Philosophy Compass

ISSN: 1747-9991

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  1.  58
    Manipulation Cases in Free Will and Moral Responsibility, Part 1: Cases and Arguments.Gabriel De Marco & Taylor W. Cyr - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (12):e70009.
    A common style of argument in the literature on free will and moral responsibility is the Manipulation Argument. These tend to begin with a case of an agent in a deterministic universe who is manipulated, say, via brain surgery, into performing some action. Intuitively, this agent is not responsible for that action. Yet, since there is no relevant difference, with respect to whether an agent is responsible, between the manipulated agent and a typical agent in a deterministic universe, responsibility is (...)
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  2.  44
    Manipulation cases in free will and moral responsibility, part 2: Manipulator-focused responses.Gabriel De Marco & Taylor W. Cyr - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (12):e70008.
    In this paper—Part 2 of 3—we discuss one of the two main types of soft-line responses to manipulation cases, which we refer to as manipulator-focused views. Manipulator-focused views hold, roughly, that the reason that Victim lacks responsibility (or lacks full responsibility) is because of the way the action is related to the Manipulator. First, we introduce these views generally, and then we survey some detailed versions of such views. We then introduce cases of natural forces, often taken to be a (...)
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  3.  10
    Manipulation cases in free will and moral responsibility, part 2: Manipulator‐focused responses.Gabriel De Marco & Taylor W. Cyr - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (12):e70008.
    In this paper—Part 2 of 3—we discuss one of the two main types of soft-line responses to manipulation cases, which we refer to as manipulator-focused views. Manipulator-focused views hold, roughly, that the reason that Victim lacks responsibility (or lacks full responsibility) is because of the way the action is related to the Manipulator. First, we introduce these views generally, and then we survey some detailed versions of such views. We then introduce cases of natural forces, often taken to be a (...)
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  4. Varieties of Aesthetic Autonomy.Irene Martínez Marín - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (12):e70012.
    The concept of autonomy is central to many debates in aesthetics. However, exactly what it means to be autonomous in our aesthetic engagements is somewhat unclear in the philosophical literature. The normative significance of autonomy is also unclear and hotly debated. In this essay, I propose a method for clarifying this elusive concept by distinguishing three distinct senses or varieties of aesthetic autonomy: experiential autonomy, competence-based autonomy, and personal autonomy. On this taxonomy autonomy is a context-sensitive concept and autonomy applies (...)
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  5.  17
    What's so good about bad art?Per Algander - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (11):e70015.
    Some artworks are aesthetically better than others. But can bad artworks have certain merits in virtue of being bad? Can something be so bad that it is good? In this paper I distinguish several interpretations of the question and consider whether contemporary theories of aesthetic value can render such a claim true. I also present a handful of desirable features which a plausible theory of the value of bad art should satisfy.
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  6.  8
    Philosophies of being in India I: Pluralism, nihilism, and monism.Jessica Michelle Frazier - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (11):e70004.
    Is Being a mere sum of separate things variously re-combined over time? Or is it not there at all, arising from nothing more than the projection of a fevered metaphysical imagination? Or might it be the intrawoven phenomenon of all we experience, grounded in a single underlying all-determining nature? This is the first of a pair of articles on the ontological issues that prompted a philosophical fork between pluralism, nihilism, and monism in India. The present article will focus on Indian (...)
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  7.  12
    Epistemic Challenges to Moral Expressivism.Rodrigo Valencia Pacheco - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (11):e70011.
    We ordinarily use epistemic concepts to evaluate our moral views. We know certain things are wrong, we are sometimes uncertain about the morally best thing to do, we think there are rational and irrational ways of reaching moral conclusions, etc. Like most meta ethicists, expressivists aim to explain this; they want to offer accounts of our moral thought, talk, and practice. However, most expressivists think moral thought and talk are fundamentally non-representational or desire-like. Critics have argued that this makes the (...)
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  8.  37
    Epistemic Challenges to Moral Expressivism.Rodrigo Valencia-Pacheco - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (11).
