Experimental philosophy is one of the most exciting and controversial philosophical movements today. This book explores how it is reshaping thought about philosophical method. Experimental philosophy imports experimental methods and findings from psychology into philosophy. These fresh resources can be used to develop and defend both armchair methods and naturalist approaches, on an empirical basis. This outstanding collection brings together leading proponents of this new meta-philosophical naturalism, from within and beyond experimental philosophy. They explore how the empirical study of philosophically (...) relevant intuition and cognition transforms traditional philosophical approaches and facilitates fresh ones. Part One examines important uses of traditional "armchair" methods which are not threatened by experimental work and develops empirically informed accounts of such methods that can potentially stand up to experimental scrutiny. Part Two analyses different uses and rationales of experimental methods in several areas of philosophy and addresses the key methodological challenges to experimental philosophy: Do its experiments target the intuitions that matter in philosophy? And how can they support conclusions about the rights and wrongs of philosophical views? Essential reading for students of experimental philosophy and metaphilosophy, _Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism_ will also interest students and researchers in related areas such as epistemology and the philosophies of language, perception, mind and action, science and psychology. (shrink)

The paper outlines the evolution of on-going meta-philosophical debates about intuitions, explains different notions of 'intuition' employed in these debates, and argues for the philosophical relevance of intuitions in an aetiological sense taken from cognitive psychology. On this basis, it advocates a new kind of methodological naturalism which it finds implicit, for instance, in the warrant project in experimental philosophy: a meta-philosophical naturalism that promotes the use of scientific methods in meta-philosophical investigations. This 'higher-order' naturalism is consistent with both methodological (...) naturalism and methodological rationalism about first-order philosophy, and can help us adjudicate between the two, in a piecemeal manner. (shrink)

A relativistic one-particle, quantum theory for spin-zero particles is constructed uponL 2(x, ct), resulting in a positive definite spacetime probability density. A generalized Schrödinger equation having a Hermitian HamiltonianH onL 2(x, ct) for an arbitrary four-vector potential is derived. In this formalism the rest mass is an observable and a scalar particle is described by a wave packet that is a superposition of mass states. The requirements of macroscopic causality are shown to be satisfied by the most probable trajectory of (...) a free tardyon and a nontrivial framework for charged and neutral particles is provided. The Klein paradox is resolved and a link to the free particle field operators of quantum field theory is established. A charged particle interacting with a static magnetic field is discussed as an example of the formalism. (shrink)

_Philosophical Delusion and its Therapy_ provides new foundations and methods for the revolutionary project of philosophical therapy pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The book vindicates this currently much-discussed project by reconstructing the genesis of important philosophical problems: With the help of concepts adapted from cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book analyses how philosophical reflection is shaped by pictures and metaphors we are not aware of employing and are prone to misapply. Through innovative case-studies on the genesis of classical problems about (...) the mind and perception, and on thinkers including Locke, Berkeley and Ayer, the book demonstrates how such autonomous habits of thought systematically generate unsound intuitions and philosophical delusions, whose clash with reality, or among each other, gives rise to ill-motivated but maddening problems. The book re-examines models of therapeutic philosophy, due to Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and develops an approach that may let us overcome philosophical delusions and the problems they engender. In this way, the book explains where and why therapy in called for in philosophy, and develops techniques to carry it out. (shrink)

The construction and analysis of arguments supposedly are a philosopher's main business, the demonstration of truth or refutation of falsehood his principal aim. In Sense and Sensibilia, J.L. Austin does something entirely different: He discusses the sense-datum doctrine of perception, with the aim not of refuting it but of 'dissolving' the 'philosophical worry' it induces in its champions. To this end, he 'exposes' their 'concealed motives', without addressing their stated reasons. The paper explains where and why this at first sight (...) outrageous aim and approach are perfectly sensible, how exactly Austin proceeds, and how his approach can be taken further. This shows Austin to be a pioneer of the currently much discussed notion of philosophy as therapy, reveals a subtle and unfamiliar use of linguistic analysis that is not open to the standard objections to ordinary language philosophy, and yields a novel and forceful treatment of the sense-datum doctrine. (shrink)

Collins, John Review of: Religion and violence: A dialectical engagement through the insights of Bernard Lonergan, by Dominic Arcamone, Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015, pp. 281, paperback, $45.95.

