The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

Ethical questions about information and communications technologies have been debated since World War II. Western democracies have had more than 50 years of experience in addressing and organising the ethical, social and legal aspects of scientific and technological developments. However, this expertise, tradition and experience are not enough to manage the most urgent ethical and social issues and contemporary challenges involving ICT. A systematic and institutional organisation of social values in the context of modern ICT tools is needed.This paper focuses (...) on four major areas: developing a specific approach to ethical issues raised by ICT; describing in more detail the age-related digital divide in Europe; identifying technology trends and emerging challenges; and defining the legal framework for inclusion of senior citizens in the digital society. The paper then concludes with a summary of its key points on the basis of which it makes three proposals as a contribution to efforts aimed at overcoming the exclusion of senior citizens from today's Information Society. (shrink)

After canvassing with good grace the make-up of cyberspace Andrew Murray wonders, in his recent book The Regulation of Cyberspace, which role traditional lawmakers are left to play in the new cyber-regulatory environment. Murray describes the static `command and control' regulatory model as disruptive and ineffective, and supports instead a dynamic, complimentary, and symbiotic regulatory model, which he presents under the features of an autopoietic environment and systems dynamics theory.Regulatory models, explains Andrew Murray in his recent book The Regulation of (...) Cyberspace, intervene when a `disruptive innovation', such as the Internet, creates a regulatory vacuum. As cyberpaternalists suggest, however, the lack of traditional legal-regulatory control systems does not mean total freedom within cyberspace . On the contrary, as the author contends, `regulators of all forms rush to fill in this vacuum' so that the traditional regulatory mechanism is replaced by private regulatory systems acting, as Joel Reidenberg exposed, as `proxies' to the traditional regulatory system . Murray shares this point, but also gives credit to the views of cyberlibertarians. Cyberlibertarians argue that traditional command and control models are at last ineffective, even when they operate through proxies. In cyberspace, so they claim, regulators and regulatees mingle with each other to such an unheard-of extent that regulatory interventions cannot be effective unless regulatees co-operate actively.In his book, professor Andrew Murray treasures the sound arguments advanced by the cyberlibertarian and cyberpaternalist camps, and draws lessons from both in order to build a dialectic confrontation between static instrument and dynamic instrument thinking in the regulation of cyberspace. He consecrates the pars destruens of his work to explain why lawmakers should eschew the static approach and adheres to the pars construens to expand on a more dynamic and `smarter' regulatory model. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Much has been written about recidivist punishments, particularly within the area of criminology. However there is a notorious lack of penal philosophical reflection on this issue. This book attempts to fill that gap by presenting the philosopher’s view on this matter as a way of furthering the debate on recidivist punishments.

In the past few years, we have become increasingly focused on technology use that is impulsive, unthinking, and distractive. There has been a strong push to understand such technology use in terms of dopamine addiction. The present article demonstrates the limitations of this so-called neurobehaviorist approach: Not only is it inconsistent in regard to how it understands humans, technologies, and their mutual relationship, it also pathologizes everyday human behaviors. The article proceeds to discuss dual-systems theory, which helpfully discusses impulsive technology (...) use in terms of habit instead of addiction, but can be criticized for its mentalist celebration of conscious control. Finally, the article introduces a phenomenological approach whose conceptualization of habit manifests many of the experiential qualities that we try to capture with addiction, but remains non-pathologizing and opens a space for learning: While tech addiction is bad and must be eliminated, good tech habits can be trained and cultivated. (shrink)

In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of a contemporary approach to cognitive psychology known as 4E cognition. According to this ‘extracranial’ view of cognition, the mind is not ensconced in the head, but dynamically intertwined with a host of different entities, social as well as technological. The purpose of the present article is to raise a concern about 4E cognition. The concern is not about whether the mind is in fact extended, but about how this condition is currently (...) portrayed in the 4E literature. It is argued that 4E scholars tend to paint an overly idealized picture of human–technology relations in which all entities are presumed to cooperate and collaborate. The article first describes the basic tenets of extended cognition and distributed cognition, two of the most thingly approaches in this new wave of cognitive psychology. It then proceeds to discuss the twin notions of cognition and representation and argues that it may be time to leave these concepts behind. Finally, it sketches out the so-called ‘dogma of harmony’ in the 4E literature and argues for the importance of making analytical room for conflictual human–technology relations. Two examples of such conflictual relations are provided: bad habits and deskilling. (shrink)

