When someone says she believes that God exists, is she expressing the same kind of mental state as when she says she thinks that a lake bigger than Lake Michigan exists⎯i.e., does she refer to the same kind of cognitive attitude in both cases? Using evidence from linguistic corpora (Study 1) and behavioral experiments (Studies 2-4), the current work provides evidence that individuals typically use the word “believe” more in conjunction with statements about religious credences and “think” more in conjunction (...) with factual statements, pointing to two different understandings of claims made with these two terms. These patterns do not appear to reflect low-level differences based on the amount of consensus surrounding a particular claim, the extent to which the truth of a particular claim is known to the participant, or linguistic differences between religious and factual statements. We discuss implications of these findings for religious cognition (e.g., as supporting the theory that religious credences are qualitatively distinct from factual beliefs) as well as cognitive processes more broadly. Finally, we relate the present findings to prior theoretical work on differences between factual belief and religious credence. (shrink)

Philosophers and geographers have converged on the topic of public space, fascinated and in many ways alarmed by fundamental changes in the way post-industrial societies produce space for public use, and in the way citizens of these same societies perceive and constitute themselves as a public. This volume advances this inquiry, making extensive use of political and social theory, while drawing intimate connections between political principles, social processes, and the commonplaces of our everyday environments.

This paper elaborates and defends an expressivist account of the claims of mind-independence embedded in ordinary moral thought. In response to objections from Zangwill and Jenkins it is argued that the expressivist 'internal reading' of such claims is compatible with their conceptual status and that the only 'external reading' available doesn't commit expressivisists to any sort of subjectivism. In the process a 'commitment-theoretic' account of the semantics of conditionals and negations is defended.

What happens when we glance around a room? How do we trust what we see in fleeting moments? In The World at a Glance, Edward S. Casey describes how glancing counts for more of human perception than previously imagined. An entire universe is perceived in a glance, but our quick and uncommitted attention prevents examination of these rapid acts and processes. While breaking down this paradox, Casey surveys the glance as an essential way by which we acquaint ourselves (...) with the world. This experiential tour-de-force reveals what happens in a blink of an eye. It will become a landmark study in phenomenology, philosophy, environmental philosophy, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The current breakdown in the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world is evident in the crisis of anthropogenic climate change. This critical situation has prompted intellectuals to think through a proper name for our contemporary era. Some opt for the “Anthropocene,” the era of humans, which highlights the uniquely human role in planetary destruction. Others prefer the “Capitalocene” to emphasize capitalism’s role in the crisis. Still others argue that our era is marked by an age of (...) information, which the author labels the “Pliroforicene” since pliroforia roughly means “information” in ancient Greek. Having discussed the pros and cons of these labels, the author discusses conscious rebellions against the Capitalocene and the Pliroforicene through the lenses of the work of sociologist Erik Olin Wright and philosopher Richard Polt. The author then argues that Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit, which is defined as a comportment towards beings in which one is open to the ways in which they reveal themselves as they are rather than subsuming them into one’s own interests, may prove to play a crucial role in our contemporary era, regardless of what we call it since it allows us to respect the integrity of things. (shrink)

Some people argue that the distribution of medical resources should be sensitive to agents’ responsibility for their ill-health. In contrast, others point to the social determinants of health to argue that the collective agents that control the conditions in which agents act should bear responsibility. To a large degree, this is a debate in which those who hold individuals responsible currently have the upper hand: warranted appeals to individual responsibility effectively block allocation of any significant degree of responsibility to collective (...) agents. We suggest that a different understanding of individual responsibility might lead to a fairer allocation of blame. Scaffolded agency is individual agency exercised in a context in which opportunities and affordances are structured by others. Appeals to scaffolded agency at once recognize the role of the individual and of the collective agents who have put the scaffolds in place. (shrink)

I defend hedonism about moral value by first presenting an argument for moral skepticism, and then showing that phenomenal introspection gives us a unique way to defeat the skeptical argument and establish pleasure's goodness.