This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and shows how the various elements fit together to form a comprehensive framework for analyzing free will and moral responsibility. The topics include deliberation and practical reasoning, freedom of the will, freedom of action, various notions of control, and moral accountability. (...) The essays seek to provide a foundation for our practices of holding each other (and ourselves) morally and legally accountable for our behavior. A crucial move is the distinction between two kinds of control. According to Fischer, "regulative control" involves freedom to choose and do otherwise ("alternative possibilities"), whereas "guidance control" does not. Fischer contends that guidance control is all the freedom we need to be morally responsible agents. Further, he contends that such control is fully compatible with causal determinism. Additionally, Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alternative possibilities in order for there to be a legitimate point to practical reasoning. Fischer's overall framework contains an argument for the contention that guidance control, and not regulative control, is associated with moral responsibility, a sketch of a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility (that ties together responsibility for actions, omissions, consequences, and character), and an account of the value of moral responsibility. On this account, the value of exhibiting freedom (of the relevant sort) and thus being morally responsible for one's behavior is a species of the value of artistic self-expression. (shrink)

Introduction to Philosophy, Fourth Edition, is the most comprehensive topically organized collection of classical and contemporary philosophy available. Building on the exceptionally successful tradition of previous editions, this edition for the first time incorporates the insights of a new coeditor, John Martin Fischer, and has been updated and revised to make it more accessible. Ideal for introductory philosophy courses, the text includes sections on the meaning of life, God and evil, knowledge and reality, the philosophy of science, the (...) mind/body problem, freedom of will, consciousness, ethics, and philosophical puzzles and paradoxes. It presents seventy substantial--and in some cases complete--selections from the best and most influential works in philosophy, offering a unique balance between classical and contemporary material. An extensive glossary of philosophical terms is also included. The fourth edition features fifteen new readings, including work by Albert Camus, Roderick M. Chisholm, Daniel Dennett, Harry G. Frankfurt, William Paley, Derek Parfit, John Perry, Richard Taylor, Peter Van Inwagen, Bernard Williams, and Susan Wolf. Part III, Knowledge and Reality, has been restructured and now includes Plato's Thaetetus, selections by Edmund L. Gettier and Robert Nozick, and an essay by Christopher Grau that explores the philosophical concepts presented in the popular film The Matrix. Two new ethics puzzles--"The Trolley Problem" and "Ducking Harm and Sacrificing Others"--are also included. This edition incorporates Study Questions after each reading and is accompanied by an Instructor's CD and a Student Companion Website, both containing helpful resources. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive, systematic theory of moral responsibility. The authors explore the conditions under which individuals are morally responsible for actions, omissions, consequences, and emotions. The leading idea in the book is that moral responsibility is based on 'guidance control'. This control has two components: the mechanism that issues in the relevant behavior must be the agent's own mechanism, and it must be appropriately responsive to reasons. The book develops an account of both components. The authors go on (...) to offer a sustained defense of the thesis that moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism. (shrink)

In this collection of essays on the metaphysical issues pertaining to death, the meaning of life, and freedom of the will, John Martin Fischer argues that death can be a bad thing for the individual who dies. He defends the claim that something can be a bad thing--a misfortune--for an individual, even if he never experiences it as bad. Fischer also defends the commonsense asymmetry in our attitudes toward death and prenatal nonexistence: we are indifferent to the (...) time before we are born, but we regret that we do not live longer. Further, Fischer argues, that immortal life could be desirable, and shows how the defense of the badness of death and the goodness of immortality exhibit a similar structure; on Fischer's view, the badness of death and the goodness of life can be represented on spectra that display certain continuities. Building on Fischer's previous book, My Way a major aim of this volume is to show important connections between issues relating to life and death and issues relating to free will. More specifically, Fischer argues that we endow our lives with a certain distinctive kind of meaning--an irreducible narrative dimension of value--by exhibiting free will. Thus, in acting freely, we transform our lives so that our stories matter. (shrink)

