We argue that Hume was wrong to identify constant conjunction in time as the sole associative principle responsible for belief. On principles that can be grounded on his own account, constant contiguity in space ought to produce the same effect. We close by examining some of the ways in which a recognition of the influence of contiguity relations might have assisted Hume in resolving problems that otherwise arise with his accounts of causality and objectivity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 581-582 [Access article in PDF] Gerald A. Press, editor. Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publisher, Inc., 2000. Pp. vi + 245. Cloth, $63.00. Who Speaks for Plato? contains sixteen essays, each apparently composed specifically for this volume, which challenge what its editor, Gerald Press, identifies as the basic assumption implicit in the "modern" (1) (...) or "traditional" (5) interpretive approach to Plato's dialogues: "that the words and arguments of some character in a Platonic dialogue can be taken to state Plato's (or the historical Socrates') own beliefs and arguments" (5). Throughout the volume this is refered to as the "mouthpiece" theory.The essays in Part I are general methodological pieces, which aim to dismantle the assumptions operative in the mouthpiece approach. So, for example, D. Nails reminds us that "we have no uncontroversial statement from Plato that Socrates is his mouthpiece" (17). Press looks for the hermeneutical argument that would justify "an interpreter in quoting or referring to the words of a named character in a Platonic dialogue and attributing the words or their meaning to Plato as his own opinion," (28), and he finds none in traditional scholarship. J. Waugh and H. Tarrant bring in historical considerations to bolster the antimouthpiece position.The essays in Part II treat individual dialogues, but do so with the general theme in view. E. Benitez offers a brief reading of the Laches, P. C. Smith and R. Blondell take up Book I of the Republic, G. Scott and W. Welton address the Symposium, F. Gonzalez looks at the Sophist and the Statesman, H. Ausland suggests a way of reading the Timaeus. Each aims to disconnect the words stated by the principal speaker of the dialogue from Plato himself.Part III begins with a dissenting view. L. Gerson begins by arguing against using the Phaedrus or the Seventh Letter on behalf of the antimouthpiece view. More interestingly, he describes how "arguments have a life of their own," and as a result are "not character bound" (205). As such, it is permissible, indeed it is incumbent upon the philosophical reader, to attribute arguments found in the dialogues to Plato himself. He concludes his essay thus: "If Plato is intentionally hiding himself, he is a philosopher either with no views or with views diverging from those easily derived from the dialogues." The former alternative Gerson finds "preposterous," the latter "perverse" (210).E. Ostenfeld conceives of Plato's views as in a process of continual development and self-criticism. As a result, he concludes, almost paradoxically, that "everyone" in the dialogues speaks for Plato. In other words, precisely because they were not homogeneous or definitively formulated, a wide variety of characters express the wide variety of views Plato himself held. [End Page 581]J. Mulhern gets the final word in this book, presumably because it was he who coined the phrase "Mouthpiece Fallacy" in a 1971 article. Surveying the literature of the past 30 years, he sees little improvement. In other words, commentators still regularly make the illicit transition between "what an interlocutor says to a similar sentence reporting what Plato says by stating the interlocutor is Plato's mouthpiece" (223).Who Speaks for Plato? is an interesting book that takes up an important issue. Its several hundred footnotes provide a useful guide to the enormous amount of literature on the hermeneutics of the dialogue form.While it is unquestionably valuable, this collection of essays is also frustrating. For the sake of argument, assume that a reader cannot legitimately attribute any views expressed by a character in a dialogue to Plato himself. What, then, counts as the philosophical result of a Platonic dialogue? The volume contains answers like these: Ostenfeld tells us that the dialogues "make us think for ourselves" (212). Nails says that, "The dialogue form provides a means of encouraging readers and listeners to reason dialectically to defensible positions of their own" (16). Waugh adds that the dialogues are "teaching how to philosophize" (49).The problem with these... (shrink)

Plato's Forms: Varieties of Interpretation is an ambitious work that brings together, in a single volume, widely divergent approaches to the topic of the Forms in Plato's dialogues.

