Journal of Philosophy

ISSN: 0022-362X

41 found

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  1.  66
    Revenge for Alethic Nihilism.Bradley Armour-Garb & James A. Woodbridge - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (12):686-697.
    In "Nothing Is True," Will Gamester defends a form of alethic nihilism that still grants truth-talk a kind of legitimacy: an expressive role that is implemented via a pretense. He argues that this view has all of the strengths of deflationism, while also providing an elegant resolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. For the alethic nihilist, Liar and related sentences are not true, and that is the end of the story. No contradiction arises because it does not thereby (...)
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  2.  86
    How Nudging Upsets Autonomy.David Enoch - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (12):657-685.
    Everyone suspects that nudging offends against the nudged’s autonomy. But it has proved rather difficult to say why. In this paper I offer a new diagnosis of the tension between even the best cases of nudging and the value of autonomy. Relying on the distinction between autonomy as sovereignty and autonomy as non-alienation, I show that nudging need not offend against either. But it does sever the tie between them, it undermines the possibility of achieving non-alienation *in virtue of* having (...)
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  3. Strawsonian Hard Determinism.Scott Hill - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (12):698-710.
    Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility are widely associated with opposition to hard determinism. However, it is only a historical accident that these views are bundled together. I show that Strawson’s deepest commitments are perfectly consistent with, and even support, a new and improved form of hard determinism. I then discuss various ways in which the resulting view is an improvement over extant versions of hard determinism. Among these is its application to Latham and Tierney’s (2022) objection to manipulation arguments.
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  4.  6
    (Competing?) Formulations of Newtonian Gravitation.Kevin Coffey - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (11):628-656.
    It is sometimes said there are two ways of formulating Newtonian gravitation theory. On the first, matter gives rise to a gravitational field deflecting bodies from inertial motion within flat spacetime. On the second, matter’s accelerative effects are encoded in dynamical spacetime structure exhibiting curvature and the field is ‘geometrized away’. Are these accounts of Newtonian gravitation theoretically equivalent? Conventional wisdom within philosophy of physics is that they are, and recently several philosophers have made this claim explicit. In this paper (...)
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  5. Metacognition of Inferential Transitions.Nicholas Shea - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (11):597-627.
    A reasoning process is more than an unfolding causal chain. Although some thoughts cause others in virtue of their contents, paradigmatic cases of personal-level inference involve something more, some appreciation that the conclusion follows from the premises. Both first-order processes and second-order beliefs have proven problematic or inadequate to account for the phenomenon. Thus, here I argue for an intermediate position, according to which an epistemic feeling, a form of procedural metacognition, plays this role. Extensive psychological research has shown that (...)
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  6. Feeling a Beat.Alex Kerr - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (10):537-567.
    When you hear music, you experience a repeating pulse that you naturally tap along to—you feel a beat. But you can feel a beat differently under sounds you hear as otherwise alike. Heard each way, things sound different. But, heard each way, nothing seems to change. So why do things sound different? I argue that, surprisingly, the usual theories of perception have no good answer. I then develop a view on which different ways of feeling a beat are different ways (...)
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  7. Proof That Knowledge Entails Truth.Brent G. Kyle - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (10):568-591.
    Despite recent controversies surrounding the principle that knowledge entails truth (KT), this paper aims to prove that the principle is true. It offers a proof of (KT) in the following sense. It advances a deductively valid argument for (KT), whose premises are, by most lights, obviously true. Moreover, each premise is buttressed by at least two supporting arguments. And finally, all premises and supporting arguments can be rationally accepted by people who don’t already accept (KT).
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  8.  28
    Proof That Knowledge Entails Truth.Brent G. Kyle - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (10):568-591.
    Despite recent controversies surrounding the principle that knowledge entails truth (KT), this paper aims to prove that the principle is true. It offers a proof of (KT) in the following sense. It advances a deductively valid argument for (KT), whose premises are, by most lights, obviously true. Moreover, each premise is buttressed by at least two supporting arguments. And finally, all premises and supporting arguments can be rationally accepted by people who don’t already accept (KT).
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  9.  52
    Gillian K. Russell: Barriers to Entailment: Hume's Law and Other Limits on Logical Consequence.Timothy Williamson - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (10):592-596.
