Since Mueller’s 1958 article calling Hegelian dialectics a “legend,” it has been fashionable to deny that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. But in truth, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has 28 dialectics hidden on four outline levels, and The Philosophy of History has 10 more on three outline levels. In Phenomenology’s macrodialectic, Hegel’s nonsupernatural Spirit–all reality, everything in the universe, including man and artificial objects–advances from unconscious + union (thesis) to conscious + separation (antithesis) to a synthesis of conscious (from (...) the antithesis) + union (from the thesis). Previous interpretations of Phenomenology have missed this dialectic: they have assumed that Spirit’s journey begins with consciousness, whereas the journey actually begins in the primordial state of nature, before man arrives and provides Spirit with its Mind (the collective mind of man). Mind then misperceives itself as a multitude of separate alien “objects”–things other than itself. The macrodialectic and all other dialectics are based on Christianity’s Johannine separation-and-return mythology; all Hegelian dialectics separate from a concept in the thesis, going to that something’s opposite (antithesis), and then return to the thesis concept. Thus, in Hegel’s master-and-slave dialectic (God = master, man = slave), man advances from potential + freedom to actual + bondage (religiosity) to actual + freedom (atheism). Only Marx and Tillich understood Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s basic dialectic (one of four) saw history separating from and returning to Communism, going from communal ownership + poverty (primitive communism, or gens) to private ownership + wealth (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to communal ownership + wealth (final communism). Tillich’s basic dialectic (one of many) separates from and returns to God, advancing from Yes to God + Yes to supernaturalism (theism) to No to God + No to supernaturalism (atheism) to Yes to God + No to supernaturalism (humanism: humanity is the nonsupernatural “God above the God of theism”). (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis holds, roughly speaking, that there is a unique rational response to any particular body of evidence. We first sketch some varieties of Uniqueness that appear in the literature. We then discuss some popular views that conflict with Uniqueness and others that require Uniqueness to be true. We then examine some arguments that have been presented in its favor and discuss why permissivists find them unconvincing. Last, we present some purported counterexamples that have been raised against Uniqueness (...) and discuss some possible reasons why proponents of Uniqueness might find these similarly unconvincing. (shrink)

In tradition linked to Aristotle and Kant, many contemporary philosophers treat practical and theoretical normativity as two genuinely distinct domains of normativity. In this paper I consider the question of what it is for normative domains to be distinct. I suggest that there are two different ways that the distinctness thesis might be understood and consider the different implications of the two different distinctness theses.

The Thesis of Kant’s Third Antinomy asserts that, because it is “necessary to assume another causality through freedom” in order to derive all the appearances of the world, “causality in accordance with the laws of nature is not the only one” (A444/B472). The argument Kant supplies in support of this, however, has been the subject of interpretative disagreement since at least Schopenhauer, with the most plausible reconstructions being dismissed as question-begging, resting on a conflation relating to the principle of (...) sufficient reason, or attacking a straw-man of the Antithesis position. In this paper, I attempt to provide a novel interpretation of the argument for the Thesis position, one that offers a more compelling case against a charitably interpreted Antithesis position. (shrink)

According to Suszko’s Thesis, there are but two logical values, true and false. In this paper, R. Suszko’s, G. Malinowski’s, and M. Tsuji’s analyses of logical twovaluedness are critically discussed. Another analysis is presented, which favors a notion of a logical system as encompassing possibly more than one consequence relation. [A] fundamental problem concerning many-valuedness is to know what it really is. [13, p. 281].

The aim of this paper is to analyze a philosophical question (neutrality vs. theory-ladenness of observation) taking into consideration the empirical results of Cognitive Psychology (theories of perception). This is an important debate because the objectivity of science is at stake. In the Philosophy of Science there are two main positions with regard to observation, those of C. Hempel and N. R. Hanson. In the Philosophy of Mind there are also two important contrasting positions, those of J. Fodor and Paul (...) M. Churchland. I will analyze the consequences of recent theories of perception and vision developed within Cognitive Science for classical epistemological theses about observation. (shrink)

While many scholars agree that the ‘‘separation thesis’’ (Freeman in Bus Ethics Quart 4(4):409–421, 1994)—that business issues and ethical issues can be neatly compartmentalized—is harmful to business ethics scholarship and practice, they also conclude that eliminating it is either inadvisable because of the usefulness of the positive/ normative distinction, or actually impossible. Based on an exploration of the fact/value dichotomy and the pragmatist and virtue theoretic responses to it, we develop an approach to eliminating the separation thesis that (...) integrates ‘‘business’’ with ‘‘ethics’’ while still permitting a positive/ normative distinction, which we call ‘‘ethics from observation.’’. (shrink)

