Plagiarism is one of the most severe academic integrity issues. This study examined students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards plagiarism, tested their ability to recognize plagiarism, and explored the association of study levels and attendance in courses dealing with referencing rules and plagiarism with students’ attitudes and knowledge. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted at the University of Split, comprising the students of all schools and study levels. Overall, results indicate the students were not very familiar with referencing rules and (...) did not perform well on either theoretical questions or practical examples. However, they demonstrated positive attitudes towards plagiarism avoidance as well as towards compliance with academic integrity with respect to the correct use of research publications. Students’ self-reported attendance in courses dealing with referencing rules and plagiarism avoidance was not associated with their knowledge of and attitudes toward plagiarism. These findings are important for a general understanding of students’ attitudes, and the relation of practical and theoretical knowledge of plagiarism. Furthermore, the academic community addresses plagiarism not only as an ethical and regulatory violation but also as a direct consequence of a lack of knowledge, and of academic illiteracy. Study programs should be adjusted and long-term policies developed at all academic levels to promote a positive climate among students towards responsible academic writing. (shrink)

The issue of the policy of multiculturalism toward ethno-cultural minorities in contemporary Serbia has been reviewed within the project Regional and European Aspects of Integrative Processes in Serbia held by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. The aim of this paper is directed toward examination of theoretical and empirical problems regarding the phenomenon of multiculturalism. In spite of the fact that multiculturalism is one of the striking characteristics of modern life in Serbia our social sciences pay a little attention (...) to this topic. Ethnicity as an important part of multicultural discourse is based on nonscientific knowledge and in this manner it presents basis for policy and practice for the protection of rights of minorities in the country. Problem politike multikulturalnosti prema etno-kulturnim manjinama u savremenoj Srbiji autor razmatra u okviru projekta Instituta za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju "Regionalni i evropski aspekti integrativnih procesa u Srbiji: civilizacijske pretpostavke, stvarnost i izgledi za buducnost". Cilj rada na ovoj temi je usmeren ka razmatranju teorijskih i empirijskih problema u vezi sa fenomenom multikulturalnosti. Uprkos tome sto je multikulturalnost jedna od upecatljivijih karakteristika drustvenog zivota u Srbiji, u nasim drustvenim naukama malo paznje se posvecuje proucavanju ovog fenomena. Stavise, na neutemeljenim saznanjima o etnicitetu kao bitnom delu multikulturalnog diskursa eklekticki je osmisljena politika i konstruisana praksa zastite manjinskih prava u zemlji. (shrink)

The paper discusses the challenges faced by the theoretical thought and practice in Europe concerning the politics of. Though multiculturalism is a complex phenomenon assuming that many social diversities should be brought into accord, in the practice of the Central and Southeast European states it is reduced to the identification of the identities and the recognition of the ethno-cultural minorities' rights. In these regions the politics of multiculturalism meets the resistance of the majority as well as the barriers that slow (...) down their social development. The antagonists of multiculturalism find their allies in conservative though real opinions of the intellectuals and politicians in the West who are afraid that a too fast expansion of the European Union may jeopardize its economic development and disturb even more its political stability. U radu se razmatraju izazovi sa kojima se suocavaju teorijska misao i praksa u Evropi, u vezi sa politikom multikulturalnosti. Iako je multikulturalizam slozen fenomen koji podrazumeva uskladjivanje mnogih drustvenih razlicitosti u praksi drzava u Centralnoj i Jugoistocnoj Evropi on je redukovan na prepoznavanje identiteta i priznavanje prava etno-kulturnih manjina. U ovim regionima politika multikulturalnosti nailazi na otpor vecine i prepreke koje usporavaju njihov drustveni razvoj. Saveznike, neprijatelji multikulturalizma, nalaze u konzervativnim, ali aktuelnim misljenjima intelektualaca i politicara na Zapadu koji strahuju da ce prebrzo prosirenje Evropske unije ugroziti njen ekonomski razvoj i jos vise uzdrmati politicku stabilnost. (shrink)