    We ordinarily use epistemic concepts to evaluate our moral views. We know certain things are wrong, we are sometimes uncertain about the morally best thing to do, we think there are rational and irrational ways of reaching moral conclusions, etc. Like most meta ethicists, expressivists aim to explain this; they want to offer accounts of our moral thought, talk, and practice. However, most expressivists think moral thought and talk are fundamentally non-representational or desire-like. Critics have argued that this makes the (...)
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  9. Neo-Conventionalist Accounts of Necessity.Cansu Yüksel - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (11).
    Conventionalism about necessity was deemed hopeless for a long time. The philosophical landscape, however, is shifting now with recent work in modal metaphysics locating the source of necessity in some kind of convention, albeit non-linguistic. Modal neo-conventionalists claim that a proposition is necessary just when it is true and is classified as such as a matter of convention. But what is the function of adopting a convention about necessity? And what are these conventions that distinguish what is possible from what (...)
     
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  10.  14
    Chan Buddhism on the Non‐duality of Practice and Realization.Jacob Bender - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70003.
    This paper introduces readers to the philosophical problems related to Chan Buddhist meditation practices. By looking at the Platform Sutra's teachings of “non-abiding” (wuzhu) and the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist's teachings of being “without seeking” (wuqiu), I illustrate how a major problem that the Chan Buddhists were attempting to deal with was of the dualism between practice and realization. To properly understand the Chan Buddhist attitude towards meditation, we need to see them as critical of a means/ends dualism operating in human (...)
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  11.  60
    Experts—Part II: The Sources of Epistemic Authority.Michel Croce & Maria Baghramian - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70005.
    This paper investigates the topic of epistemic authority from the perspective of the ordinary people facing expert testimony. In particular, two central questions are discussed: how one should respond to expert testimony; and what should one do before expert disagreement.
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  12.  62
    Experts – Part I: What They Are and How to Identify Them.Michel Croce & Maria Baghramian - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e13009.
    This paper investigates the topic of expertise in cognitive domains from a socio-epistemological perspective. In particular, two central questions in the epistemology of expertise are discussed: what an expert is according to extant theories on the market; and how ordinary people can identify an expert in domains in which they have no competence of their own.
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  13.  26
    Responsibility Gaps.Michael Da Silva - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70002.
    Responsibility gaps arise when there is a mismatch between the amount of responsibility that can be attributed to any person or collection of persons on leading accounts of moral responsibility and the amount that robust intuitions suggest should be allocated to someone in a case. Claimed responsibility gaps arise in numerous philosophical debates, including those concerning government, corporate, and other forms of group agency and new technologies and those concerning theoretical issues in the philosophy of responsibility. This work is an (...)
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  14.  36
    God and Time.Natalja Deng - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70007.
    This article introduces the reader to contemporary philosophical research on God and time, without presupposing any familiarity with either philosophy of religion or philosophy of time. To start with, aspects of the topic are compared to some structurally similar ideas in secular philosophical thought about time and ethics. The article then introduces timeless versus temporal conceptions of eternity and discusses positions intending to combine elements of both. There is a brief interlude on relevant background in temporal metaphysics regarding A- and (...)
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  15.  33
    The ideal worlds objection.Benedict Rumbold - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70001.
    The Ideal Worlds objection is an objection that purports to identify a potentially fatal flaw in some of our most influential moral theories: including, among others, rule consequentialism, Kant's Law of Nature Formula of the Categorical Imperative and Scanlonian contractualism. In this article, I offer an account of the objection, a survey of some of the ways defenders of affected theories have sought to avoid it, and the problems that those responses can encounter.
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  16.  15
    Powerful Qualities and the Metaphysics of Properties.Henry Taylor - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (9-10):e70000.
    In debates about the metaphysics of properties, many have claimed that properties are powers. According to the powers view, a property's nature disposes objects to behave in certain ways in response to certain stimuli. For example, the property of fragility disposes objects to smash when a force is applied to them. But how should we understand powers? There has recently been a surge of interest in the powerful qualities view of properties. Other views in the field either claim that properties (...)
