People coordinate body postures and gaze patterns during conversation. We review literature showing that (1) action embodies cognition, (2) postural coordination emerges spontaneously when two people converse, (3) gaze patterns influence postural coordination, (4) gaze coordination is a function of common ground knowledge and visual information that conversants believe they share, and (5) gaze coordination is causally related to mutual understanding. We then consider how coordination, generally, can be understood as temporarily coupled neuromuscular components that function as a collective unit (...) known as a coordinative structure in the motor control literature. We speculate that the coordination of gaze and body sway found in conversation may be understood as a cross‐person coordinative structure that embodies the goals of the joint action system. (shrink)

Could low-level exposure to polluting chemicals be analogous to exercise -- a beneficial source of stress that strengthens the body? Some scientists studying the phenomenon of hormesis claim that that this may be the case.s A Little Pollution Good For You? critically examines the current evidence for hormesis.

Drawing on conceptual works by Murphy (1999) and Solomon (1999), we develop a virtue ethics scale. Other ethics scales, which are grounded in deontological and teleological principles, may be used to classify people according to their beliefs about (1) the criteria they use to make ethical decisions, or (2) the ethicality of those decisions. We suggest augmenting these scales with our virtue ethics scale, which may be used to classify people according to their beliefs about the virtuous qualities of businesspeople.

‘What is characteristic of every mental activity’, according to Brentano, is ‘the reference to something as an object. In this respect every mental activity seems to be something relational.’ But what sort of a relation, if any, is our cognitive access to the world? This question – which we shall call Brentano’s question – throws a new light on many of the traditional problems of epistemology. The paper defends a view of perceptual acts as real relations of a subject to (...) an object. To make this view coherent, a theory of different types of relations is developed, resting on ideas on formal ontology put forward by Husserl in his Logical Investigations and on the theory of relations sketched in Smith's "Acta cum fundamentis in re". The theory is applied to the notion of a Cambridge change, which proves to have an unforeseen relevance to our understanding of perception. (shrink)

Phineas Gage’s story is typically offered as a paradigm example supporting the view that part of what matters for personal identity is a certain magnitude of similarity between earlier and later individuals. Yet, reconsidering a slight variant of Phineas Gage’s story indicates that it is not just magnitude of similarity, but also the direction of change that affects personal identity judgments; in some cases, changes for the worse are more seen as identity-severing than changes for the better of comparable magnitude. (...) Ironically, thinking carefully about Phineas Gage’s story tells against the thesis it is typically taken to support. (shrink)

English summary: This volume reflects on the importance of two Austrian philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Edmund Husserl, and the Austro-German philosophy they inspired. French text. French description: La philosophie contemporaine doit beaucoup a deux philosophes autrichiens--Edmund Husserl et Ludwig Wittgenstein. Les problemes philosophiques que ce dernier a mis au centre de la philosophie analytique sont souvent des problemes nouveaux par rapport aux questions soulevees par les peres de cette tradition, Frege, Moore, Russell et Ramsey. Ils etaient pourtant au centre des (...) traditions, autrichiennes puis austro-allemandes, qui remontent a Bolzano et a Brentano : la psychologie descriptive des eleves de Brentano, la phenomenologie de Husserl et de ses premiers eleves et les differentes ecoles de la psychologie de la Gestalt. Ces problemes appartiennent a la philosophie de l'esprit et du langage : qu'est-ce que vouloir dire quelque chose, vouloir, vouloir faire, eprouver, compter sur une certitude primitive? Y-a-t-il des objets psychologiques ou mentaux prives? Je designet- il? Quel rapport y a-t-il entre le non-sens, la signification et les regles? Entre les regles et les signaux qui nous guident et les symboles qui representent? Les mentalismes, platonismes et essentialismes qui caracterisent souvent la philosophie austro-allemande tranchent avec le rejet systematique de tels ismes chez Wittgenstein. Il est cependant manifeste que ce dernier, comme ses predecesseurs et contemporains austro-allemands, met la description de l'esprit et du langage au coeur de ses reflexions. D'ou la question a laquelle repond cet ouvrage : les descriptions de Wittgenstein sont-elles meilleures que celles donnees par les heritiers de Bolzano et de Brentano? (shrink)

This is a review article on Franz Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology published in 1982. We provide a detailed exposition of Brentano’s work on this topic, focusing on the unity of consciousness, the modes of connection and the types of part, including separable parts, distinctive parts, logical parts and what Brentano calls modificational quasi-parts. We also deal with Brentano’s account of the objects of sensation and the experience of time.