Politike multikulturalnosti nisu tekovina moderne i liberalne drzave, kako se to u javnosti najcesce zakljucuje. Sa problemom "kontrole" multikulturalnosti suocavale su se istorijske imperije, drzave "stare" demokratije, kolonijalna i imigrantska drustva, a nakon eksperimenta sa komunizmom i istocno evropske drzave. Modeli politike multikulturalnosti su brojni i zavise od politickih drustvenih i kulturnih prilika u razlicitim delovima sveta, a cesto susedne drzave bliskih kultura razvijaju razlicite politike multikulturalnosti. U radu se razmatraju istorijska i savremena iskustva u vezi sa politikama multikulturalnosti, a (...) u poslednjem odeljku razmatraju se uslovi u kojima savremena Srbija odgovara na zahteve i izazove sopstvene multikulturalnosti. (shrink)

Critical examination of Alchourrón and Bulygin’s set-theoretic definition of normative system shows that deductive closure is not an inevitable property. Following von Wright’s conjecture that axioms of standard deontic logic describe perfection-properties of a norm-set, a translation algorithm from the modal to the set-theoretic language is introduced. The translations reveal that the plausibility of metanormative principles rests on different grounds. Using a methodological approach that distinguishes the actor roles in a norm governed interaction, it has been shown that metanormative principles (...) are directed second-order obligations and, in particular, that the requirement related to deductive closure is directed to the norm-applier role rather than to the norm-giver role. The approach has been applied to the case of pure derogation yielding a new result, namely, that an independence property is a perfection-property of a norm-set in view of possible derogation. This paper in a polemical way touches upon several points raised by Kristan in his recent paper. (shrink)

Kritičko čitanje Alchourrónove i Bulyginove skupovnoteorijske defnicije normativnoga sustava pokazuje da njegova deduktivna zatvorenost nije neizbježno svojstvo. Slijedeći von Wrightovu pretpostavku da aksiomi standardne deontične logike opisuju svojstva savršenoga normativnog sustava, uvodi se algoritam za prevođenje iz modalnoga u skupovnoteorijski jezik. Prijevod nam otkriva da plauzibilnost pojedinih metanormativnih načela leži na različitim osnovama. Koristeći se metodološkim pristupom koji prepoznaje različite aktere u normama upravljanome međudjelovanju, pokazuje se da su metanormativna načela obveze drugoga reda upućene različitim ulogama. Poseban slučaj jest zahtjev (...) koji se odnosi na deduktivnu zatvorenost jer se pokazuje da je upućen ulozi koja primjenjuje, a ne onoj koja izdaje norme. Pristup je primijenjen i na slučaj čiste derogacije, što dovodi do novoga rezultata; svojstvo neovisnosti biva svojstvom savršenoga normativnog sustava u odnosu na moguću derogaciju. Ovaj članak na polemički način dodiruje nekoliko točaka iznesenih u Kristanovome nedavnom članku. (shrink)

An extended argument that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. -/- Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some forms (...) of cognition have content while others—the most elementary ones—do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. -/- Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless—fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account of cognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix. (shrink)