Being the parent of a disabled child is not easy, it is experienced as a situation marked by stress, crises and grief. As Vygotsky described eighty years ago, the development of children with disabilities and the culture do not fit as they do for non-disabled children. The development of a child with disabilities is not determined by the child’s physical defect alone, but constituted by the incongruence between the physical defect and the culture. In this study, the lives of four (...) families with deafblind children were followed for two years. Interviews and observations were conducted in different settings. This study finds that because of the incongruence between the physical defect and the culture, it is difficult to reach and maintain the zone of proximal development for a child with disabilities. This study illustrates how the network of professionals and parents around the child can make a local congruence that creates a platform for the child’s development. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that autonomous decision-making requires that the decision-maker’s desires are authentic, i.e., “genuine,” “truly her own,” “not out of character,” or similar. In this article, it is argued that a method to reliably determine the authenticity (or inauthenticity) of a desire cannot be developed. A taxonomy of characteristics displayed by different theories of authenticity is introduced and applied to evaluate such theories categorically, in contrast to the prior approach of treating them individually. The conclusion is drawn that, (...) in practice, the authenticity of desires cannot be reliably determined. It is suggested that authenticity should therefore not be employed in informed consent practices in healthcare. (shrink)

The allocation of resources among different stakeholders is an ethical dilemma for chief executive officers (CEOs). In this study, we investigate the association between CEO power and workplace injuries and illnesses. We use an establishment-level dataset comprising 31,924 establishment-year observations between 2002 and 2011. Our main result shows that employees at firms with structurally powerful CEOs experience fewer workplace injuries and illnesses and days away from work. We reason that CEOs derive a private benefit from low injury and illness rates (...) and that powerful CEOs are better at influencing employees to take workplace safety and health seriously. Additional analyses reveal fewer injuries and illnesses in firms led by CEOs with expertise power. However, increased injuries and illnesses were linked to firms controlled by CEOs with ownership power. Moreover, we find that structurally powerful CEOs mitigate injury and illness differences in relation to geographical proximity to corporate headquarters. We contribute with both research and practical implications on the topics of CEO power and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general and workplace safety and health in particular. (shrink)

The mainstream science of consciousness offers a few predominate views of how the brain gives rise to awareness. Chief among these are the Higher-Order Thought Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and hybrids thereof. In parallel, rapid development in predictive processing approaches have begun to outline concrete mechanisms by which interoceptive inference shapes selfhood, affect, and exteroceptive perception. Here, we consider these new approaches in terms of what they might offer our empirical, phenomenological, and philosophical understanding of consciousness (...) and its neurobiological roots. (shrink)

Screen time has become a hot button issue in psychology with researchers fiercely debating its mental effects. If we want to understand the psychological dynamics of technology use, however, a numerical conceptualization of screen time will lead us to gloss over crucial distinctions. To make this point, the present article takes a hermeneutic approach to a negative form of screen time known as ‘phubbing’, which is the practice of snubbing conversational partners in favor of one’s phone. Using interview data, it (...) is demonstrated that whether or not phone use amounts to phubbing, that is, whether or not it tips over and becomes harmful, depends on a host of contextual factors such as relation (who), content (what), purpose (why), timing (when), and communication (how). These findings demonstrate that not all screen time is created equal: what is harmful and inappropriate in one context is benign in another, and vice versa. Simply put, screen time is not a numerical entity whose causal effects we can measure and explain, but a meaningful activity that we must try to understand. (shrink)

This volume contributes to postphenomenological research into human-technology relations with essays reflecting on methodological issues through empirical studies of education, digital media, biohacking, health, robotics, and skateboarding. This work provides new perspectives that call for a comprehensive postphenomenological research methodology.

The present article focuses on the issue of ignoring conversational partners in favor of one’s phone, or what has also become known as phubbing. Prior research has shown that this behavior is associated with a host of negative interpersonal consequences. Since phubbing by definition entails adverse effects, however, it is interesting to explore why people continue to engage in this hurtful behavior: Are they unaware that phubbing is hurtful to others? Or do they simply not care? Building on interviews with (...) students in a Danish business college, the article reveals a pronounced discrepancy in young people’s relationship to phubbing: While they emphatically denounce phubbing as both annoying and disrespectful, they readily admit to phubbing others. In other words, they often act against their own moral convictions. Importantly, participants describe this discrepancy as a result of an unintentional inclination to divert attentional engagement. On the basis of these results, the article develops the notion of digital akrasia, which can be defined as a tendency to become swept up by ones digital devices in spite of better intentions. It is proposed that this phenomenon may be the result of bad technohabits. Further implications are discussed. (shrink)