Although there has been a recent swell of interest in theories of truth that attempt solutions to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes affecting our concept of truth, many of these theories have been criticized for generating new paradoxes, called revenge paradoxes. The criticism is that the theories of truth in question are inadequate because they only work for languages lacking in the resources to generate revenge paradoxes. Theorists facing these objections offer a range of replies, and the matter (...) seems now to be at a standoff. I aim, first, to bolster the revenge objections by considering a relation, internalizability, between languages and theories of truth. A theory of truth is internalizable for a language iff there is an extension of that language in which the theory is expressible and for which the theory provides an accurate and complete assignment of semantic values. There are good reasons to think that acceptable theories of truth are internalizable for any language. With this internalizability requirement in hand, I argue that properly formulated revenge objections are decisive and that the replies to them are inadequate. Second, I show that the internalizability requirement can be met by a certain theory of truth. The central claim of this theory is that truth is an inconsistent concept and should be replaced with a pair of consistent concepts that can then be used to provide a semantics for our truth predicates. This theory is compatible with classical logic, does not give rise to revenge paradoxes of any kind, and satisfies the internalizability requirement. (shrink)

Thinking about truth can be more dangerous than it looks. Of course, our concept of truth is the source of one of the most frustrating and impenetrable paradoxes humans have ever contemplated, the liar paradox, but that is just the beginning of its treachery. In an effort to understand why one of the most beloved and revered members of our conceptual repertoire could cause us so much trouble, philosophers have for centuries proposed “solutions” to the liar paradox. However, it seems (...) that our concept of truth takes offense to our efforts to understand it because it appears to retaliate against those who propose “solutions” to the liar. It takes its revenge on us by creating new paradoxes from our own attempts to find resolution. That is, most proposed solutions to the liar paradox give rise to new, more insidious paradoxes—often called revenge paradoxes. For our attempts at understanding, truth rewards us with inconsistent theories, untenable logics, and a deep feeling of bewilderment. It is as if our concept of truth lashes out at us because it wants to remain a mystery. After a few run-ins with truth, many philosophers have the good sense to keep their distance. Far from being the serene, profound concept most people take it to be, those of us who think much about the liar paradox know truth to be a vengeful bully—a conceptual misanthrope. (shrink)

In three studies, we examined the relationship between implicit negotiation beliefs, moral disengagement, and a negotiator’s ethical attitudes and behavior. Study 1 found correlations between an entity theory that negotiation skills are fixed rather than malleable, moral disengagement, and appropriateness of marginally ethical negotiation tactics. Mediation analysis supported a model in which moral disengagement facilitated the relationship between entity theory and support for unethical tactics. Study 2 provided additional support for the mediation model in a sample of MBA students, whereby (...) predispositions to morally disengage mediated the effect of dispositional entity beliefs on unethical behavior in a negotiation exercise. In study 3, we manipulated implicit beliefs prior to a negotiation simulation and found that entity beliefs predict deception through two sequential mediators, extreme opening bids and state moral disengagement. (shrink)

Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the early twenty-first century. He defended liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle deep disagreement and pressed liberals toward a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. Yet, almost everything written about Gaus's work is evaluative: determining whether his arguments succeed or fail. This essay breaks from the pack by outlining underlying themes in his work. I argue that Gaus explored how to sustain moral relations between persons in light (...) of the institutional threats of social control, evaluative pluralism, and institutional complexity, and the psychological threat of acting solely from what I shall call themere first-personal point of view. The idea of public justification is the key to sustaining moral relations in the face of such challenges. When a society's moral and political rules are justified to each person, moral relations survive the threats they face. (shrink)

Most libertarians think that some version of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) is true. A number of libertarians, which I call ‘Frankfurt-libertarians,’ think that they need not embrace any version of PAP. In this paper, I examine the writings of one such Frankfurt-libertarian, Eleonore Stump, for her evaluation of the impact of Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) to PAP. I show how, contrary to her own claims, Stump does need a PAP-like principle for her account of free action. I briefly argue (...) that this discussion also goes some distance to showing that any Frankfurt-libertarian is in a similar position regarding the need for some PAP-like principle. If I am correct, then Frankfurt-libertarians must either renounce their incompatibilism or concede that FSCs fail to show all PAP-like principles to be false. (shrink)