The idea of basic action is a fixed point in the contemporary investigation of the nature of action. And while there are arguments aimed at putting the idea in place, it is meant to be closer to a gift of common sense than to a hard-won achievement of philosophical reflection. It first appears at the stage of innocuous description and before the announcement of philosophical positions. And yet, as any decent magician knows, the real work so often gets done in (...) the set-up. I argue that the seemingly innocent idea of basic action is, in fact, bound up with a wide-spread conception of the nature of bodily or physical action (section 3). Its legitimacy is vital to the intelligibility of the causal theory of action, according to which physical action consists of a mere event and a condition of mind joined (in the right way) by the bond of causality. Left unchecked, means-end reason threatens to permeate physical action, and thus threatens the sovereignty of the sphere of material events at the center of the causal theory: such events, including the movements of one’s body when one intentionally moves it, are thought to be constitutively independent of the subject’s rational capacities. Basic action is a necessary countermeasure, a sort of metaphysical containment wall needed to preserve the separate jurisdictions of the mind of the acting subject and what merely happens. I argue that so long as action theory proceeds under the assumption that there must be basic action, it must regard our relation to the progress of our own deeds as not different in principle from Marx’s understanding of the relation of the non-worker (Nichtarbeiter) to the material processes that realize his own ideas, namely the work done on the factory floor. Each is alienated from the progress, or getting done, of his deeds. In each the process of doing something intentionally turns out to be a case of delegating tasks to another power. How the process comes to completion is not willed, and at best watched: the causal work is not the agent’s work, his knowledge not self-knowledge (section 5). We should find this unacceptable. And if this is right, it should be a pressing question whether there must be basic action. I argue that we have no good reason to think so: basic action is not forced on us by argument (sections 2 and 4). It is open to us to consider an alternative, one on which action is not, in the fundamental case, barren of means- end structure, but instead permeated by it: we register as a force in nature not at the limit of the means-end order but precisely in its constitution. [from article introduction]. (shrink)

According to the so-called Classical Theory, concepts are mentally represented by individually necessary and jointly sufficient application conditions. One of the principal empirical objections against this view stems from evidence that people judge some instances of a concept to be more typical than others. In this paper we present and discuss four empirical studies that investigate the extent to which this ‘typicality effect’ holds for the concept of basic needs. Through multiple operationalizations of typicality, our studies yielded evidence for a (...) strong effect of this kind: Participants tended to recall the same core examples of the concept in a free-listing task. They judged some basic needs to be more typical than others. The items that were judged to be more typical were listed more frequently in the free-listing task. These items were listed earlier on in the free-listing task. Typical basic needs, as well as non needs, were classified faster than atypical basic needs in a reaction time study. These findings suggest that the concept of basic needs may have a non-classical structure. If so, the quest for a simple and robust intensional analysis of the concept may be futile. (shrink)

Over a century ago, William James outlined the first psychological constructionist model of emotion, arguing that emotions are phenomena constructed of more basic psychological parts. In this article, I outline a modern psychological constructionist model of emotion. I first explore the history of psychological construction to demonstrate that psychological constructionist models have historically emerged in an attempt to explain variability in emotion that cannot be accounted for by other approaches. I next discuss the modern psychological constructionist model of emotion that (...) I take in my own research, outlining its hypotheses, existing empirical support, and areas of future research. I conclude by arguing that psychological constructionist models can help scientists better understand the human mind. (shrink)

This book fills a long standing need for a basic introduction to Cognitive Grammar that is current, authoritative, comprehensive, and approachable. It presents a synthesis that draws together and refines the descriptive and theoretical notions developed in this framework over the course of three decades. In a unified manner, it accommodates both the conceptual and the social-interactive basis of linguistic structure, as well as the need for both functional explanation and explicit structural description. Starting with the fundamentals, essential aspects of (...) the theory are systematically laid out with concrete illustrations and careful discussion of their rationale. Among the topics surveyed are conceptual semantics, grammatical classes, grammatical constructions, the lexicon-grammar continuum characterized as assemblies of symbolic structures, and the usage-based account of productivity, restrictions, and well-formedness. The theory's central claim - that grammar is inherently meaningful - is thereby shown to be viable. The framework is further elucidated through application to nominal structure, clause structure, and complex sentences. These are examined in broad perspective, with exemplification from English and numerous other languages. In line with the theory's general principles, they are discussed not only in terms of their structural characterization, but also their conceptual value and functional motivation. Other matters explored include discourse, the temporal dimension of language structure, and what grammar reveals about cognitive processes and the construction of our mental world. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is often understood in terms of the pursuit for well-characterized biological parts to create synthetic wholes. Accordingly, it has typically been conceived of as an engineering dominated and application oriented field. We argue that the relationship of synthetic biology to engineering is far more nuanced than that and involves a sophisticated epistemic dimension, as shown by the recent practice of synthetic modeling. Synthetic models are engineered genetic networks that are implanted in a natural cell environment. Their construction is (...) typically combined with experiments on model organisms as well as mathematical modeling and simulation. What is especially interesting about this combinational modeling practice is that, apart from greater integration between these different epistemic activities, it has also led to the questioning of some central assumptions and notions on which synthetic biology is based. As a result synthetic biology is in the process of becoming more “biology inspired.”. (shrink)