The notion of authenticity, i.e., being “genuine,” “real,” or “true to oneself,” is sometimes held as critical to a person’s autonomy, so that inauthenticity prevents the person from making autonomous decisions or leading an autonomous life. It has been pointed out that authenticity is difficult to observe in others. Therefore, judgments of inauthenticity have been found inadequate to underpin paternalistic interventions, among other things. This article delineates what justifies judgments of inauthenticity. It is argued that for persons who wish to (...) live according to the prevailing social and moral standards and desires that are seriously undesirable according to those standards, it is justified to judge that a desire is inauthentic to the extent that it is due to causal factors that are alien to the person and to the extent that it deviates from the person’s practical identity. The article contributes to a tradition of thinking about authenticity which is known mainly from Frankfurt and Dworkin, and bridges the gap between theoretical ideals of authenticity and real authenticity-related problems in practical biomedical settings. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist proposals within epistemology, and we critically examine the different formulations of the epistemic internalism/externalism debate they lead to. Next, we turn to the internalism/externalism distinction within philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In light of the above dividing lines, we then examine first (...) the extent to which content externalism is compatible with epistemic externalism; second, whether active externalism entails epistemic externalism; and third whether there are varieties of epistemic externalism that are better suited to accommodate active externalism. Finally, we examine whether the combination of epistemic and cognitive externalism is necessary for epistemology and we comment on the potential ramifications of this move for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Norms conferring public or private powers, i.e., the competence to issue other norms, play a very important rôle in law. But there is no agreement among legal philosophers about the nature of such norms. There are two main groups of theories, those that regard them as a kind of norms of conduct (either commands or permissions) and those that regard them as non-reducible to other types of norms. I try to show that reductionist theories are not quite acceptable; neither the (...) command-variety (Kelsen, Alf Ross inOn Law and Justice), nor the permission-variety (von Wright, Kanger, Lindahl) provide a satisfactory account of competence norms.Among the authors who maintain that competence norms are different from (and hence not reducible to) norms of conduct are Hart, Ross inDirectives and Norms, and Searle. Ross and Searle distinguish between regulative and constitutive rules as two radically different kinds of rules and classify competence norms among constitutive rules. This distinction runs parallel to von Wright's distinction between rules that are prescriptions and determinative rules. While the first regulate actions (by commanding, prohibiting, or permitting them), determinative rules define certain concepts. To view competence norms as (partial) definitions of certain legal concepts (like those of legislator, judge, etc.) seems to open interesting perspectives and to shed light on at least one aspect of these elusive norms. (shrink)

Extended cognition theorists argue that cognitive processes constitutively depend on resources that are neither organically composed, nor located inside the bodily boundaries of the agent, provided certain conditions on the integration of those processes into the agent’s cognitive architecture are met. Epistemologists, however, worry that in so far as such cognitively integrated processes are epistemically relevant, agents could thus come to enjoy an untoward explosion of knowledge. This paper develops and defends an approach to cognitive integration—cluster-model functionalism—which finds application in (...) both domains of inquiry, and which meets the challenge posed by putative cases of cognitive or epistemic bloat. (shrink)

This book gives an analysis of Hertz's posthumously published Principles of Mechanics in its philosophical, physical and mathematical context. In a period of heated debates about the true foundation of physical sciences, Hertz's book was conceived and highly regarded as an original and rigorous foundation for a mechanistic research program. Insisting that a law-like account of nature would require hypothetical unobservables, Hertz viewed physical theories as images of the world rather than the true design behind the phenomena. This paved the (...) way for the modern conception of a model. Rejecting the concept of force as a coherent basic notion of physics he built his mechanics on hidden masses and rigid connections, and formulated it as a new differential geometric language.Recently many philosophers have studied Hertz's image theory and historians of physics have discussed his forceless mechanics. The present book shows how these aspects, as well as the hitherto overlooked mathematical aspects, form an integrated whole which is closely connected to the mechanistic world view of the time and which is a natural continuation of Hertz's earlier research on electromagnetism. Therefore it is also a case study of the strong interactions between philosophy, physics and mathematics. Moreover, the book presents an analysis of the genesis of many of the central elements of Hertz's mechanics based on his manuscripts and drafts. Hertz's research program was cut short by the advent of relativity theory but its image theory influenced many philosophers as well as some physicists and mathematicians and its geometric form had a lasting influence on advanced expositions of mechanics. (shrink)