In this paper I present a precise version of Stalnaker's thesis and show that it is both consistent and predicts our intuitive judgments about the probabilities of conditionals. The thesis states that someone whose total evidence is E should have the same credence in the proposition expressed by 'if A then B' in a context where E is salient as they have conditional credence in the proposition B expresses given the proposition A expresses in that context. The (...) class='Hi'>thesis is formalised rigorously and two models are provided that demonstrate that the new thesis is indeed tenable within a standard possible world semantics based on selection functions. Unlike the Stalnaker-Lewis semantics the selection functions cannot be understood in terms of similarity. A probabilistic account of selection is defended in its place. -/- I end the paper by suggesting that this approach overcomes some of the objections often leveled at accounts of indicatives based on the notion of similarity. (shrink)

In this short paper we extend the dialectical triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis to the neutrosophic tetrad thesis-antithesis-neutrothesis-neutrosynthesis. We do this for better reflecting our world, since the neutralities between opposites play an important role. The neutrosophic synthesis (neutrosynthesis) is more refined that the dialectical synthesis. It carries on the unification and synthesis regarding the opposites and their neutrals too.

This book presents a critical analysis of the semantic incommensurability thesis of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. In putting forward the thesis of incommensurability, Kuhn and Feyerabend drew attention to complex issues concerning the phenomenon of conceptual change in science. They raised serious problems about the semantic and logical relations between the content of theories which deploy unlike systems of concepts. Yet few of the more extreme claims associated with incommensurability stand scrutiny. The argument of this book is (...) as follows. The terms of theories with different concepts diverge semantically and the vocabularies of such theories may not be fully intertranslatable. Given the possibility of referential overlap between the terms of conceptually divergent theories, it does not follow that the content of such theories is incomparable. Nor, given the distinction between understanding a language and translation from one language into another, does it follow that the proponents of mutually untranslatable theories are unable to communicate. Neither is it the case that the shift between conceptually divergent theories involves a discontinuous transition between theories which have no common reference or that refer to distinct worlds of their own making. The semantic differences resulting from conceptual variance may be embraced within a thoroughly realist framework on which they are construed as diverse linguistic relations to a fixed and independent reality. -/- The book, which was originally published in 1994, has now been re-issued in the Routledge Revivals series. -/- . (shrink)

This case study examines the conflicts of interest that can arise in the selection of jury members to evaluate a PhD thesis, and the costs associated with trying to avoid COI.

I spell out and update the individuality thesis, that species are individuals, and not classes, sets, or kinds. I offer three complementary presentations of this thesis. First, as a way of resolving an inconsistent triad about natural kinds; second, as a phylogenetic systematics theoretical perspective; and, finally, as a novel recursive account of an evolved character. These approaches do different sorts of work, serving different interests. Presenting them together produces a taxonomy of the debates over the thesis, (...) and isolates ways it has been productive. This goes to the larger point of this paper: a defense of the individuality thesis in terms of its utility, and an update of it in light of recent theoretical developments and empirical work in biology. (shrink)

The poem of Parmenides is the earliest philosophic text which is preserved with sufficient completeness and continuity to permit us to follow a sustained line of argument. It is surely one of the most interesting arguments in the history of philosophy, and we are lucky to have this early text, perhaps a whole century older than the first dialogues of Plato. But the price we must pay for our good fortune is to face up to a vipers' nest of problems, (...) concerning details of the text and the archaic language but also concerning major questions of philosophic interpretation. These problems are so fundamental that, unless we solve them correctly, we cannot even be clear as to what Parmenides is arguing for, or why. And they are so knotted that we can scarcely unravel a single problem without finding the whole nest on our hands. (shrink)