States cannot legitimately enforce their borders against migrants if dominant conceptions of sovereignty inform enforcement because these conceptions undermine sufficient respect for migrants’ basic human rights. Instead, such conceptions lead states to assert total control over outsiders’ potential cross-border movements to support their in-group’s self-rule. Thus, although legitimacy requires states to prioritize universal respect for basic human rights, sovereign states today generally fail to do so when it comes to border enforcement. I contend that this enforcement could only be rendered (...) legitimate if it was predicated on more desirable conceptions of sovereignty that supported the universal prioritization of basic human rights. Specifically, desirable conceptions would not establish and require absolute state sovereignty over borders as a necessary precondition for true popular self-governance. (shrink)

Alice Crary claims that “the standard view of the bearing of Wittgenstein's philosophy on ethics” is dominated by “inviolability interpretations”, which often underlie conservative readings of Wittgenstein. Crary says that such interpretations are “especially marked in connection with On Certainty”, where Wittgenstein is represented as holding that “our linguistic practices are immune to rational criticism, or inviolable”. Crary's own conception of the bearing of Wittgenstein's philosophy on ethics, which I call the “intrinsically-ethical reading”, derives from the influential New Wittgenstein school (...) of exegesis, and is also espoused by James Edwards, Cora Diamond, and Stephen Mulhall. To my eyes, intrinsically-ethical readings present a peculiar picture of ethics, which I endeavour to expose in Part I of the paper. In Part II I present a reading of On Certainty that Crary would call an “inviolability interpretation”, defend it against New Wittgensteinian critiques, and show that this kind of reading has nothing to do with ethical or political conservatism. I go on to show how Wittgenstein's observations on the manner in which we can neither question nor affirm certain states of affairs that are fundamental to our epistemic practices can be fruitfully extended to ethics. Doing so sheds light on the phenomenon that I call “basic moral certainty”, which constitutes the foundation of our ethical practices, and the scaffolding or framework of moral perception, inquiry, and judgement. The nature and significance of basic moral certainty will be illustrated through consideration of the strangeness of philosophers' attempts at explaining the wrongness of killing. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is often understood in terms of the pursuit for well-characterized biological parts to create synthetic wholes. Accordingly, it has typically been conceived of as an engineering dominated and application oriented field. We argue that the relationship of synthetic biology to engineering is far more nuanced than that and involves a sophisticated epistemic dimension, as shown by the recent practice of synthetic modeling. Synthetic models are engineered genetic networks that are implanted in a natural cell environment. Their construction is (...) typically combined with experiments on model organisms as well as mathematical modeling and simulation. What is especially interesting about this combinational modeling practice is that, apart from greater integration between these different epistemic activities, it has also led to the questioning of some central assumptions and notions on which synthetic biology is based. As a result synthetic biology is in the process of becoming more “biology inspired.”. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the idea that someone can deserve resentment or other reactive emotions for what she does by attention to three psychological functions of such emotions – appraisal, communication, and sanction – that I argue ground claims of their desert. I argue that attention to these functions helps to elucidate the moral aims of reactive emotions and to distinguish the distinct claims of desert, as opposed to other moral considerations.