This chapter, which deals with the notions of affectivity and engagement, explores the internal connection between basic affects to get at the emergence of affectivity. Additionally, it presents a discussion of motivation and the interplay of affectivity and engagement. Basic affects consist of needs, wants, and desires. Needs and then wants involve a kind of circumspective seeing in which ‘felt’ values are as much a part of objects as their utility. Intentions-in-action are rooted in basic affects. The basic types of (...) affects are each triadically structured with the moments of each type being dyadically organised. The affectivity circuit usually begins with what is not yet a profile coming to prominence out of a dark background. The circuit of engagement is inducted by a bodily drive seeking resolution. (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

Oxford Philosophical Texts Series Editor: John Cottingham The Oxford Philosophical Texts series consists of authoritative teaching editions of canonical texts in the history of philosophy from the ancient world down to modern times. Each volume provides a clear, well laid out text together with a comprehensive introduction by a leading specialist, giving the student detailed critical guidance on the intellectual context of the work and the structure and philosophical importance of the main arguments. Endnotes are supplied which provide further commentary (...) on the arguments and explain unfamiliar references and terminology, and a full bibliography and index are also included. The series aims to build up a definitive corpus of key texts in the Western philosophical tradition, which will form a reliable and enduring resource for students and teachers alike. David Hume's aim in writing An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding was to introduce his philosophy to a European culture in which many educated people read original works of philosophy. He gives an elegant and accessible presentation of strikingly original and challenging views about the limited powers of human understanding, the attractions of scepticism, the compatibility of free will and determinism, and weaknesses in the foundations of religion. Hume's philosophy was highly controversial in the eighteenth century and remains so today. The text printed in this edition is that of the Clarendon critical edition of Hume's works. A substantial introduction by the editor explains the intellectual background to the work and surveys its main themes. The volume also includes detailed explanatory notes on the text, a glossary of terms, a full list of references, and a section of supplementary readings. (shrink)

From religion to philosophy to science, all human systems of definition are formed by human brains. The nature and limits of the human brain are the nature and limits of those systems. This essay shows how the human brain works normally then unusually, and what this reveals about the limits of human knowledge. There are many conditions and instances where the brain processes information unusually, including mental disorders, physical events, and drug use. This essay focuses on the neurological events called (...) mystical experiences. (shrink)

This short peer-reviewed text is a concise look at the psychology of how human beings make decisions, including how they form their worldviews and make arguments.

This paper aims to provide two abductive considerations adducing in favor of the thesis of Necessitism in modal ontology. I demonstrate how instances of the Barcan formula can be witnessed, when the modal operators are interpreted 'naturally' -- i.e., as including geometric possibilities -- and the quantifiers in the formula range over a domain of natural, or concrete, entities and their contingently non-concrete analogues. I argue that, because there are considerations within physics and metaphysical inquiry which corroborate modal relationalist claims (...) concerning the possible geometric structures of spacetime, and dispositional properties are actual possible entities, the condition of being grounded in the concrete is consistent with the Barcan formula; and thus -- in the geometric setting -- merits adoption by the Necessitist. (shrink)

Part of the appeal of the biological approach to personal identity is that it does not have to countenance spatially coincident entities. But if the termination thesis is correct and the organism ceases to exist at death, then it appears that the corpse is a dead body that earlier was a living body and distinct from but spatially coincident with the organism. If the organism is identified with the body, then the unwelcome spatial coincidence could perhaps be avoided. It is (...) argued that such an identification would be a mistake. A living organism has a different part/whole relationship and persistence conditions than the alleged body. A case will be made that the concept ‘human body’ is a conceptual mess, vague in an unprincipled manner, and that an eliminativist stance towards dead bodies is the appropriate response. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Various U.S. laws, such as the Clean Air Act and the Food Quality Protection Act, require additional protections for susceptible subpopulations who face greater environmental health risks. The main ethical rationale for providing these protections is to ensure that environmental health risks are distributed fairly. In this article, we (1) consider how several influential theories of justice deal with issues related to the distribution of environmental health risks; (2) show that these theories often fail to provide specific guidance concerning policy (...) choices; and (3) argue that an approach to public decision making known as accountability for reasonableness can complement theories of justice in establishing acceptable environmental health risks for the general population and susceptible subpopulations. Since accountability for reasonableness focuses on the fairness of the decision-making process, not the outcome, it does not guarantee that susceptible subpopulations will receive a maximum level of protection, regardless of costs or other morally relevant considerations. (shrink)