McKenna’s critique (rather than criticisms) of idealized approaches to epistemology is an important contribution to the literature. In this brief discussion, I set out his main concerns about more idealized approaches, within and beyond social epistemology, before turning to some issues I think he neglects. I suggest that it’s important to pay attention to the prestige hierarchy in philosophy, and to how that hierarchy can serve ideological purposes. The greater prestige of more abstract approaches plays a role in determining what (...) issues and what voices we attend to. (shrink)

Since the development of assisted reproductive technologies, infertile individuals have crossed borders to obtain treatments unavailable or unaffordable in their own country. Recent media coverage has focused on the outsourcing of surrogacy to developing countries, where the cost for surrogacy is significantly less than the equivalent cost in a more developed country. This paper discusses the ethical arguments against international surrogacy. The major opposition viewpoints can be broadly divided into arguments about welfare, commodification and exploitation. It is argued that the (...) only valid objection to international surrogacy is that surrogate mothers may be exploited by being given too little compensation. However, the possibility of exploitation is a weak argument for prohibition, as employment alternatives for potential surrogate mothers may be more exploitative or more harmful than surrogacy. It is concluded that international surrogacy must be regulated, and the proposed regulatory mechanism is termed Fair Trade Surrogacy. The guidelines of Fair Trade Surrogacy focus on minimizing potential harms to all parties and ensuring fair compensation for surrogate mothers. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of place in painting. This role is multiple – at once attracting our look but also locatory of whatever is displayed in the painting itself and attracting our attention to it as a place distinct from the place where we are painting it or viewing it. Examined here is also the role of the lived body in the apprehension of place in painting: a corporeal animating force that animates a genuinely lived place as it is (...) set forth or intimated in paintings of seen, remembered, or imagined places. Such placially specific paintings are at once a commentary and a continuation on how we experience places in the context of the lived world. Included are analyses of three placially oriented paintings of my own as well as one by de Kooning – all in an effort to show the multivalence of place in painting. (shrink)

An account of how a rational agent should revise beliefs in the light of new evidence.

This book highlights the philosophical and creative basis of knowledge co-production by all citizens regardless of socio-economic background in contrast with neoliberal ideology. Exploring beginning, transitional and theorised practices, the book is a memoir of the author's extensive personal and educational experience. Each topic is discussed in relation to a number of pragmatist themes that run throughout to illustrate how the process of dialectical emergence underpins and substantiates meaningful human living. Building on the work of American Pragmatism, this is a (...) systematic and detailed reintroduction of pragmatism to educators worldwide for progressive educational change. (shrink)

Through extensive training, experts acquire specialized knowledge and abilities. In this paper, I argue that experts also acquire specialized visual experiences. Specifically, I articulate and defend the account that experts enjoy visual experiences that represent gestalt properties through perceptual learning. I survey an array of empirical studies on face perception and perceptual expertise that support this account. I also look at studies on perceptual adaptation that some might argue present a problem for my account. I show how the data are (...) subject to an interpretation that is friendly to it. Last, I address two theoretical objections to the claim that visual experiences represent gestalt properties. (shrink)

Although the Libertarian Party has gained traction as the third biggest political party in the United States, the philosophical grounding of the party, which is exemplified by Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory is inherently flawed. Libertarianism’s emphasis on a free market leads to gross inequalities since it has no regard for sacred rights other than one’s right to freedom from interference from the government beyond what is essential for societal functioning. I argue that Nozick’s entitlement theory leads to indirect injustice and (...) is therefore an unfitting philosophical theory, which means that the Libertarian Party’s platform is flawed. (shrink)

Introduction -- Cultural theories of people -- Identities in standard English -- Language and social institutions -- The cultural self -- The self's identities -- Theories of identities and selves -- Theories of norms and institutions -- Social reality and human subjectivity.

Causal theories of action, perception and knowledge are each beset by problems of so-called ‘deviant’ causal chains. For each such theory, counterexamples are formed using odd or co-incidental causal chains to establish that the theory is committed to unpalatable claims about some intentional action, about a case of veridical perception or about the acquisition of genuine knowledge. In this paper I will argue that three well-known examples of a deviant causal chain have something in common: they each violate Yablos proportionality (...) constraint on causation. I will argue that this constraint provides the key to saving causal theories from deviant chains. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 30-31.

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

This chapter concentrates on the edges of the lived body, which act to mediate between the outermost and innermost edges. The prospects for construing bodily edges are explored. Bodily edges realise the paradigm of definitive but incomplete self-knowledge in a very particular way: namely, that such edges are parts of parts. The internal and external edges of bodily parts are not only glimpsed in the course of ongoing experience but also offer a grip for hands. Inside/outside is an especially significant (...) binary edge structure, and is altogether central to edges that inhere in bodies. Bodily edges act as the mediatrix between the edges of the perceived earth and those of the inner psyche, and also provide the conjunctures for many things in experienced life-worlds. (shrink)