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  17.  67
    Conventionalist Accounts of Personal Identity Over Time.David Mark Kovacs - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (8):e13016.
    Conventionalism about personal identity over time is the view that personal identity is in some sense dependent on our beliefs, desires, social practices, or language use (collectively: on our “conventions”). This paper provides an opinionated survey of the state of the art about personal identity conventionalism. First, it offers a taxonomy of possible types of conventionalism along four different axes and discusses weak vs. strong, private vs. public, doxastic vs. non-doxastic, and realizer-relative vs. assessor-relative varieties of conventionalism. Second, it reviews (...)
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  18.  53
    (1 other version)Gratitude: Its Nature and Normativity.Max Lewis - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (8):e13015.
    Gratitude is a pervasive, if often overlooked, aspect of our daily lives. At its core, it is a response to being benefitted. Yet, several philosophical puzzles surround this ostensibly ordinary emotion. This article is an overview of the major philosophical debates concerning gratitude. We start with personal gratitude, i.e., gratitude directed to an agent for something they have done. We consider what personal gratitude consists in. We then consider its normativity, i.e., when it is fitting, owed, a directed duty, or (...)
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  19.  41
    Anti‐Exceptionalism about Logic (Part I): From Naturalism to Anti‐Exceptionalism.Ben Martin & Ole Thomassen Hjortland - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (8):e13014.
    According to anti-exceptionalism about logic (AEL), logic is not as exceptional in terms of its epistemology and subject matter as has been conventionally thought. Whereas logic's epistemology has often been considered distinct from those of the recognised sciences, in virtue of being both non-inferential and a priori, it is in fact neither. Logics are justified on the basis of similar mechanisms of theory-choice as theories in the sciences, and further the sources of evidence which inform these theory choices are (at (...)
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  20.  26
    Agent Causation and Motivating Reasons.Joseph Martinez - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (8):1-11.
    Agent causation, roughly stated, is the view that an agentcan stand in direct causal relation to (at least some subsetof) her actions. Although agent causation has had a patchy reputation throughout much of contemporary analytic philosophy, it is now considered by many to be a viable theoretical option in various domains in action theory. That said, agent‐causalists continue to grapple with a number of important issues. This paper focuses on one such issue—namely, how to integrate motivating reasons into a picture (...)
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  21. Spinoza's Theory of Attributes.Antonio Salgado Borge - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (8):e13013.
    Any account of Spinoza's understanding of attribute must be able to satisfy his definition criterion; that is, it must coherently accommodate the elements involved in his definition of attribute as “what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence” (E1d4). But this is not enough. There are several available readings that satisfy this criterion and are mutually incompatible. To know what Spinoza means we must supplement his definition criterion with a criterion aiming at consistency with other principles in (...)
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  22.  20
    Etiology of injustice: An introduction.Susan Erck - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e12978.
    To formulate a plan of action for bringing about a decisive and reasonably stable end to an injustice, it is helpful to understand the factors and conditions that critically make the difference in causing that injustice. This intuitively seems correct regarding active and ongoing problems. But what precisely is involved in this kind of explanatory endeavor, and what is its role in practical efforts to confront existing wrongs? This paper offers an introduction to etiology of injustice, which is the study (...)
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  23. Causal Models and Metaphysics—Part 2: Interpreting Causal Models.Jennifer McDonald - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e13007.
    This paper addresses the question of what constitutes an apt interpreted model for the purpose of analyzing causation. I first collect universally adopted aptness principles into a basic account, flagging open questions and choice points along the way. I then explore various additional aptness principles that have been proposed in the literature but have not been widely adopted, the motivations behind their proposals, and the concerns with each that stand in the way of universal adoption. I conclude that the remaining (...)
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  24.  51
    Norms of Reasoning.Conor McHugh - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e13008.
    When we reason, we can be assessed against diverse norms. Unfortunately different types of such norms are often conflated. This article distinguishes some different types of norms to which we are subject when we reason, and shows how this can help to clarify certain philosophical debates. It then considers, briefly, ‘norms of starting points’, and, at more length, ‘norms of transitions’. In closing it briefly considers whether we might expect to find a unifying account of the source of these norms, (...)