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  10.  43
    Jens Timmermann: Kant's Will at the Crossroads: An Essay on the Failings of Practical Rationality.Lucy Allais - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (9):528-536.
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  11.  8
    How Diverse Can Coincident Things Be?Paul Gorbow - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (9):501-520.
    There is a well-known puzzle in metaphysics about the relationship between a statue and the lump of matter it is made of. The lump of matter could exist without the statue existing, whence they are discernible. Therefore, by the indiscernibility of identicals, they are non-identical. A view that accepts this conclusion needs to explain their relationship of actually coinciding with each other, and it needs to provide a metaphysically coherent account of the ontological diversity of non-identical coincident things. This paper (...)
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  12. A Diversified Approach to Fission Puzzles.Justin Mooney - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (9):481-500.
    I introduce a new approach to fission puzzles called the Diversified Approach that proceeds by distinguishing different kinds of fission and assimilating each kind to a different ordinary phenomenon, such as breaking apart, replication, or part loss. To illustrate this approach, I apply it to the case of amoebic fission. The upshot is a novel account of amoebic fission according to which the dividing amoeba ceases to exist because it breaks apart. After developing this solution and highlighting some of its (...)
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  13.  9
    Derrick Darby: A Realistic Blacktopia: Why We Must Unite to Fight.Ronald R. Sundstrom - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (9):521-527.
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  14. What Is Intimacy?Jasmine Gunkel - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (8):425-456.
    Why is it more violating to grab a stranger’s thigh or stroke their face than it is to grab their forearm? Why is it worse to read someone’s dream journal without permission than it is to read their bird watching field notes? Why are gestation mandates so incredibly intrusive? Intimacy is key to understanding these cases, and to explaining many of our most stringent rights. -/- I present two ways of thinking about intimacy, Relationship-First Accounts and the Intimate Zones Account. (...)
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  15. Doing Otherwise in a Deterministic World.Christian Loew - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (8):457-477.
    An influential version of the Consequence argument, the most famous argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism, goes as follows: For an agent to be able to do otherwise, there has to be a possible world with the same laws and the same past as her actual world in which she does otherwise. However, if the actual world is deterministic, there is no such world. Hence, no agent in a deterministic world can ever do otherwise. In this paper, (...)
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  16.  34
    Necessity and Other-Defense.Linda Eggert - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (7):394-420.
    This paper examines the necessity requirement in cases in which more than one defensive agent could avert the same threat of harm. It argues that the most compelling view of necessity is one that seeks to minimize harms by extending the constraint across agents pursuing the same defensive aim. Whether it is necessary, and to that extent permissible, for one agent to use defensive force may depend on whether another agent is likely to avert the same threat in a less (...)
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  17. Comparativist Theories or Conspiracy Theories?Caspar Jacobs - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (7):365-393.
    Although physical theories routinely posit absolute quantities, such as absolute position or intrinsic mass, it seems that only comparative quantities such as distance and mass ratio are observable. But even if there are in fact only distances and mass ratios, the success of absolutist theories means that the world looks just as if there are absolute positions and intrinsic masses. If comparativism is nevertheless true, there is a sense in which this is a cosmic conspiracy: the comparative quantities satisfy certain (...)
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  18.  74
    (1 other version)The Weight of Suffering.Andreas Mogensen - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (6):335-354.
    How should we weigh suffering against happiness? This paper highlights the existence of an argument from intuitively plausible axiological principles to the striking conclusion that, in comparing different populations, there exists some depth of suffering that cannot be compensated for by any measure of well-being. In addition to a number of structural principles, the argument relies on two key premises. The first is the contrary of the so-called Reverse Repugnant Conclusion. The second is a principle according to which the addition (...)
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  19.  31
    Barbara Herman: The Moral Habitat. [REVIEW]Kate Moran - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (6):355-360.
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  20. 3D in High-D.Theodore Sider - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (6):305-334.
    According to the high-dimensional approach to quantum mechanics (a.k.a. wavefunction realism), the fundamental space of our world has an unfathomably large number of dimensions. This account is empirically adequate only if the three-dimensional manifest image can somehow be recovered from high-dimensional reality. A proper understanding of inter-level metaphysics (a.k.a. metaphysical explanation, grounding, etc.) shows that the manifest image can indeed be recovered, and answers the most concerning objections to high-dimensionalism. But it also shows that high-dimensionalism has disturbing consequences about the (...)
