingly, he credited himself, not with the discovery of pessimism, but with the provision of a satisfactory philosophical exposition and defense of its claims. It was, he contended, only (...) within the context of his philosophy, animated by the "single thought" that "the world is the self-knowledge of the will,"' that the ultimate significance of pessimism and the arguments demonstrating its inescapability can be brought to light. If, nevertheless, he sometimes appears to protest too much, to defend pessimism as if it were a striking and novel affair, he would have attributed this to the fact that he was, unfortunately, writing in the midst of one of the most naively optimistic cultures known to world history. 2 The philosophical reception of Schopenhauer's pessimism since the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818 would, one suspects, have been taken by him as further evidence of modern Western philosophy's optimistic somnambulance. For while other, comparably fundamental aspects of his thought--for example, his theories of action, of the self, and his criticisms of Kant--have received a welcome amount of fruitful, critical attention, his I would like to thank John Atwell, David Schmidtz, Susan Haack, Rudolf Makkreel and, especially,two anonymous referees, for prompting me to make substantial improvements to an earlier draft of this paper. ' Arthur Schopenhauer, Der handschrifllicher Nachlass 1, ed. Arthur Hiibscher (Frankfurt-amMain : Kramer, 1967),462; Manuscript Remains 1, trans. E. F.J. Payne(NewYork: Berg Publishing, 1988), 512. 'See, for example, Arthur Schopenhauer, D/e Welt als Wille und VorsteUung II. In Arthur Schopenhauer. Ziircher Ausgabe, ed. Arthur Hiibscher et. al. (Zurich: DiogenesVerlag, 1977),w 4:721, 732-33; The World as Will and Representation II, trans. E. F. J. Payne(New York: Dover Press, 1969),615, 625-26. Future references to this work willbe made within the text, by the abbreviation WW followed by section number, German edition volume and page number and English translation page number. [643] 644 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 pessimism has not. Amongst enthusiastic followers it has sometimes been swallowed more or less whole, but from more independent-minded readers it has generally met with disdainful mockery or well-intentioned neglect.3 The aim of this paper is to help rectify' this imbalance. In the first of its four sections, I present an account of Schopenhauerian pessimism that can claim a good measure of textual support, and the essential features of which are found often enough in the secondary literature to warrant calling it the mainstream interpretation.4 In section 2 I show that, as critics have charged, the arguments for pessimism on this interpretation suffer from a pair of fatal ambiguities, and in section 3 I sketch an alternative argument for pessimism, one not so obviously open to the sort of knock-down refutation to which the first argument succumbs. In the paper's final section l explore further the philosophical consequences of this alternative argument for pessimism. 3Gyorg'yLukacs, "Schopenhauer," chapter ~,section 4 of The Destruction of Reason, trans. Peter Palmer (London: Merlin Press, 1979), 19~-243, isthe locusclassicusof an attitude of superior scorn. Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford: "the Clarendon Press, 1983), z3-14, D. W. Hamlyn, Schopentmuer (London: Routledge, z98o), *43, Michael Fox, "Schopenhauer on Death, Suicide, and Renunciation." in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, ed. Michael Fox (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 198o), ]47-7o, and David Cartwrigh*, "Schopenhauer on Suffering, Death, Guilt, and the Consolation of Metaphysics,"in Schopenhauer: New Essays in Hotwr ofHis 2ooth Birthday, ed. Eric yon der Luft (Lewiston,NY: Edwin Mellen Press, t988), 66, all incline to the viewthat it was temperament, not argument, that drove Schopenhauer to pessimism, while Patrick Gardiner, Schopenhatwr (London: Penguin Books, ]963), does not discuss pessimism by name. Not even Nietzsche, the deepest and most astute of Schopenhauer'scritics,can resistbarbs of the following sort: "Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, in ]act played the flute... (shrink)

The paper presents an account of the concept of existence that is based on Brentano’s work. In contrast to Frege and Russell, Brentano took ‘exists’ to express a that subsumes objects and explained it with recourse to the non-propositional attitude of acknowledgment. I argue that the core of Brentano’s view can be developed to a defensible alternative to the Frege-Russell view of existence.