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  25. Mereological Models of Spacetime Emergence.Jessica Pohlmann - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e13003.
    Recent work in quantum gravity has prompted a re-evaluation of the fundamental nature of spacetime. Spacetime is potentially emergent from non-spatiotemporal entities posited by a theory of quantum gravity. Recent efforts have sought to interpret the relationship between spacetime and the fundamental entities through a mereological framework. These frameworks propose that spacetime can be conceived as either having non-spatiotemporal entities as its constituents or being a constituent part of a non-spatiotemporal structure. I present a roadmap for those interested in exploring (...)
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  26. The Deliberative Constraint on Reasons.Conner Schultz - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (7):e13010.
    Must reasons be able to feature in our deliberation? Proponents of a deliberative constraint on reasons endorse an affirmative answer to this question. Deliberative constraints enjoy broad appeal and have been deployed as premises in support of a variety of controversial philosophical positions. Yet, despite their uses, deliberative constraints have not received systematic philosophical attention. This entry aims to fill this gap in the literature. First, I sketch what's at stake in the debate over whether a deliberative constraint is true. (...)
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  27.  23
    Early modern women philosophers and politics: Accommodating sphere restrictions.Sandrine Bergès - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e13004.
    In his Politics, Aristotle decreed that human beings needed to take part in politics to flourish, but that women, despite being human, needed to stay at home and away from politics. This paper offers an overview of how early modern women philosophers worked to makes their lives more political despite being constricted to the domestic sphere. Lucrezia Marinella argued that the home was like a small city, requiring quasi political skill to run, Cavendish believed that politics should cover the home (...)
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  28. Data Over Dogma: A Brief Introduction to Experimental Philosophy of Religion.Ian M. Church - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):1-13.
    Experimental philosophy of religion is the project of taking the tools and resources of the human sciences—especially psychology and cognitive science—and bringing them to bear on issues within philosophy of religion toward explicit philosophical ends. This paper introduces readers to experimental philosophy of religion. §1 explores the contours of experimental philosophy of religion by contrasting it with a few related fields: the psychology of religion and cognitive science of religion, on the one hand, and natural theology, on the other. §2 (...)
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  29.  48
    Past materials, past minds: The philosophy of cognitive paleoanthropology.Adrian Currie, Anton Killin, Mathilde Lequin, Andra Meneganzin & Ross Pain - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e13001.
    The philosophy of cognitive paleoanthropology involves three related tasks: (1) asking what inferences might be drawn from the paleontological and archaeological records to past cognition, behavior and culture; (2) constructing synthetic accounts of the evolution of distinctive hominin capacities; (3) exploring how results from cognitive paleoanthropology might inform philosophy. We introduce some distinctive cognitive paleoanthropological inferences and discuss their epistemic standing, before considering how attention to the material records and the practice of paleoanthropology can inform and transform philosophical approaches.
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  30. Symmetries and Measurements.Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6).
    According to the orthodox view, one can appeal to the symmetries of a theory in order to show that it is impossible to measure the properties that are not invariant under such symmetries. For example, it is widely believed that the fact that boosts are symmetries of Newtonian mechanics entails that it is impossible to measure states of absolute motion in a Newtonian world (these states vary under boosts). This paper offers an overview of the various ways by which philosophers (...)
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  31.  31
    Kant and Overdemandingness I: The Demandingness of Imperfect Duties.Joe Saunders, Joe Slater & Martin Sticker - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e12998.
    The Overdemandingness Objection maintains that an ethical theory or principle that demands too much should be rejected, or at least moderated. Traditionally, overdemandingness is considered primarily a problem for consequentialist ethical theories. Recently, Kant and Kantian ethics have also become part of the debate. This development helps us better understand both overdemandingness and problems with Kant's ethics. In this, the first of a pair of papers, we introduce the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties as well as a framework for (...)