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  21.  67
    Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra: Two Arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles.Paul Audi - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (5):298-303.
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  22. Relevant Alternatives and Missed Clues: Redux.Peter Hawke - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (5):245-276.
    I construe Relevant Alternatives Theory (RAT) as an abstract combination of anti-skepticism and epistemic modesty, then re-evaluate the challenge posed to it by the missed clue counterexamples of Schaffer. The import of this challenge has been underestimated, as Schaffer’s specific argument invites distracting objections. I offer a novel formalization of RAT, accommodating a suitably wide class of concrete theories of knowledge. Then, I introduce ‘abstract missed clue cases’ and prove that every RA theory, as formalized, admits such a case. This (...)
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  23. The Poets of Our Lives.Kenneth Walden - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (5):277-297.
    This article proposes a role for aesthetic judgment in our practical thought. The role is related to those moments when practical reason seems to give out, when it fails to yield a judgment about what to do in the face of a choice we cannot avoid. I argue that these impasses require agents to create, but that not any creativity will do. For we cannot regard a response to one of these problems as arbitrary or capricious if we want to (...)
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  24. Wronging Oneself.Daniel Muñoz & Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (4):181-207.
    When, if ever, do we wrong ourselves? The Self-Other Symmetric answer is: when we do to ourselves what would wrong a consenting other. The standard objection, which has gone unchallenged for decades, is that Symmetry seems to imply that we wrong ourselves in too many cases—where rights are unwaivable, or “self-consent” is lacking. We argue that Symmetry not only survives these would-be counterexamples; it explains and unifies them. The key to Symmetry is not, as critics have supposed, the bizarre claim (...)
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  25.  53
    Credit for Dummies.Shane Ward - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (4):208-228.
    A popular view is that you deserve credit for a successful performance only if you were aware in some way of what you were doing. It has been argued that some such cognitive condition on creditworthy performance must be true because it is the only way to ensure that one’s success is not an accident. In this paper, I argue against cognitive conditions on creditworthy performance: cognitive conditions are false because there are agents who deserve credit for their successful performances (...)
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  26. Wanting Is Not Expected Utility.Tomasz Zyglewicz - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (4):229-244.
    In this paper, I criticize Ethan Jerzak’s view that ‘want’ has only one sense, the mixed expected utility sense. First, I show that his appeals to ‘really’-locutions fail to explain away the counterintuitive predictions of his view. Second, I present a class of cases, which I call “principled indifference” cases, that pose difficulties for any expected utility lexical entry for ‘want’. I argue that in order to account for these cases, one needs to concede that ‘want’ has a sense, according (...)
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  27. Responsibility and Perception.Benjamin Henke - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (3):3-4.
    I argue that beliefs based on irresponsibly formed experiences — whose causes were not appropriately regulated by the subject — are doxastically unjustified. Only this position, I claim, accounts for the higher epistemic standard required of perceptual experts. Section I defends this standard and applies it to a pair of cases in which either an expert umpire or a complete novice judge a force play in baseball. I argue that when the latter, but not the former, fails to follow rules (...)
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  28. Optimization and Beyond.Akshath Jitendranath - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (3):121-146.
    This paper will be concerned with hard choices—that is, choice situations where an agent cannot make a rationally justified choice. Specifically, this paper asks: if an agent cannot optimize in a given situation, are they facing a hard choice? A pair of claims are defended in light of this question. First, situations where an agent cannot optimize because of incompleteness of the binary preference or value relation constitute a hard choice. Second, situations where agents cannot optimize because the binary preference (...)
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  29. The Isaac Levi Prize 2023: Optimization and Beyond.Akshath Jitendranath - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (3):1-2.
    This paper will be concerned with hard choices—that is, choice situations where an agent cannot make a rationally justified choice. Specifically, this paper asks: if an agent cannot optimize in a given situation, are they facing a hard choice? A pair of claims are defended in light of this question. First, situations where an agent cannot optimize because of incompleteness of the binary preference or value relation constitute a hard choice. Second, situations where agents cannot optimize because the binary preference (...)
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  30.  52
    Igor Douven, The Art of Abduction.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (3):175-179.
  31.  49
    Review of Igor Douven, The Art of Abduction. [REVIEW]Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (3):5-6.