Cover -- THE WORLD ON EDGE -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Prelude -- PART 1 Sorting Out Edges -- Preface to Part One -- 1. Borders and Boundaries -- Interlude I A Panoply of Edges -- 2. Edges and Surfaces, Edges and Limits -- Interlude II Cusps, Traces, Veils -- 3. Edges of Places and Events -- Interlude III Frames in/of Painting -- PART 2 Constructed versus Naturally Given Edges -- Preface to Part Two (...) -- 4. Natural versus Artifactual Edges -- 5. Wild Edges -- Interlude IV Listening to Edges in Music -- 6. Landscape Edges -- 7. Intermediate Edges: Parks, Gardens, Neighborhoods, Streets -- PART 3 Edges of Body and Psyche, Earth and Sky -- Preface to Part Three -- 8. At the Edges of My Body -- 9. Being on Edge and Falling Apart -- 10. From Earth's Edge to the Sky and Beyond -- PART 4 Parting Thoughts -- A Last Lesson: Not to Put Too Fine an Edge on Things -- Postlude: Why Edges Matter in Their Very Heterodoxicality -- Epilogue: Life on the Edge of Danger, Disaster, and Doom -- Afterword/Foreword: Thinking Edges, Edges of Thinking -- Index. (shrink)

Alongside the major narratives of ethics in the tradition of Western philosophy, a reader with an eye to the vague and the peripheral, to the turbulent and shifting, will uncover minor lines of thinking--and with them, new histories and thus new futures. Minor Ethics develops a new approach to reading texts from the history of philosophical ethics. It aims to enliven lines of thought that are latent and suppressed within the major ethical texts regularly studied and taught, and to include (...) texts and ideas that have been excluded from the canon of Western ethics. The editors and contributors have put Gilles Deleuze's concepts--such as affect, assemblage, and multiplicity--into conversation with a range of ethical texts from ancient thought to the present. Rather than aiming for a coherent whole to emerge from these threads, the essays maintain a vigilant alertness to difference, to vibrations and resonances that are activated in the coupling of texts. What emerges are new questions, new problems, and new trajectories for thinking, which have as a goal the liberation of ethical questioning. Minor Ethics takes up a range of canonical ethical questions and thinks through concrete ethical problems relating to drug addiction, environmental responsibility, xenophobia, trauma, refugees, political parties, and cultural difference. The responses to these concerns demonstrate the minoritarian promise of the opening up of ethical thinking. (shrink)

Time passes; sometimes swiftly, sometimes interminably, but always it passes. We see the world change as events emerge from the shroud of the future, clandestinely slinking into the past almost immediately as though they are reluctant to meet our gaze: children are born, old friends and relatives die, governments once full of youthful enthusiasm wane. If the Earth were sentient, it might feel itself being torn apart as tectonic plates diverge, and chuckle as it outlived species upon species of transient (...) parasites. How could anyone possibly deny that time passes? (shrink)

This edited collection is the first of its kind to explore the view called perspectivism in philosophy of science. The book brings together an array of essays that reflect on the methodological promises and scientific challenges of perspectivism in a variety of fields such as physics, biology, cognitive neuroscience, and cancer research, just as a few examples. What are the advantages of using a plurality of perspectives in a given scientific field and for interdisciplinary research? Can different perspectives be integrated? (...) What is the relation between perspectivism, pluralism, and pragmatism? These ten new essays by top scholars in the field offer a polyphonic journey towards understanding the view called ‘perspectivism’ and its relevance to science. (shrink)

Some self-knowledge must be arrived at by the subject herself, rather than being transmitted by another’s testimony. Yet in many cases the subject interacts with an expert in part because she is likely to have the relevant knowledge of their mind. This raises a question: what is the expert’s knowledge like that there are barriers to simply transmitting it by testimony? I argue that the expert’s knowledge is, in some circumstances, proleptic, referring to attitudes the subject would hold were she (...) to reflect in certain ways. The expert’s knowledge cannot be transmitted by testimony because self-knowledge cannot be proleptic. (shrink)

Edward S. Casey invites us to rethink our emotions as fundamentally emerging from outside and around the self, redirecting our attention from the subjective sources of emotion to what reaches us from outside the domain of the subject.

A philosophical interpretation of the Corleone moral code as represented in the first Godfather film through the lenses of Aristotle and Nietzsche.