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  32. The extended evolutionary synthesis: An integrated historical and philosophical examination.Yafeng Shan - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e13002.
    Among biologists and philosophers, there is an ongoing debate over the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Some argue that our current evolutionary biology is in need of (at least) some substantial revision or nontrivial extension, while others maintain that the Modern Synthesis remains the foundational framework for evolutionary biology. It has been widely debated whether the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis provides a more promising framework than the Modern Synthesis. The nature and methodological implications of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis were (...)
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  33.  53
    Transformative Experience.Daniel Villiger - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e13000.
    Since its publication in 2014, L. A. Paul's book Transformative Experience has sparked many discussions in philosophy and beyond. Her main argument is that experiences we have not had before can transform us epistemically (i.e., we learn something we could not learn without the experience) and personally (i.e., our point of view changes radically). This has implications for decision theory in particular, but also for other fields. The present paper provides an overview of how transformative experiences are thought to challenge (...)
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  34.  33
    Which is More Important? Moral Virtue or Life itself?: An Exploration of a Confucian Theme.Sihao Chew - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (5):e12973.
    This paper examines a dilemma within the Confucian tradition wherein one is forced to choose between upholding moral virtue and preserving one's own life. The mainstream view valorises and exalts the act of sacrificing one's life in order to uphold moral virtue. There are many supporters of this view, spanning across different periods, including but not limited to Confucius, Mencius, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, and so on. There is, however, an opposing voice within the Confucian tradition. Wang Gen, a (...)
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  35. Reliability in Machine Learning.Thomas Grote, Konstantin Genin & Emily Sullivan - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (5):e12974.
    Issues of reliability are claiming center-stage in the epistemology of machine learning. This paper unifies different branches in the literature and points to promising research directions, whilst also providing an accessible introduction to key concepts in statistics and machine learning – as far as they are concerned with reliability.
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  36. Rule-Following II: Recent Work and New Puzzles.Indrek Reiland - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (5):e12976.
    ‘Rule-following’ is a name for a cluster of phenomena where we seem both guided and “normatively” constrained by something general in performing particular actions. Understanding the phenomenon is important because of its connection to meaning, representation, and content. This article gives an overview of the philosophical discussion of rule-following with emphasis on Kripke’s skeptical paradox and recent work on possible solutions. Part I of this two-part contribution was devoted to the basic issues from Wittgenstein to Kripke. Part II is about (...)
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  37.  39
    Recent empirical work on religious experience: New directions.Wes Skolits - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (5):e12977.
    Novel developments in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology have spawned a thriving empirical literature on religious experience. Previous literature in the cognitive science of religion has largely ignored empirical results from these fields, focusing narrowly on results from evolutionary psychology. Additionally, it has ignored the epistemological relevance of non-paradigmatic cases of religious experience discussed in the literature from these subspecialties. In this article I submit that philosophical research on religious experience should take empirical work outside of evolutionary psychology as its primary (...)
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  38.  58
    How to be a perspectival pluralist.Olla Solomyak - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (5):e12980.
    The temporal, first-personal, and modal domains in metaphysics involve a range of perspectives on reality: the perspective of the present as opposed to those of other times, the perspective of one's own self as opposed to those of other subjects, and the perspective of the actual world as opposed to those of other possible worlds. In each case, we can ask about the metaphysical standing of these various perspectives with respect to one another: Is one perspective privileged above the rest? (...)
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  39. Causal Models and Metaphysics - Part 1: Using Causal Models.Jennifer McDonald - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (4).
    This paper provides a general introduction to the use of causal models in the metaphysics of causation, specifically structural equation models and directed acyclic graphs. It reviews the formal framework, lays out a method of interpretation capable of representing different underlying metaphysical relations, and describes the use of these models in analyzing causation.
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  40.  72
    Moral Worth.Euan K. H. Metz - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (4).
    The concept of moral worth, of being creditworthy for doing the right thing, is often seen as essential feature of a moral theory. It forces us to provide a clear account of the relationship between moral motivation and moral action, raising important questions about the demands that morality makes of us. Work on moral worth has a long lineage, especially in Kantian scholarship. Recent years, however, have seen a more focused interest in the nature of moral worth outside of the (...)