This article explores the experiences of employed and unemployed Ontario Basic Income recipients in the Hamilton and Brantford pilot site. Integrating data from surveys and interviews, the self-reported outcomes of both groups are summarized. These outcomes pertain to employment, physical health, mental health, use of health services, food security, housing stability, financial well-being and social activities. The article highlights the difference in the degree of improvements between recipients who were working before and during the pilot versus those who were not (...) employed at both times. Its broad conclusion is that both groups reported significant benefits, but it was recipients who were continuously employed that reported the greatest improvements. This suggests that basic income could be an important policy tool to improve the lives of low-income and precarious workers in Ontario and perhaps elsewhere. (shrink)

The notion of basic action has recently come under attack based on the idea that any putative basic action can always be divided into more basic sub-actions. In this paper it is argued that this criticism ignores a key aspect of the idea of basic action, namely, the ‘anything else’ part of the idea that basic actions are not done by doing anything else. This aspect is clarified, and it is argued that doing the sub-actions of which a putative basic (...) action consists does not amount to doing something different from doing that putative basic action. (shrink)

According to John Tomasi's Free Market Fairness, there are serious constraints on what a liberal state may do to promote economic justice. Tomasi defends this claim by arguing that important economic liberties ought to be regarded as “basic” and given special priority over other liberal concerns, including those of economic justice. I argue that Tomasi's defense of this claim is unsuccessful. One problem takes the form of a dilemma: depending on how the claim is formulated more precisely, Tomasi's argument seems (...) either to be compatible with standard (e.g., Rawlsian) liberalism or to tell against even the minimal taxation that would be necessary to support the social safety net he supports. Second, granting “basic” status to economic liberties would in many cases defeat the goal, self-authorship, that Tomasi sees himself as sharing with other liberals. Third, contrary to Tomasi's suggestions, no inconsistency arises when liberals (such as Rawls) refuse to recognize the economic liberties as basic. Fourth and finally, the special significance that Tomasi attaches to agency does not provide any additional reason for accepting Tomasi's conclusions. (shrink)

In this article I revise and defend a core feature of political liberalism, namely, the idea that principles of political justice should be limited in their scope of application to what John Rawls calls the ‘basic structure of society.’ I refer to this feature as the ‘basic structure restriction’ of political liberalism. According to my account of the basic structure restriction, the basic structure includes all and only those institutions that have a profound effect on the lives of all citizens, (...) and thus those institutions that citizens would want to organize as parts of a fair system of social cooperation. Moreover, maintaining the basic structure as a fair system of social cooperation vis-à-vis all citizens requires the exercise of coercive political power. This account of the basic structure, which I call the ‘legitimacy of coercion account,’ shows that limiting the basic structure to those institutions that are maintained by legally coercive means is not arbitrary, contrary to the claims of critics like G. A. Cohen. Furthermore, by recognizing explicitly that there exist certain institutions – and, in particular, the family – that ought to be regulated partially by coercively maintained principles, my formulation of the basic structure provides a more satisfactory account of the way in which principles of justice should apply to the family than does Rawls’s most considered account. Finally, I explain how my account of the basic structure can incorporate many of S. M. Okin’s proposed policies for promoting gender equality in society. (shrink)

We thank all the thoughtful authors for their insightful comments. In this response, we try to address some of themes that emerged from the commentaries. We leave aside some of those comments that...

Straightforward theory revision, taking into account as effectively as possible the established nomic possibilities and, on their basis induced empirical laws, is conducive for (unstratified) nomic truth approximation. The question this paper asks is: is it possible to reconstruct the relevant theory revision steps, on the basis of incoming evidence, in AGM-terms? A positive answer will be given in two rounds, first for the case in which the initial theory is compatible with the established empirical laws, then for the case (...) in which it is incompatible with at least one such a law. (shrink)