Neuroplasticity is a core feature of the brain throughout the entire life of the individual. And when injury to the adult brain destroys part of the circuitry mediating behaviour and/or conscious experience, neuroplasticity is required to bring about the highest possible degree of post-traumatic functional recovery. But is the brain able to recreate the lost circuitry? Scrutiny of the impressive plasticity seen during development and in the adult brain reveals many similarities -- but also some crucial differences. And studies of (...) the mechanisms of functional recovery demonstrate that even an apparently 'full recovery' of the surface phenomena of behaviour and/or conscious representations is accomplished without a recreation of the lost circuitry. Instead, the post-traumatic process utilizes mechanisms, which have evolved to mediate problem solving in the intact brain. The newly developed REF model suggests how such dynamic reorganizations occur in the intact and injured brain. (shrink)

1. Le fe por la palabra -- 2. Topía y Utopía -- 3. Luz en la caverna.

According to robust virtue epistemology, knowledge is a cognitive achievement, where this means that the agent's cognitive success is because of her cognitive ability. One type of objection to robust virtue epistemology that has been put forward in the contemporary literature is that this view has problems dealing with certain kinds of testimonial knowledge, and thus that it is in tension with standard views in the epistemology of testimony. We build on this critique to argue that insofar as agents epistemically (...) depend on third-party members of their epistemic community as many social epistemologists contend, then there will be cases where two agents differ epistemically despite being virtue-theoretic duplicates. This means that robust virtue epistemology, at least insofar as it is understood along standard lines such that it endorses epistemic individualism, is also in tension with a central commitment of contemporary social epistemology. (shrink)

A popular form of virtue epistemology—defended by such figures as Ernest Sosa, Linda Zagzebski and John Greco—holds that knowledge can be exclusively understood in virtue-theoretic terms. In particular, it holds that there isn't any need for an additional epistemic condition to deal with the problem posed by knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. It is argued that the sustainability of such a proposal is called into question by the possibility of epistemic twin earth cases. In particular, it is argued that such cases demonstrate (...) the need for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge to appeal to an independent epistemic condition which excludes knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy is a central moral principle in bioethics. The concept of autonomy can be construed in various ways. Under the non-ideal conceptualization proposed by Beauchamp and Childress, everyday choices of generally competent persons are autonomous to the extent that they are intentional and are made with understanding and without controlling influences. It is sometimes suggested that authenticity is important to personal autonomy, so that inauthenticity prevents otherwise autonomous persons from making autonomous decisions. Building from Beauchamp and Childress’s theory, (...) this article develops a non-ideal authenticity-based conceptualization of personal autonomy. Factors that indicate inauthentic decision-making are explicated, and the full concept is defended from three expected objections. The theory is then tested on a paradigm case which has concerned theorists and practitioners for some time, namely the possible inauthenticity of anorexia nervosa patients’ decision-making. It is concluded that the theory seems to be fruitful in analyses of the degree of autonomy of patients’ decision-making, and that it succeeds in providing reliable action-guidance in practical contexts. (shrink)

Students often multitask with technologies such as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones during class. Unfortunately, numerous empirical studies firmly establish a significant drop in academic performance caused by this media multitasking. In this paper it is argued that cognitive studies may have clarified the negative consequences of this activity, yet they struggle to address the processes involved in it. A cognitive characterization of attention as a mental phenomenon neglects the interaction between bodies and technologies, and it is suggested that a (...) postphenomenological understanding is necessary to account for the materiality of practice. Notions of embodied habits and technical mediation are introduced, and an example of a postphenomenological account of media multitasking is introduced. It is argued that this approach enables researchers to investigate media multitasking as it occurs in everyday educational practice. (shrink)

We present a general approach to quantified modal logics that can simulate most other approaches. The language is based on operators indexed by terms which allow to express de re modalities and to control the interaction of modalities with the first-order machinery and with non-rigid designators. The semantics is based on a primitive counterpart relation holding between n-tuples of objects inhabiting possible worlds. This allows an object to be represented by one, many, or no object in an accessible world. Moreover (...) by taking as primitive a relation between n-tuples we avoid some shortcoming of standard individual counterparts. Finally, we use cut-free labelled sequent calculi to give a proof-theoretic characterisation of the quantified extensions of each first-order definable propositional modal logic. In this way we show how to complete many axiomatically incomplete quantified modal logics. (shrink)

According to Sosa, knowledge is apt belief, where a belief is apt when accurate because adroit. Sosa :465–475, 2010; Judgment and agency, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015) adds to his triple-A analysis of knowledge, a triple-S analysis of competence, where a complete competence combines its seat, shape and situation. Much of Sosa’s influential work assumes that epistemic agents are individuals who acquire knowledge when they hit the truth through exercising their own individual skills in appropriate shapes and situations. This paper (...) explores an extension of Sosa’s framework to a social setting in which groups constitute epistemic agents over and above their individual members. The claim is that groups can be ascribed knowledge in virtue of hitting the truth through exercising their competences in appropriate shapes and situations. While knowledge at the collective level may diverge from knowledge at the individual level, the competences of groups are nothing over and above the combined competences of their members. The ensuing view thus has implications for the debate over reduction and supervenience in collective epistemology. (shrink)

In the context of bounded arithmetic we consider some general replacement schemes and construct models for them. A new proof of a conservation result between and is derived.