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  41. Corrective Duties/Corrective Justice.Giulio Fornaroli - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3):e12968.
    In this paper, I assess critically the recent debate on corrective duties across moral and legal philosophy. Two prominent positions have emerged: the Kantian rights-based view (holding that what triggers corrections is a failure to respect others' right to freedom) and the so-called continuity view (correcting means attempting to do what one was supposed to do before). Neither position, I try to show, offers a satisfactory explanation of the ground (why correct?) and content (how to correct?) of corrective duties. In (...)
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  42. Mental Files.Rachel Goodman - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3).
    The so-called ‘mental files theory’ in the philosophy of mind stems from an analogy comparing object-concepts to ‘files’, and the mind to a ‘filing system’. Though this analogy appears in philosophy of mind and language from the 1970s onward, it remains unclear to many how it should be interpreted. The central commitments of the mental files theory therefore also remain unclear. Based on influential uses of the file analogy within philosophy, I elaborate three central explanatory roles for mental files. Next, (...)
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  43.  27
    Symmetries and Representation Forthcoming in Philosophy Compass.Geoffrey Hall & Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3):e12971.
    It is often said in physics that if two models of a theory are related by a symmetry, then the two models provide (or could provide) two different representations of the very same situation, alike the case of two maps of different color for the very same city. It is also said that the situations represented by two models of a theory are indiscernible in some ways when the models in question are related by a symmetry of the theory, just (...)
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  44.  47
    Justice and Housing.Daniel Halliday & Marco Meyer - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3):e12966.
    This article surveys various topics that link questions about housing with considerations of economic justice. Housing has received increasing attention from philosophers within the last decade. In political philosophy, some aspects of a topic attract more attention than others. Presently, philosophical reflection focuses on the value of a home; homelessness; gentrification; segregation; and spatial justice, with a substantial body of literature developing on these interconnected themes. We highlight some of the recent contributions to the field of housing justice while also (...)
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  45.  37
    Teaching & Learning Guide for: Objectionable Commemorations: Ethical and Political Issues.Chong-Ming Lim & Ten-Herng Lai - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3):e12970.
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  46. Imagination as a source of empirical justification.Joshua Myers - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (3):e12969.
    Traditionally, philosophers have been skeptical that the imagination can justify beliefs about the actual world. After all, how could merely imagining something give you any reason to believe that it is true? However, within the past decade or so, a lively debate has emerged over whether the imagination can justify empirical belief and, if so, how. This paper provides a critical overview of the recent literature on the epistemology of imagination and points to avenues for future research.
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  47. Artificial Intelligence: Arguments for Catastrophic Risk.Adam Bales, William D'Alessandro & Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (2):e12964.
    Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...)
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  48.  25
    A Feminist and Decolonial Approach to Kinship: An Ambiguous and Ambivalent Account.Ruthanne Soohee Crapo Kim - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (2):e12961.
    This article briefly traces newer kinship studies at the edges of kinship formations and argues that a feminist, decolonial examination of kinship interrupts cultural relatedness as a capital set of social relations meant to satiate the ache to belong to or progenerate a group. Examining the coordinated relationship between kinning and de-kinning, the author exposes the suffering the social contract fails to register but reinscribes. Central to this analysis is kinship's global colonizing matrix dominated by white-heteronormative ableism that shapes and (...)
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  49. (1 other version)Objectionable Commemorations: Ethical and Political Issues.Chong-Ming Lim & Ten-Herng Lai - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (2):e12963.
    The term, "objectionable commemorations”, refers to a broad category of public artefacts – such as, and especially, memorials, monuments and statues – that are regarded as morally problematic in virtue of what or whom they honour. In this regard, they are a special class of public artefacts that are subject to public contestation. In this paper, we survey the general ethical and political issues on this topic. First, we categorise the arguments on offer in the literature, concerning the objectionable nature (...)