The leading approaches to the nature of epistemic justification are the sides taken in two controversies: coherentism versus foundationalism, and externalism versus internalism. The former dispute has time-tested durability; the latter threatens to become equally persistent. Nevertheless, it will be argued here that these controversies have satisfactory resolutions. It will be argued that each of the four approaches is fundamentally right. Each has a plausible core that combines consistently with the others. This paper offers a prolegomenon. Its goals are to (...) clear away apparent obstacles to a reconciliation among the approaches and to outline the resulting inclusive view. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas has exerted a profound influence on 20th-century continental philosophy. This anthology, including Levinas's key philosophical texts over a period of more than forty years, provides an ideal introduction to his thought and offers insights into his most innovative ideas. Five of the ten essays presented here appear in English for the first time. An introduction by Adriaan Peperzak outlines Levinas's philosophical development and the basic themes of his writings. Each essay is accompanied by a brief introduction and notes. (...) This collection is an ideal text for students of philosophy concerned with understanding and assessing the work of this major philosopher. (shrink)

Infinite time register machines (ITRMs) are register machines which act on natural numbers and which are allowed to run for arbitrarily many ordinal steps. Successor steps are determined by standard register machine commands. At limit times register contents are defined by appropriate limit operations. In this paper, we examine the ITRMs introduced by the third and fourth author (Koepke and Miller in Logic and Theory of Algorithms LNCS, pp. 306–315, 2008), where a register content at a limit time is set (...) to the lim inf of previous register contents if that limit is finite; otherwise the register is reset to 0. The theory of these machines has several similarities to the infinite time Turing machines (ITTMs) of Hamkins and Lewis. The machines can decide all ${\Pi^1_1}$ sets, yet are strictly weaker than ITTMs. As in the ITTM situation, we introduce a notion of ITRM-clockable ordinals corresponding to the running times of computations. These form a transitive initial segment of the ordinals. Furthermore we prove a Lost Melody theorem: there is a real r such that there is a program P that halts on the empty input for all oracle contents and outputs 1 iff the oracle number is r, but no program can decide for every natural number n whether or not ${n \in r}$ with the empty oracle. In an earlier paper, the third author considered another type of machines where registers were not reset at infinite lim inf’s and he called them infinite time register machines. Because the resetting machines correspond much better to ITTMs we hold that in future the resetting register machines should be called ITRMs. (shrink)

In jails, the prisoners are often maltreated by the jail authorities.They are abused, and, their fundamental rights as human beings are frequentlyviolated. Although laws upholding the rights of prisoners are plenty,unfortunately, these seem ineffective in preventing the abuse of prisonersin jails. This paper examines the problems of jailed prisoners in general andhighlights their violations of human rights. In particular, this paper discussessexual abuse of prisoners, their mental and physical tortures, and enforcement ofprison labour laws. The paper also focuses on overcrowding (...) in jails, inadequateeducational facilities for prisoners and poor health care facilities. This articleanalyses these issues from the perspectives of Islamic Law and attempts toprovide a conceptual frame work of solutions. An analytical approach isemployed in this study. (shrink)

Does artificial intelligence (AI) exhibit consciousness or self? While this question is hotly debated, here we take a slightly different stance by focusing on those features that make possible both, namely a basic or fundamental subjectivity. Learning from humans and their brain, we first ask what we mean by subjectivity. Subjectivity is manifest in the perspectiveness and mineness of our experience which, ontologically, can be traced to a point of view. Adopting a non-reductive neurophilosophical strategy, we assume that the point (...) of view exhibits two layers, a most basic neuroecological and higher order mental layer. The neuroecological layer of the point of view is mediated by the timescales of world and brain, as further evidenced by empirical data on our sense of self. Are there corresponding timescales shared with the world in AI and is there a point of view with perspectiveness and mineness? Discussing current neuroscientific evidence, we deny that current AI exhibits a point of view, let alone perspectiveness and mineness. We therefore conclude that, as per current state, AI does not exhibit a basic or fundamental subjectivity and henceforth no consciousness or self is possible in models such as ChatGPT and similar technologies. (shrink)

According to the basic needs principle, a state in favorable circumstances must enable its members to meet their basic needs throughout a normal life-span. Applied to the international situation, I argue, this principle implies that a global state would have a duty (ceteris paribus) to enable subordinate states to meet their members‘ needs. In the absence of a global state, existing states have a duty (ceteris paribus) to work to create a system of institutions that would enable each state to (...) meet its members‘ needs. Near the conclusion, I respond to skeptical objections about global justice. (shrink)

While it is common to think that neuroscientists are proponents of basic emotions theory, this is not necessarily the case. My ideas, for example are more aligned with cognitive than basic emotions theories.