In his recent book on the problem of evil, Peter van Inwagen argues that both the global and local arguments from evil are failures. In this paper, we engagevan Inwagen’s book at two main points. First, we consider his understanding of what it takes for a philosophical argument to succeed. We argue that while his criterion for success is interesting and helpful, there is good reason to think it is too stringent. Second, we consider his responses to the global and (...) local arguments from evil. We argue that although van Inwagen may have adequately responded to each of these arguments, his discussion points us toa third argument from evil to which he has yet to provide a response. (shrink)

In this paper I explore in a preliminary way the interconnections among narrative explanation, narrative value, free will, an immortality. I build on the fascinating an suggestive work of David Velleman. I offer the hypothesis that our acting freely is what gives our lives a distinctive kind of value - narrative value. Free Will, then, is connected to the capacity to lead a meaningful life in a quite specific way: it is the ingredient which, when aded to others, enows us (...) with a meaning over an above the cumulative value erived from ading together levels of momentary welfare. In acting freely, we are writing a sentence in the story of our lives, and the value of acting freely is thus a species of the value of artistic creativity or self-expression (understood appropriately). Finally, I contend that the fact that our lives are stories need not entail that they have endings, or that immortality would necessarily be unimaginable or essentially different from ordinary, finite human life. Yes, a certain sort of narrative understanding of our lives as a whole would be impossible in the context of immortality; but much of what we care about, and value, in our stories might remain. (shrink)

Humean supervenience is the doctrine that there are no necessary connections in the world. David Lewis identifies one big bad bug to the programme of providing Humean analyses for apparently non-Humean features of the world. The bug is chance. We put the bug under the microscope, and conclude that chance is no special problem for the Humean.

I am going to argue that it is a cost of libertarianism that it holds our status as agents hostage to theoretical physics, but that claim has met with disagreement. Some libertarians regard it as the cost of doing business, not a philosophical liability. By contrast, Peter van Inwagen has addressed the worry head on. He says that if he were to become convinced that causal determinism were true, he would not change his view that humans are free and morally (...) responsible. Rather, he would give up at least one of the formerly-thought-to-be a priori truths that are elements in his argument for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the relevant sort of freedom. Thus, according to van Inwagen, our status as free and morally responsible agents would not be held hostage to the physicists or hang on a thread I think that van Inwagen’s strategy for securing our freedom and responsibility is unattractive. Somewhat tendentiously, I have called the rejection of an a priori ingredient in the incompatibilist’s argument, contingent upon learning that causal determinism is true, ‘metaphysical fip-flopping.’ -/- And it does seem that van Inwagen’s approach is implausible insofar as he is open to such metaphysical fip-fopping. That he is open to it—that he would fip-fop if he became convinced of the truth of causal determinism—is a problem for his actual philosophical position. Or so I will argue. (shrink)

I seek to reply to the thoughtful and challenging papers by Helen Steward, Saul Smilansky, and John Perry. Steward argues that agency itself requires access to alternative possibilities; I attempt to motivate my denial of this view. I believe that her view here is no more plausible than the view (which she rejects) that it is unfair to hold someone morally responsible, unless he has genuine access to alternative possibilities. Smilansky contends that compatibilism is morally shallow, and that we (...) can see this from the “ultimate perspective.” In reply, I explore the nature of “zooming” arguments, and I contend that even from a somewhat more detached perspective, important features that distinguish us from mere animals can be discerned (even in a causally deterministic universe). Finally, I seek to address Perry’s defense of classical compatibilism. My main objection to his form of compatbilism is that agents must be construed as having a certain kind of “baggage”—even on his own account. (shrink)