This collection makes available, in one place, the very best essays on the founding father of phenomenology, reprinting key writings on Husserl's thought from the past seventy years. It draws together a range of writings, many otherwise inaccessible, that have been recognized as seminal contributions not only to an understanding of this great philosopher but also to the development of his phenomenology. The four volumes are arranged as follows: Volume I Classic essays from Husserl's assistants, students and earlier interlocutors. Including (...) a selection of papers from such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Ricoeur and Levinas. Volume II Classic commentaries on Husserl's published works. Covering the Logical Investigations , Ideas I , Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness , and Formal and Transcendental Logic . Volumes III and IV Papers concentrating on particular aspects of Husserl's theory including: Husserl's account of mathematics and logic, his theory of science, the nature of phenomenological reduction, his account of perception and language, the theory of space and time, his phenomenology of imagination and empathy, the concept of the life-world and his epistemology. (shrink)

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

Originally published: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.

"With provocations on every page, this book is a philosophical feast. The specialist will find familiar ingredients assembled here in a perspicuous and compelling way, while the nonspecialist will discover a Husserl whose philosophy is made of flesh and blood." —Journal of the History of Philosophy In this thorough study of the full body of his writings, Donn Welton uncovers a Husserl very different from the established view. Arguing against established interpretations, The Other Husserl traces Husserl’s move from static (...) to genetic phenomenology and uses accounts of perception, discourse, subjectivity, and world to elaborate the scope of his systematic phenomenology. This serious reflection on the meaning of phenomenology is the first book in English to outline in full Husserl’s phenomenological method and to argue for its cogency. Welton’s stimulating interpretation highlights Husserl’s relevance for current philosophical debates. (shrink)

The singularity hypothesis is a radical hypothesis about the future of artificial intelligence on which self-improving artificial agents will quickly become orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average human. Despite the ambitiousness of its claims, the singularity hypothesis has been defended at length by leading philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers. In this paper, I argue that the singularity hypothesis rests on scientifically implausible growth assumptions. I show how leading philosophical defenses of the singularity hypothesis (Chalmers 2010, Bostrom 2014) fail (...) to overcome the case for skepticism. I conclude by drawing out philosophical implications of this discussion for our understanding of consciousness, personal identity, digital minds, existential risk, and ethical longtermism. GPI Working Paper No . 19-2022. (shrink)

Professional ethics, a contemporary topic of conversation among business professionals, is discussed using the perceptions of college business students as the focal point. This research relates to the issues of college instruction in professional ethics, differences in perceptions of ethical behavior attributed to gender, and whether or not students' perceptions of ethical behavior can be modified. After presenting a review of the more important historical developments and research related to professional ethics, this paper focuses on the results of a study (...) that compared a set of ethical responses of various groups of college students with each other. The results of hypotheses testing show an ethics maturation process from students' initial exposure to business courses through the graduate level. These tests also show that formal ethics training, i.e., a separate professional ethics course or unit is an existing course, is not a significant factor in this process. However, one may conclude that the students' perceptions of proper ethical behavior matures toward society's expectations during college life. (shrink)

In the Garden of Eden, we had unmediated contact with the world. We were directly acquainted with objects in the world and with their properties. Objects were simply presented to us without causal mediation, and properties were revealed to us in their true intrinsic glory.

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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

What happens when machines become more intelligent than humans? One view is that this event will be followed by an explosion to ever-greater levels of intelligence, as each generation of machines creates more intelligent machines in turn. This intelligence explosion is now often known as the “singularity”. The basic argument here was set out by the statistician I.J. Good in his 1965 article “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine”: Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far (...) surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion”, and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make. The key idea is that a machine that is more intelligent than humans will be better than humans at designing machines. So it will be capable of designing a machine more intelligent than the most intelligent machine that humans can design. So if it is itself designed by humans, it will be capable of designing a machine more intelligent than itself. By similar reasoning, this next machine will also be capable of designing a machine more intelligent than itself. If every machine in turn does what it is capable of, we should expect a sequence of ever more intelligent machines. This intelligence explosion is sometimes combined with another idea, which we might call the “speed explosion”. The argument for a speed explosion starts from the familiar observation that computer processing speed doubles at regular intervals. Suppose that speed doubles every two years and will do so indefinitely. Now suppose that we have human-level artificial intelligence 1 designing new processors. Then faster processing will lead to faster designers and an ever-faster design cycle, leading to a limit point soon afterwards. The argument for a speed explosion was set out by the artificial intelligence researcher Ray Solomonoff in his 1985 article “The Time Scale of Artificial Intelligence”.1 Eliezer Yudkowsky gives a succinct version of the argument in his 1996 article “Staring at the Singularity”: “Computing speed doubles every two subjective years of work.. (shrink)