In a provocative book, Andrew Carstairs- McCarthy argues that the apparently universal distinction in human languages between sentences and noun phrases cannot be assumed to be inevitable for languages with the expressive power of human languages, but needs explaining. His work suggests, but does not explicitly state, that there is also no conceptual necessity for the distinction between basic types e and t, a distinction argued for by Frege and carried into formal semantics through the work of Montague. Pragmatic distinctions (...) among various kinds of speech acts, including asserting, questioning, commanding, and pointing things out are assumed in Carstairs- McCarthy ’s work, as are expressions of functional types; what is questioned is whether a syntacticized sentence-NP distinction is essential. (shrink)

Gauthier’s contractarianism begins with an idea of a rational deliberator but ‘finds no basis for postulating a moral need for the justification of one’s actions to others. The role of agreement is to address each person’s demand that the constraints of society be justified to him, not a concern that he justify himself to his fellows’ (Gauther 1997, 134–5). He contrasts his view with Scanlon’s contractualism, according to which agreement with others is the core of morality and each agent has (...) the burden of justifying his or her actions to others. Both of their views count as ‘constructivist’ because they reject moral realism and hold that normativity is a function of what we do, either individually or collectively. Kant’s Rechtslehre is neutral regarding moral realism and yet constructivist about moral norms. However, the relevant acts basic to Gauthier’s and Scanlon’s views concern voluntary agreements we make. Using agreement to establish basic norms faces some serious difficulties. Kant’s Rechtslehre avoids these problems by showing how basic social norms can be identified and justified independently of voluntary agreement. Moreover, it does so in a way that shows that an individual’s justification of his or her acts to others and the justification of the acts of others to any individual are inseparable aspects of one and the same justificatory reasons in which voluntary agreement plays no role. (shrink)

To avoid the problem of regress, externalists have put forward defeaters-based accounts of justification. The paper argues that existing proposals face two serious concerns: (i) They fail to accommodate related counterexamples such as Norman the clairvoyant, and, more worryingly, (ii) they fail to explain how one can be epistemically responsible in holding basic beliefs—i.e., they fail to explain how basic beliefs can avoid being arbitrary from the agent’s point of view. To solve both of these problems, a new, externalist, defeaters-based (...) account of justification is offered—viz., System Reliabilism. The core message of the view—and the way it deals with both (i) and (ii)—is the claim that the justificatory status of justified basic beliefs originates from being the undefeated outputs of a reliable, cognitively integrated system that is capable of defeating them. Simply put, to be candidates for being justified, basic beliefs must be epistemically responsible and to be so they must be undefeated while being defeasible. The paper also offers a detailed, naturalistic analysis of the notion of cognitive integration. This long-due, mechanistic account of cognitive integration is then used to argue that an additional advantage of System Reliabilism is its unique position to account for the as yet unexplained intuition that responsible beliefs are also likely to be true. (shrink)

Heil wants us to be ‘ontologically serious’. Because if we’re ontologically serious we won’t take relations seriously. Here’s one of the lines of thought that runs through Heil’s Relations. It’s go...

This book argues for adopting a new account of the circumstances of justice ("the habilitation framework") for philosophical theories of basic justice. It proposes a concept of basic health as a metric for such theories, and healthy agency as a target for them. It does not, however, propose a specific distributive rule or set of distributive principles. Nor does it propose a specific type of theory to pursue (e.g., utilitarian, contractarian, etc.). The book is thus meant to be largely theory-independent (...) respect to standard normative theories. (shrink)