According to Frege, neither demonstratives nor indexicals are singular terms; only a demonstrative together with ‘circumstances accompanying its utterance’ has sense and singular reference. While this view seems defensible for demonstratives, where demonstrations serve as non-verbal signs, indexicals, especially pure indexicals like ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’, seem not to be in need of completion by circumstances of utterance. In this paper I argue on the basis of independent reasons that indexicals are in fact in need of completion; I identify the (...) completers as uses of circumstances of utterance by the speaker; and I show how these uses together with the utterance of indexical sentences express thoughts. The starting point of the paper is a criticism of Kripke’s and Künne’s alternative treatment of indexicals in Frege’s framework. (shrink)

While all phenomenologists aim to grasp the “things themselves,” they disagree about the best method for doing this and about what the “things themselves” are. Many metaphysicians, especially Catholic realists, reject phenomenology altogether. I show that many phenomenological methods are useful for reaching the goals of both phenomenology and realist metaphysics. First, I present a history of phenomenological methods, including those used by Scheler, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Marion, Kearney, Rocha, and others. Next, I consider two sets of challenges raised to (...) some of these methods. Finally, I outline how to join these methods with each other and with the methods of realist metaphysics, ultimately arriving at an aesthetic method, inspired by the work of von Balthasar, for considering fundamental phenomena. (shrink)

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein, despite his official 'mathematical nonrevisionism', slips into attempting to refute Gödel's theorem. Actually, Wittgenstein could have used Gödel's theorem to good effect, to support his view that proof, and even truth, are 'family resemblance' concepts. The reason that Wittgenstein did not see all this is that Gödel's theorem had become an icon of mathematical realism, and he was blinded by his own ideology. The essay is a reply to Juliet Floyd's work on Gödel: (...) what she says Wittgenstein said, I say he should have said, but didn't (couldn't). (shrink)

One strategy Mādhyamikas use to support their claim that nothing has intrinsic nature (svabhāva) is to argue that things with intrinsic nature could not enter into causal relations. But it is not clear that there is a good Madhyamaka argument against ultimate causation that understands causation in ‘Humean’ terms and understands dharmas as tropes. After exploring the rationale behind the intrinsic-nature criterion of dharma-hood, I survey the arguments Mādhyamikas actually give for their claim that anything dependently originated must be devoid (...) of intrinsic nature, and suggest that none actually succeeds in ruling out this hypothesis about how ultimate causation might work. (shrink)

An effective method is a computational method that might, in principle, be executed by a human. In this paper, I argue that there are methods for computing that are not effective methods. The examples I consider are taken primarily from quantum computing, but these are only meant to be illustrative of a much wider class. Quantum inference and quantum parallelism involve steps that might be implemented in multiple physical systems, but cannot be implemented, or at least not at will, by (...) an idealised human. Recognising that not all computational methods are effective methods is important for at least two reasons. First, it is needed to correctly state the results of Turing and other founders of computation theory. Turing is sometimes said to have offered a replacement for the informal notion of an effective method with the formal notion of a Turing machine. I argue that such a view only holds under limited circumstances. Second, not distinguishing between computational methods and effective methods can lead to mistakes when quantifying over the class of all possible computational methods. Such quantification is common in philosophy of mind in the context of thought experiments that explore the limits of computational functionalism. I argue that these ‘homuncular’ thought experiments should not be treated as valid. (shrink)

As the average age of the population increases, so too do the number of people living with chronic illnesses. With limited resources available, the development of dialogue-based e-health systems that provide justified general health advice offers a cost-effective solution to the management of chronic conditions. It is however imperative that such systems are responsible in their approach. We present in this paper two main challenges for the deployment of e-health systems, that have a particular relevance to dialogue and argumentation: collecting (...) and handling health data, and trust. For both challenges, we look at specific issues therein, outlining their importance in general, and describing their relevance to dialogue and argumentation. Finally, we go on to propose six recommendations for handling these issues, towards addressing the main challenges themselves, that act both as general advice for dialogue and argumentation research in the e-health domain, and as a foundation for future work on this topic. (shrink)

With respect to the several giants of post-Kantian German philosophy – Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche – developments elsewhere in Europe have often seemed to pale into insignific...