[This is an edited version of a keynote talk at the conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) on November 28, 2022, with some minor additions and subtractions.] -/- There has recently been widespread discussion of whether large language models might be sentient or conscious. Should we take this idea seriously? I will break down the strongest reasons for and against. Given mainstream assumptions in the science of consciousness, there are significant obstacles to consciousness in current models: for example, their (...) lack of recurrent processing, a global workspace, and unified agency. At the same time, it is quite possible that these obstacles will be overcome in the next decade or so. I conclude that while it is somewhat unlikely that current large language models are conscious, we should take seriously the possibility that successors to large language models may be conscious in the not-too-distant future. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Lewis's work in metaphysics and epistemology. Topics covered include properties, ontology, possibility, truthmaking, probability, the mind-body problem, vision, belief, and knowledge. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

INTRODUCTION Phenomenology as transcendental phenomenology is centered in a description of meaning interpreted in relationship to acts of consciousness. ...

Religion, science, and naturalism -- Perception and religious experience -- Panexperientialism, freedom, and the mind-body relation -- Naturalistic, dipolar theism -- Natural theology based on naturalistic theism -- Evolution, evil, and eschatology -- The two ultimates and the religions -- Religion, morality, and civilization -- Religious language and truth -- Religious knowledge and common sense.

David Heyd's study will stimulate philosophers to recognise the importance of the rather neglected topic of the distinctiveness of supererogation and the ...

A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there’s something it’s like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it’s like consciously to think that q. This thesis, if true, would have important consequences for philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I offer an argument for it, and attempt to induce examples of it in the reader. The argument claims it would be impossible introspectively to distinguish conscious thoughts with respect to their (...) content if there weren’t something it’s like to think them. This argument is defended against several objections. Then I use what I call “minimal pair” experiences—sentences read without and with understanding—to induce in the reader an experience of the kind I claim exists. Further objections are considered and rebutted. (shrink)

According to the grounding theory of powers, fundamental physical properties should be thought of as qualities that ground dispositions. Although this view has recently been defended by many different philosophers, there is no consensus for how the view should be developed within a broader metaphysics of properties. Recently, Tugby has argued that the view should be developed in the context of a Platonic theory of properties, where properties are abstract universals. I will argue that the view should not be developed (...) within such a framework. Either the view should be developed with an ontology of Aristotelian properties, or it should be developed in a Nominalist framework that contains no properties at all. (shrink)

The complex of problems suggested by the term life-world pervades contemporary thought, even though such a complex is rarely called by this name [...] Time does not allow us, however, to perform an extensive review of the secondary literature on the 'Crisis'. I will only suggest that a survey of this literature, especially the works of Brand, Merleau-Ponty and Habermas, presents us with a dilemma. It seems that there is a difficulty in Husserl's characterization of the life-world. On the one (...) hand, it is understood as the plurality of individually different socio-cultural environments and thus the result of an historical development; on the other hand, it is interpreted as a single structural basis common to all environments and thus an a priori for that history through which they become different. This dilemma concerning the content of Husserl's theory is coupled with a problem having to do with the method of his analysis: how is Husserl's procedure of phenomenological reflection upon a transcendental ego or "monad" able to account for the intersubjective life-world in either of the senses just sketched? Putting the question in this fashion is usually the first step on the way to abandoning a transcendental account of historicity, or, as is the case with Habermas, replacing the transcendental ego with a community of language users. What I want to propose in this essay is precisely what current thinkers seem unanimous in rejecting. I want to argue for a transcendental theory of the life-world and of historicity, and I want to do so by suggesting that a phenomenological reflection upon the transcendental ego - once correctly understood - is the proper procedure for constructing such a theory. In this paper I will discuss such a theory by undertaking a brief study of Husserl's concept of the life-world and by isolating several difficulties which I detect (Part I). I will then introduce a theory of the transcendental reduction as the key to resolving the difficulties I discover (Part II). Finally, I will undertake my own systematic analysis of the a priori of the life-world and will suggest a way of integrating such an analysis with what I will call a transcendental history of the experience of consciousness (Part III). (shrink)