  32. Some Neglected Possibilities: A Reply to Teitel.Caspar Jacobs - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (2):108-120.
    The infamous Hole Argument has led philosophers to develop various versions of substantivalism, of which metric essentialism and sophisticated substantivalism are the most popular. In this journal, Trevor Teitel has recently advanced novel arguments against both positions. However, Teitel does not discuss the position of Jeremy Butterfield, which appeals to Lewisian counterpart theory in order to avoid the Hole Argument. In this note I show that the Lewis-Butterfield view is immune to Teitel’s challenges.
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  33. Truthfulness and Sense-Making: Two Modes of Respect for Agency.Jeanette Kennett & Steve Matthews - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (2):61-88.
    According to a Kantian conception truthfulness is characterised as a requirement of respect for the agency of another. In lying we manipulate the other’s rational capacities to achieve ends we know or fear they may not share. This is paradigmatically a failure of respect. In this paper we argue that the importance of truthfulness also lies in significant part in the ways in which it supports our agential need to make sense of the world, other people, and ourselves. Since sense-making (...)
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  34. Many-to-One Intentionalism.Manolo Martínez & Bence Nanay - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (2):89-107.
    Intentionalism is the view that perceptual phenomenology depends on perceptual content. The aim of this paper is to make explicit an ambiguity in usual formulations of intentionalism, and to argue in favor of one way to disambiguate it. It concerns whether perceptual phenomenology depends on the content of one and only one representation (often construed as being identical to a certain perceptual experience), or instead depends on a collection of many different representations throughout the perceptual system. We argue in favor (...)
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  35. Safety, Closure, and Extended Methods.Simon Goldstein & John Hawthorne - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (1):26-54.
    Recent research has identified a tension between the Safety principle that knowledge is belief without risk of error, and the Closure principle that knowledge is preserved by competent deduction. Timothy Williamson reconciles Safety and Closure by proposing that when an agent deduces a conclusion from some premises, the agent’s method for believing the conclusion includes their method for believing each premise. We argue that this theory is untenable because it implies problematically easy epistemic access to one’s methods. Several possible solutions (...)
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  36. Tommie Shelby: The Idea of Prison Abolition.Jennifer Lackey - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (1):55-60.
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  37. Logic as a Science of Patterns?Jaroslav Peregrin - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy 121 (1):5-25.
    I propose that logic may be seen as a science of patterns—however, not in the sense in which mathematics is a science of patterns, but rather in the sense in which physics is. The proposal is that logic identifies, explores, and fixes the inferential patterns which de facto govern our argumentative practices. It can be seen, I argue, as picking up the patterns and working from them toward the state of reflective equilibrium, where the laws it aims at are explicitly (...)
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  38. Revenge for Alethic Nihilism.Bradley Armour-Garb & James A. Woodbridge - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy (12):686-697.
    Note: The paper attached here is a "pre-review" version, not the final version that has now been published online first at the link below. -/- In “Nothing is True,” Will Gamester defends a form of alethic nihilism that still grants truth-talk a kind of legitimacy: an expressive role that is implemented via a pretense. He argues that this view has all of the strengths of deflationism, while also providing an elegant resolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. For the (...)
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  39. Ethics and the Limits of Armchair Sociology.Brendan de Kenessey - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy.
    Contractualism and rule consequentialism both hold that whether a moral principle is true depends on what would happen if it were generally adopted as a basis for conduct. This paper argues that theories with this feature face a profound epistemic problem. The question of what would happen if different moral principles were generally adopted is a complex empirical question, comparable in difficulty to the question of what would happen if a nation adopted different laws, or if humanity had evolved different (...)
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  40. Easy Practical Knowledge.Timothy Kearl & J. Adam Carter - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy.
    We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is "easy" in the sense that, by manifesting one's skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in epistemically hazardous (...)
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  41. Idle Questions.Jens Kipper, Alexander W. Kocurek & Zeynep Soysal - 2024 - Journal of Philosophy.
    In light of the problem of logical omniscience, some scholars have argued that belief is question-sensitive: agents don't simply believe propositions but rather believe answers to questions. Hoek (2022) has recently developed a version of this approach on which a belief state is a "web" of questions and answers. Here, we present several challenges to Hoek's question-sensitive account of belief. First, Hoek's account is prone to very similar logical omniscience problems as those he claims to address. Second, the link between (...)
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