According to Roderick Chisholm, there are three ways of responding to the Problem of the Criterion and they all leave something to be desired. Michael DePaul, Paul Moser, and Earl Conee have each proposed variations of a fourth way of responding to this problem that rely on reflective equilibrium. We argue that these four options for responding to the Problem of the Criterion leave one with a tough choice: accept one of the three that Chisholm describes or DePaul’s reflective equilibrium (...) approach and beg the question or accept a reflective equilibrium response of the sort Conee and Moser propose and embrace epistemic circularity. (shrink)

Bayesian reasoning has been applied formally to statistical inference, machine learning and analysing scientific method. Here I apply it informally to more common forms of inference, namely natural language arguments. I analyse a variety of traditional fallacies, deductive, inductive and causal, and find more merit in them than is generally acknowledged. Bayesian principles provide a framework for understanding ordinary arguments which is well worth developing.

This book brings together essays by leading political, legal, and educational theorists to re-examine the requirements of citizenship education in liberal-democratic societies. The chapters in the book evaluate demands by minority groups for cultural recognition through education, and also examine arguments for and against citizenship education as a means of fostering a shared national identity.

One common criticism of deflationism is that it does not have the resources to explain defective discourse. This problem is especially pressing for someone like Robert Brandom, who not only endorses deflationist accounts of truth, reference, and predication, but also refuses to use representational relations to explain content and propositional attitudes. To address this problem, I suggest that Brandom should explain defective discourse in terms of what it is to treat some portion of discourse as defective. To illustrate this strategy, (...) I present an extension of his theory of content and use it to provide an explanation of confusion. The result is a theory of confusion based on Joseph Camp's recent treatment. The extension of Brandom's theory of content involves additions to his account of scorekeeping that allow members of a discursive practice to accept different standards of inferential correctness. (shrink)

In the International System of Units, ‘meter’ is defined in terms of seconds and the speed of light, and ‘second’ is defined in terms of properties of cesium 133 atoms. I show that one consequence of these definitions is that: if there is a minimal length, then the chances that ‘meter’ is completely determinate are only 1 in 21,413,747. Moreover, we have good reason to believe that there is a minimal length. Thus, it is highly probable that ‘meter’ is indeterminate. (...) If the meter is indeterminate, then any unit in the SI system that is defined in terms of the meter is indeterminate as well. This problem affects most of the familiar derived units in SI. As such, it is highly likely that indeterminacy pervades the SI system. The indeterminacy of the meter is compared and contrasted with emerging literature on indeterminacy in measurement locutions. Moreover, the indeterminacy of the meter has ramifications for the metaphysics of measurement and the semantics of measurement locutions. Finally, it is shown how to redefine ‘meter’ and ‘second’ to completely avoid the indeterminacy. (shrink)

In this essay, I claim that certain passages in Book IV of Benedict de Spinoza’s Ethics suggest a novel version of what is known as metaethical constructivism. The constructivist interpretation emerges in the course of attempting to resolve a tension between Spinoza’s apparent ethical egoism and some remarks he makes about the efficacy of collaborating with the right partners when attempting to promote our individual self-interest. Though Spinoza maintains that individuals necessarily aim to promote their self-interest, I argue that Spinoza (...) has an atypical conception of self that allows the interests of other people to be partially constitutive of one's own self-interest. In this way, Spinoza can account for the rationality of concern for the interests of others. This interpretation attributes to Spinoza a form of constructivism that differs in important ways from contemporary Humean and Kantian constructivisms and which can in principle be detached from Spinoza’s particular metaphysical commitments in order to yield a third general category of constructivist view. Though my treatment is necessarily brief, it is my hope that it can serve both to motivate a constructivist reading of Spinoza and, perhaps even more crucially, to suggest a Spinozistic variety of constructivism as a live theoretical option in metaethics. (shrink)