The recent first-time publication of works from Edmund Husserl’s later years, especially his Freiburg period, combined with new studies of his method and theories, has stimulated a remarkable shift in perceptions of the scope and significance of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Informed by a deep reading of not just the works published during Husserl’s lifetime but also the countless lectures and manuscripts he wrote in his later years, the essays in The New Husserl provide an alternative approach to Husserl by examining (...) his work and his method as a whole and by probing issues, old and new, that occupied him during this exceptionally productive period. The noted Husserl specialist Klaus Held opens the book with two essays, published here in English for the first time, that provide an insightful and lucid introduction to Husserl’s central texts. Other prominent Husserl scholars treat his most important and lasting contributions to philosophy, such as the concept of intentionality, the theory of types, time-consciousness, consciousness and subjectivity, the phenomenological method, and the problem of generativity. By inviting readers to discover this "new Husserl," the present collection is likely to shape scholarly discussions of Husserl’s thought for some time to come. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the design, implementation, and evaluation of concepts. Conceptual engineering includes or should include de novo conceptual engineering (designing a new concept) as well as conceptual re-engineering (fixing an old concept). It should also include heteronymous (different-word) as well as homonymous (same-word) conceptual engineering. I discuss the importance and the difficulty of these sorts of conceptual engineering in philosophy and elsewhere.

"My work has had nothing to do with gay liberation," Michel Foucault reportedly told an admirer in 1975. And indeed there is scarcely more than a passing mention of homosexuality in Foucault's scholarly writings. So why has Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984, become a powerful source of both personal and political inspiration to an entire generation of gay activists? And why have his political philosophy and his personal life recently come under such withering, normalizing scrutiny by commentators as (...) diverse as Camille Paglia, Richard Mohr, Bruce Bawer, Roger Kimball, and biographer James Miller? David M. Halperin's Saint Foucault is an uncompromising and impassioned defense of the late French philosopher and historian as a galvanizing thinker whose career as a theorist and activist will continue to serve as a model for other gay intellectuals, activists, and scholars. A close reading of both Foucault and the increasing attacks on his life and work, it explains why straight liberals so often find in Foucault only counsels of despair on the subject of politics, whereas gay activists look to him not only for intellectual inspiration but also for a compelling example of political resistance. Halperin rescues Foucault from the endless nature-versus-nurture debate over the origins of homosexuality ("On this question I have absolutely nothing to say," Foucault himself once remarked) and argues that Foucault's decision to treat sexuality not as a biological or psychological drive but as an effect of discourse, as the product of modern systems of knowledge and power, represents a crucial political breakthrough for lesbians and gay men. Halperin explains how Foucault's radical vision of homosexuality as a strategic opportunity for self-transformation anticipated the new anti-assimilationist, anti-essentialist brand of sexual identity politics practiced by contemporary direct-action groups such as ACT UP. Halperin also offers the first synthetic account of Foucault's thinking about gay sex and the future of the lesbian and gay movement, as well as an up-to-the-minute summary of the most recent work in queer theory. "Where there is power, there is resistance," Michel Foucault wrote in The History of Sexuality, Volume I. Erudite, biting, and surprisingly moving, Saint Foucault represents Halperin's own resistance to what he views as the blatant and systematic misrepresentation of a crucial intellectual figure, a misrepresentation he sees as dramatic evidence of the continuing personal, professional, and scholarly vulnerability of all gay activists and intellectuals in the age of AIDS. (shrink)

An ethnographer's account of his study of jazz-piano playing, which led to discoveries concerning the ways his hands learned about the keyboard and improvisation, sheds light on the nature and range of improvised conduct.

The volume begins with a major statement by the French feminist culture critic Julia Kristeva and includes essays by well-known and also younger continental philosophers writing in the North American context and reassessing the European ...