At the end of the 19th century Oliver Heaviside developed a formal calculus of differential operators in order to solve various physical problems. The pure mathematicians of his time would not deal with this unrigorous theory, but in the 20th century several attempts were made to rigorise Heaviside's operational calculus. These attempts can be grouped in two classes. The one leading to an explanation of the operational calculus in terms of integral transformations (Bromwich, Carson, Vander Pol, Doetsch) and the other (...) leading to an abstract algebraic formulation (Lévy, Mikusiński). Also Schwartz's creation of the theory of distributions was very much inspired by problems in the operational calculus. (shrink)

Based on the conception of life and semiosis as co-extensive an attempt is given to classify cognitive and communicative potentials of species according to the plasticity and articulatory sophistication they exhibit. A clear distinction is drawn between semiosis and perception, where perception is seen as a high-level activity, an integrated product of a multitude of semiotic interactions inside or between bodies. Previous attempts at finding progressive trends in evolution that might justify a scaling of species from primitive to advanced levels (...) have not met with much success, but when evolution is considered in the light of semiosis such a scaling immediately catches the eye. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest a scaling of this progression in semiotic freedom into a series of distinct steps. The elleven steps suggested are: 1) molecular recognition, 2) prokaryote-eukaryote transformation, 3) division of labor in multicellular organisms, 4) from irritability to phenotypic plasticity, 5) sense perception, 6) behavioral choice, 7) active information gathering, 8) collaboration, deception, 9) learning and social intelligence, 10) sentience, 11) consciousness. In light of this, the paper finally discusses the conceptual framework for biosemiotic evolution. The evolution of biosemiotic capabilities does not take the form of an ongoing composition of simple signs into composite wholes. Rather, it takes the shape of the increasing subdivision and control of a primitive, holophrastic perception-action circuit already committed to “proto-propositions” reliably guiding action already in the most primitive species. (shrink)

In 1911 the Wilson cloud chamber opened new possibilities for physics pedagogy. The instrument, which visualized particles’ tracks as trails of condensed vapour, was adopted by physicists to pursue frontier research on the Compton effect, the positron and the transmutation of atomic nuclei. But as the present paper will show, Wilson's instrument did not just open up new research opportunities, but the possibility of developing a different kind of teaching. Equipped with a powerful visualization tool, some physicists–teachers employed Wilson's instrument (...) to introduce their students to a wide range of phenomena and concepts, ranging from the behaviour of clouds to Einstein's photon, the wave–particle duality and the understanding of the nucleus. This paper uses the notes, books and prototypes of these pioneering physicists–teachers to compose a pedagogical history of the Wilson cloud chamber, documenting an episode of immense ingenuity, creativity and scientific imagination. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim’s causal exclusion argument says that if all physical effects have sufficient physical causes, and no physical effects are caused twice over by distinct physical and mental causes, there cannot be any irreducible mental causes. In addition, Kim has argued that the nonreductive physicalist must give up completeness, and embrace the possibility of downward causation. This paper argues first that this extra argument relies on a principle of property individuation, which the nonreductive physicalist need not accept, and second that (...) once we get clear on overdetermination, there is a way to reject the exclusion principle upon which the causal exclusion argument depends, but third that this should not lead to the belief that mental causation is easily accounted for in terms of counterfactual dependencies. (shrink)

Semantic externalism is the view that the meanings of referring terms, and the contents of beliefs that are expressed by those terms, are not fully determined by factors internal to the speaker but are instead bound up with the environment. The debate about semantic externalism is one of the most important but difficult topics in philosophy of mind and language, and has consequences for our understanding of the role of social institutions and the physical environment in constituting language and the (...) mind. In this long-needed book, Jesper Kallestrup provides an invaluable map of the problem. Beginning with a thorough introduction to the theories of descriptivism and referentialism and the work of Frege and Kripke, Kallestrup moves on to analyse Putnam’s Twin Earth argument, Burge’s arthritis argument and Davidson’s Swampman argument. He also discusses how semantic externalism is at the heart of important topics such as indexical thoughts, epistemological skepticism, self-knowledge, and mental causation. Including chapter summaries, a glossary of terms, and an annotated guide to further reading, _Semantic Externalism_ an ideal guide for students studying philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. (shrink)