All except three of the papers in this volume were presented at the colloquium on "L'Ontologie formelle aujourd'hui", Geneva, 3-5 June 1988. The three exceptions, the papers by David Armstrong, Uwe Meixner and Wolfgang Lenzen, were presented at the colloquium on "Properties", Zinal, June 1-3, 1990. It was, incidentally, at the second of these two colloquia that the European Society for Analytic Philosophy came into being. The fathers of analytic philosophy - Moore and Russell - were in no doubt that (...) ontology or metaphysics as well as the topics oflanguage, truth and logic constituted the core subject-matter of their "analytic realism", 1 for the task of metaphysics as they conceived things was the description of 2 the world. And logic and ontology are indissolubly linked in the system of the grandfather of analytic philosophy, Frege. After the Golden Age of analytic philosophy - in Cambridge and Austria - opposition to realism as well as the "linguistic turn" contributed for a long time to the eclipse of ontology. 3 Thanks in large measure to the work of some of the senior contributors to the present volume - Roderick Chisholm, Herbert Hochberg, David Armstrong and Karel Lambert - ontology and metaphysics now enjoy once again the central position they occupied some eighty years ago in the heyday of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In this chapter I defend Explanationist Evidentialism, the theory developed and argued for in Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification, from the objections raised by Richard Fumerton, Jonathan Kvanvig, and Matthias Steup. Ultimately, I conclude that although each of these philosophers presents interesting challenges, none of the challenges succeed in undermining Explanationist Evidentialism. It remains a viable theory of epistemic justification.

In this piece, Vallier responds to critiques of his 2020 book, Trust in a Polarized Age, offered by Mutz, Méon, Kukathas, and Weithman. He first restates the main argument of the book. Mutz and Méon offer criticisms to some of his empirical claims about polarization and trust; in response, Vallier concedes while stressing that one aim of the book is to develop an approach to defending liberal order that updates as these empirical literatures expand and improve. Much of the work (...) Mutz and Méon discuss can be integrated into the book’s broader project. Kukathas and Weithman criticize Vallier’s normative claims, which Vallier defends. (shrink)

This paper looks at some of the different practical cyborgs that are realistically possible now. It firstly describes the technical basis for such cyborgs then discusses the results from experiments in terms of their meaning, possible applications and ethical implications. An attempt has been made to cover a wide variety of possibilities. Human implantation and the merger of biology and technology are important factors here. The article is not intended to be seen as the final word on these issues, but (...) rather to give an initial overview. Most of the experiments described are drawn from the author’s personal experience over the last 15 years. (shrink)

Poverty, understood as basic capability deprivation, can only be solved through a process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value. This process can only begin if the capability to imagine and aspire for an altenative lifestyle worthy of human dignity is cultivated by an education program that develops both the capability to reason and to value. These two facets play a major role in the creative exercise of human agency. This program of humane education can (...) only come from an adequate description of the human agent as a persona that seeks to actualize itself based on his/her understanding of the good. Education must therefore seek to cultivate the capability to have an adequate conception of the good (normative) as well as the capability to constantly re-evaluate one’s conception of the good (evaluative) in order to freely and reasonably choose a life that one values and has reason to value. Education must therefore entail not merely the development of skills nor specialization in a particular field but must concentrate on the integration of the human person as a whole which leads to self-creative praxis. (shrink)

AbSTRACTThis paper is concerned with Foucault's historical methodology. It argues that the coherence of his project lies in its development of a set of tools for unearthing the historical principles that govern thought and practice in the epochs that have shaped the present age. Foucault claimed that these principles are, at once, transcendental and historical. Accordingly, the philosophical soundness of Foucault's project depends on his having developed a satisfactory way of passage between the absolutist purism of the transcendental and the (...) mundane contingency of the historical. The paper shows that the key to seeing how Foucault achieved this desideratum lies in a surprising and largely unexplored methodological tradition that he himself explicitly acknowledged: Husserlian phenomenology as it was taken up, modifed, and practiced in the thought of the philosopher of logic and mathematics, Jean Cavaillès—what I call the phenomenology of the concept.The essay has four parts. The first sketches the two most prominent lines of interpretation of Foucault's methodology and argues that both are inadequate, not least because they both dismiss Foucault's phenomenological heritage. The second part lays out the rudiments of the neglected strand of the phenomenological tradition inaugurated by Cavaillès's important critique and appropriation of Husserlian method. This serves, in turn, to set the stage for the third part that examines, first, Canguilhem's and then Foucault's distinct projects for grasping the transcendental within the historical, and the historical within the transcendental—their respective continuations of Cavaillès's phenomenology of the concept. The essay concludes with a brief consideration of the pathways that this way of reading Foucault opens up for understanding the nexus of power, knowledge, and subjectivation that came to define his work. (shrink)