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    What is Philosophy of the Geosciences?Miguel Ohnesorge & Aja Watkins - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (2):e12962.
    The philosophy of the geosciences is an emerging subfield in philosophy of science. Although past and present geoscientific disciplines differ substantially, we argue that they frequently face common epistemological and ethical problems. We survey several of these problems that have already attracted sustained philosophical interest, related to the use of measurements, data, and models to study relatively inaccessible target phenomena, responses to (epistemic) injustices, and the management of epistemic risks.
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  51. Routes to relevance: Philosophies of relevant logics.Shawn Standefer - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (2):e12965.
    Relevant logics are a family of non-classical logics characterized by the behavior of their implication connectives. Unlike some other non-classical logics, such as intuitionistic logic, there are multiple philosophical views motivating relevant logics. Further, different views seem to motivate different logics. In this article, we survey five major views motivating the adoption of relevant logics: Use Criterion, sufficiency, meaning containment, theory construction, and truthmaking. We highlight the philosophical differences as well as the different logics they support. We end with some (...)
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  52. Eight Arguments for First‐Person Realism.David Builes - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12959.
    According to First-Person Realism, one's own first-person perspective on the world is metaphysically privileged in some way. After clarifying First-Person Realism by reference to parallel debates in the metaphysics of modality and time, I survey eight different arguments in favor of First-Person Realism.
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  53. The Ontology and Aesthetics of Genre.Evan Malone - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12958.
    Genres inform our appreciative practices. What it takes for a work to be a good work of comedy is different than what it takes for a work to be a good work of horror, and a failure to recognize this will lead to a failure to appreciate comedies or works of horror particularly well. Likewise, it is not uncommon to hear people say that a film or novel is a good work, but not a good work of x (where x (...)
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  54. Rule-Following I: The Basic Issues.Indrek Reiland - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12900.
    ‘Rule-following’ is a name for a cluster of phenomena where we seem both guided and “normatively” constrained by something general in performing particular actions. Understanding the phenomenon is important because of its connection to meaning, representation, and content. This article gives an overview of the philosophical discussion of rule-following with emphasis on Kripke’s skeptical paradox and recent work on possible solutions. Part I of this two-part contribution is devoted to the basic issues from Wittgenstein to Kripke. Part II will be (...)
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    Proportionality in Causation, Part II: Applications and Challenges.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12960.
    In ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part I: Theories’, I presented various ways of understanding the idea that causes which are ‘proportional’ to their effects are in some sense preferable. In this companion article, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges they face.
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  56. Proportionality in Causation, Part I: Theories.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12957.
    A much-discussed idea in the causation literature is that it is preferable to invoke causes which are proportional to—neither too general nor too specific for—the effect. This article presents various ways of understanding this idea. In what sense are such causal claims ‘preferable’? And what is it for one event to be ‘proportional’ to another? In a companion article, ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part II: Applications and Challenges’, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges (...)
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    Meritocracy in the Political and Economic Spheres.Benjamin Sachs-Cobbe & Alexander Douglas - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12955.
    The idea that our economic institutions should be designed meritocratically is back as a hot topic in western academic circles. At the same time political meritocracy is once again a subject of philosophical discussion, with some Western philosophers embracing epistocracy and Confucianism being revived among Eastern philosophers. This survey has the ambition, first, of putting differing strands of this literature into dialogue with each other: the economic with the political, and the Western with the Eastern. Second, we seek here to (...)
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    Predictive coding I: Introduction.Mark Sprevak - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12950.
    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: (...)
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  59. Varieties of Bias.Gabbrielle M. Johnson - 2024 - Philosophy Compass (7):e13011.
    The concept of bias is pervasive in both popular discourse and empirical theorizing within philosophy, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. This widespread application threatens to render the concept too heterogeneous and unwieldy for systematic investigation. This article explores recent philosophical literature attempting to identify a single theoretical category—termed ‘bias’—that could be unified across different contexts. To achieve this aim, the article provides a comprehensive review of theories of bias that are significant in the fields of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, (...)
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