Sympathy for animals is regarded by many thinkers as theoretically disreputable. Against this I argue that sympathy appropriately underlies moral concern for animals. I offer an account of sympathy that distinguishes sympathy with from sympathy for fellow creatures, and I argue that both can be placed on an objective basis, if we differentiate enlightened from folk sympathy. Moreover, I suggest that sympathy for animals is not, as some have claimed, incompatible with environmentalism; on the contrary, it can ground environmental concern. (...) Finally, I show that the traditional concept of anthropomorphism has no coherent basis, and I argue that the attempt to prove that animals lack thoughts is both unsuccessful and irrelevant to sympathy for languageless creatures. (shrink)

In this collection of essays -- a follow up to My Way and Our Stories -- John Martin Fischer defends the contention that moral responsibility is associated with "deep control." Fischer defines deep control as the middle ground between two untenable extreme positions: "superficial control" and "total control."Our freedom consists of the power to add to the given past, holding fixed the laws of nature, and therefore, Fischer contends, we must be able to interpret our actions (...) as extensions of a line that represents the actual past. In "connecting the dots," we engage in a distinctive sort of self-expression. In the first group of essays in this volume, Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alterative possibilities in order to be morally responsible. Thus, the line need not branch off at crucial points. In the remaining essays in the collection he demonstrates that deep control is the freedom condition on moral responsibility. In so arguing, Fischer contends that total control is too much to ask--it is a form of "metaphysical megalomania." So we do not need to "trace back" all the way to the beginning of the line in seeking the relevant kind of freedom or control. Additionally, he contends that various kinds of "superficial control"--such as versions of "conditional freedom" and "judgment-sensitivity" are too shallow; they don't trace back far enough along the line. In short, Fischer argues that, in seeking the freedom that grounds moral responsibility, we need to carve out a middle ground between superficiality and excessive penetration. Deep Control is the "middle way."Fischer presents a new argument that deep control is compatible not just with causal determinism, but also causal indeterminism. He thus tackles the luck problem and shows that the solution to this problem is parallel in important ways to the considerations in favor of the compatibility of causal determinism and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively and engaging conversation Offers the reader (...) a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophy series. (shrink)

I reply to the challenges to Frankfurt-style compatibilism about causal determinism and moral responsibility presented in Daniel Speak's paper 'The Impertinence of Frankfurt-Style Argument'. I seek to show how Speak's critiques rest on an 'all-or-nothing' attitude in various ways, and I attempt to defend the importance of Frankfurt-style argumentation in defence of compatibilism.

I reply to the challenges to Frankfurt‐style compatibilism about causal determinism and moral responsibility presented in Daniel Speak's paper ‘The Impertinence of Frankfurt‐Style Argument’. I seek to show how Speak's critiques rest on an ‘all‐or‐nothing’ attitude in various ways, and I attempt to defend the importance of Frankfurt‐style argumentation in defence of compatibilism.

Fischer here defends the contention that moral responsibility is associated with "deep control", which is "in-between" two untenable extreme positions: "superficial control" and "total control". He defends this "middle way" against the proponents of more--and less--robust notions of the freedom required for moral responsibility. Fischer offers a new solution to the Luck Problem, as well as providing a defense of the compatibility of causal determinism and moral responsibility.

Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework. The introductory essay also provides some new views about the issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world. The focus of the book is (...) a powerful traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument and defends it against some of the most salient criticisms, especially Ockhamism.The incompatibilist's argument is driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further argues that this incompatibility need not entail the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer develops a "semicompatibilist" view--the belief that God's foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do otherwise. (shrink)

"There are seven chapters, addressing philosophical issues pertaining to death, the badness of death, time and death, ideas on immortality, near death experiences, and extending life through medical technology. The book is shorter, and less elaborate, than Kagan's Death. And it goes into more depth about a selection of central issues related to death and immortality than May's book. It gives an original take on various basic puzzles pertaining to death, and integrates a discussion of these philosophical issues with an (...) analysis of near-death experiences, as well as an exploration of contemporary efforts to extend life by heroic medical means"--. (shrink)