Existentialism claims that there is no human reality except in action: pragmatism argues that meaning and truth are given only in practice. Wittgenstein calls for attention to forms of life, Marxism calls for attention to doing, and feminism calls for attention to the body. What do these tell us about ritual acts and their connection to spirit and to truth in Christianity and other world religions? Religious rituals have a special status as virtually pure forms of belief in action. Thinking (...) Through Rituals asks how philosophical tools like existentialism and Marxism can help us to understand the thought behind actions such as tasting the Christian host, joining in ceremony and speaking sacred words. Thinking Through Rituals proposes a new philosophical understanding of rituals as mental strategies giving access to knowledge of the world, in opposition to traditional approaches which see rituals as forms of social organization and control. Covering areas including the body, pilgrimage,initiation, sacrifice and art, this is an exciting look at the relationship between doing and meaning which is implied by ritual practice, but most fully explained by philosophical theory. (shrink)

Recent debates over the nature of causation, casual inference, and the uses of causal models in counterfactual analysis, involving inter alia Nancy Cartwright (Hunting Causes and Using Them), James Woodward (Making Things Happen), and Judea Pearl (Causation), hinge on how causality is represented in models. Economists’ indigenous approach to causal representation goes back to the work of Herbert Simon with the Cowles Commission in the early 1950s. The paper explicates a scheme for the representation of causal structure, inspired by Simon, (...) and shows how this representation sheds light on some important debates in the philosophy of causation. This structural account is compared to Woodward’s manipulability account. It is used to evaluate the recent debates – particularly, with respect to the nature of causal structure, the identity of causes, causal independence, and modularity. Special attention is given to modeling issues that arise in empirical economics. (shrink)

In this paper a look is taken at the relatively new area of culturing neural tissue and embodying it in a mobile robot platform—essentially giving a robot a biological brain. Present technology and practice is discussed. New trends and the potential effects of and in this area are also indicated. This has a potential major impact with regard to society and ethical issues and hence some initial observations are made. Some initial issues are also considered with regard to the potential (...) consciousness of such a brain. (shrink)

Recent experimental studies in cognitive science report the influence of “disgust” and “cleanliness” manipulations on moral judgment, yet little attention has been given to interpreting these studies together or developing models of the causal influence of cleanliness and disgust manipulations on moral judgment. I propose considerations for the causal modeling of these effects. The conclusions are not decisive in favor of one theory of disgust and cleanliness, but suggest several distinct causal roles of disgust- and cleanliness-type manipulations. The incorrect views, (...) I argue, are those that posit causal effects from a single common cognitive mechanism for both disgust and cleanliness. (shrink)

The Philosopher's Song explores the complex and fruitful relation between the great poets of Greek culture and Plato's invention of philosophy, especially as this bears on Plato's treatment of justice. The author shows how the poets helped shape the development of Plato's thinking throughout the course of his philosophical career.

My goal in this chapter is to consider the connection between an agent’s moral character and those actions that she is capable of freely performing. Most of these connections hold for all moral agents, but my particular focus will be on the specific case of divine agency. That is, I’m primarily interested in the connection between God’s moral character and His exercise of His free agency. As I will argue, even if an agent’s character determines her choices or actions, that (...) doesn’t threaten the agent’s freedom so long as her character is formed in the right way.1 (Or, perhaps more accurately, so long as it’s not formed in the wrong way. And I do not see how God’s character could be formed in such a way that would undermine the exercise of His agency.) I proceed as follows. First, I explore the relationship between what an agent freely chooses to do and her moral character in general. I then address the relationship between God’s character, His reasons, and His freedom, on the assumptions of Perfect Being Theology.2 In the third section, I turn to the compatibility question, and show how an incompatibilist could agree with everything I say in the first two sections. That is, I argue that the considerations to which I appeal regarding divine freedom do not force the Perfect Being theologian to endorse compatibilism (though they also don’t prove incompatibilism). (shrink)

The discovery of what Reinach called social acts (in 1913) and Austin speech acts (in 1962) was first and foremost the discovery of a type of linguistic action which, Reinach and Austin are convinced, had simply not been noticed hitherto. It is true that both authors present their discovery within a theoretical framework and that they hoped that their accounts of the phenomenon discovered would be taken as representative of new ways of doing philosophy.