How may we characterize the intrinsic structure of physical quantities such as mass, length, or electric charge? This article shows that group-theoretic methods—specifically, the notion of a free and transitive group action—provide an elegant way of characterizing the structure of scalar quantities, and uses this to give an intrinsic treatment of vector quantities. It also gives a general account of how different scalar or vector quantities may be algebraically combined with one another. Finally, it uses this apparatus to give a (...) simple intrinsic treatment of Newtonian gravitation. (shrink)

Educators are increasingly concerned with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in student writing. Much of the concern focuses on the issue of students using ChatGPT to complete their work. I introduce the CUPID model for instructors to use when thinking about how to pedagogically handle ChatGPT. The CUPID model lays out five general approaches: Catch, Utilize, Prevent, Ignore, and Disincentivize. I suggest that instructors should especially consider using certain assignments that fall under the approach “Disincentivize”. Philosophy instructors in particular (...) should assign more low-stakes writing, such as journals and reflection pieces. The adoption of low-stakes writing assignments aims to discourage students from relying on AI while promoting clarity of thought and deeper engagement with philosophical ideas. (shrink)

Perin argues that theSceptic is engaged in the search for truth and that since this is so, the Sceptic aims to satisfy certain basic rational requirements.

This book uses the framework of care ethics to articulate a novel theory of our epistemic obligations to one another. It presents an original way to understand our epistemic vulnerabilities, our obligations in education, and our care-duties toward others with whom we stand in epistemically vulnerable relationships. As embodied and socially interdependent knowers, we have obligations to one another that are generated by our ability to care-that is to meet each other's epistemic vulnerabilities. The author begins the book by arguing (...) that the same motivations that moved social epistemologists away from individualistic epistemology should motivate a move to a care-based theory. The following chapters outline our epistemic care-duties to vulnerable agents, and offer criteria of epistemic goodness for communities of inquiry. Finally, the author discusses the tension between epistemic care and epistemic paternalism. Epistemic Care will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in social epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of education. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Barz (2018) contends that there is no specification of the phenomenon of first-person authority that avoids falsity or triviality. This paper offers one. When a subject self-ascribes a current conscious mental state in speech, there is a presumption that what she says is true. To defeat this presumption, one must be able to explain how she has been led astray.

We explain and explore class-theoretic potentialism—the view that one can always individuate more classes over a set-theoretic universe. We examine some motivations for class-theoretic potentialism, before proving some results concerning the relevant potentialist systems (in particular exhibiting failures of the $\mathsf {.2}$ and $\mathsf {.3}$ axioms). We then discuss the significance of these results for the different kinds of class-theoretic potentialists.

Dystopian and postapocalyptic narratives are often vectors for utopian hope in decidedly anti-utopian historical moments. The twenty-first century has, arguably, been such a moment. The association of utopianism with some of the most devastating political projects of the twentieth century, the plurality of existential threats looming over the globalized world, and the hegemony of global capitalism converge to form a cultural milieu inundated with grim visions of the future. These visions, however, have a stubborn tendency to gesture toward their negation: (...) the emancipated society. Optimism and pessimism are intermingled in contemporary narratives that frame the end of civilization as the precondition for a utopian... (shrink)

Kriegel has recently developed an adverbial account of intentionality, in part to solve the problem of how we can think of non-existents. The view has real virtues: it endorses a non-relational conception of intentionality and is ontologically conservative. Alas, the view ultimately cannot replace the act-object model of intentionality that it seeks to, because it depends on the act-object model for its intelligibility at key points. It thus fails as a revisionistic theory. I argue that the virtues of adverbialism can (...) be had from within the act-object framework, provided we understand intentional objects correctly. I use Crane as a guide here, and build on his work on intentional objects. In the end, we can provide a suitable solution to the problem of thinking of non-existents within the act-object framework without adopting implausible ontological or metaphysical views. So, adverbialism is neither a possible stand-alone revisionary option nor a needed modif... (shrink)

Plants are commonly considered immobile, in contrast to humans and other animals. But vegetal existence involves many place-based forms of change: stems growing upward, roots spreading outward, fronds unfurling in response to sunlight, seeds traveling across wide distances, and other intricate relationships with the surrounding world. How do plants as sessile, growing, decaying, and metamorphosing beings shape the places they inhabit, and how are they shaped by them? How do human places interact with those of plants-in lived experience; in landscape (...) painting; in cultivation and contemplation; in forests, fields, gardens, and cities? Examining these questions and many more, Plants in Place is a collaborative study of vegetal phenomenology at the intersection of Edward S. Casey's phenomenology of place and Michael Marder's plant-thinking. It focuses on both the microlevel of the dynamic constitution of plant edges or a child's engagement with moss and the macrolevel of habitats that include the sociality of trees. This compelling portrait of plants and their places provides readers with new ways to appreciate the complexity and vitality of vegetal life. Eloquent, descriptively rich, and insightful, the book also shows how the worlds of plants can enhance our understanding and experience of place more broadly. (shrink)