The so-called ‘Adams’ Thesis’ is often understood as the claim that the assertibility of an indicative conditional equals the corresponding conditional probability—schematically: $${({\rm AT})}\qquad\qquad\quad As(A\rightarrow B)=P({B|A}),{\rm provided}\quad P(A)\neq 0.$$ The Thesis is taken by many to be a touchstone of any theorizing about indicative conditionals. Yet it is unclear exactly what the Thesis is . I suggest some precise statements of it. I then rebut a number of arguments that have been given in its favor. Finally, I (...) offer a new argument against it. I appeal to an old triviality result of mine against ‘Stalnaker’s Thesis’ that the probability of a conditional equals the corresponding conditional probability. I showed that for all finite-ranged probability functions, there are strictly more distinct values of conditional probabilities than there are distinct values of probabilities of conditionals, so they cannot all be paired up as Stalnaker’s Thesis promises. Conditional probabilities are too fine-grained to coincide with probabilities of conditionals across the board. If the assertibilities of conditionals are to coincide with conditional probabilities across the board, then assertibilities must be finer-grained than probabilities. I contend that this is implausible—it is surely the other way round. I generalize this argument to other interpretations of ‘ As ’, including ‘acceptability’ and ‘assentability’. I find it hard to see how any such figure of merit for conditionals can systematically align with the corresponding conditional probabilities. (shrink)

우리가 자신의 행위를 도덕적으로 정당화하고자 한다면, 그 행위가 도덕적 원칙과 병립할 수 있다는 것을 보여주어야 한다. 즉 도덕적 행위의 정당화는 보편적 관점에서 받아들여질 수 있어야 한다. 근대 이후 많은 철학자들과 여러 윤리이론들은 도덕적 추론은 공평성에 대한 요구를 받아들여야 한다고 주장했다. 이것을 우리는 ‘공평성 논제 impartiality thesis’라 부를 수 있다. 공평성 논제에 따르면 우리는 어떠한 도덕적 판단을 내리고자 할 때, 우리 자신이나 혹은 우리와 특별한 관계를 가진 사람들의 욕구나 이익에 특별한 비중을 두어서는 안 되며, 공평한 관망자로서 중립적 관점에서 판단하려 노력해야 (...) 한다. 하지만 또 다른 철학자들은 도덕 판단에 있어서의 이러한 공평성 논제에 동의하지 않는다. 이들은 사적으로 특별한 인간관계에서 요구되는 의무와 편향성(partialism)을 공평성 논제는 설명할 수 없다고 주장한다. 본 논문에서 필자는 도덕 판단에서의 공평성에 대한 요구에 관해 브래드 후커(Brad Hooker)가 제시하고 있는 공평성에 대한 평가와 도덕 판단에서 그 적용 단계를 중심으로 살펴보았다. 이를 통해 필자는 결국 윤리적 판단의 정당화 근거를 위해서는 공평성에 대한 요구가 충족되어야 함을 논증하였다. 왜냐하면 도덕 규칙들에 대한 정당화 요구는 도덕 판단에 있어서의 비결정성과 불확실성을 최소화하여 도덕에 관한 공평한 권위를 부과하기 위한 도덕 체계 일반의 보편적 요구사항이기 때문이다. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer two counterexamples to the so-called ‘Uniqueness Thesis.’ As one of these examples rely on the thesis that it is possible for a justified belief to be based on an inconsistent body of evidence, I also offer reasons for this further thesis. On the assumption that doxastic justification entails propositional justification, the counterexamples seem to work.

Underdetermination is a relation between evidence and theory. More accurately, it is a relation between the propositions that express the (relevant) evidence and the propositions that constitute the theory. Evidence is said to underdetermine theory. This may mean two things. First, the evidence cannot prove the truth of the theory. Second, the evidence cannot render the theory probable. Let’s call the first deductive underdetermination, and the second inductive (or ampliative) underdetermination. Both kinds of claim are supposed to have a certain (...) epistemic implication, viz., that belief in theory is never warranted by the evidence. This is the underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis (U), according to Richard Feldman and Roger White, says that for a given set of evidence E and a proposition P, only one doxastic attitude about P is rational given E. Luis Rosa has recently provided two counterexamples against U which are supposed to show that even if there is a sense in which choosing between two doxastic attitudes is arbitrary, both options are equally and maximally rational. Both counterexamples work by exploiting the idea that ‘ought (...) implies can’ and trying to spell out situations in which some inferences are beyond the capabilities of some reasoners. I argue that on a descriptive account of doxastic rationality, questions of whether ‘epistemic ought implies can’ can be bracketed and that at least one of the inferential moves that Rosa describes in his cases is irrational. I further argue that a descriptive account of doxastic rationality is the appropriate notion of rationality that is to be considered when evaluating U. If my argument for a descriptive account of rationality is successful, then we have reason to revise our use of the term rationality to fit this descriptive understanding. (shrink)

Church's thesis asserts that a number-theoretic function is intuitively computable if and only if it is recursive. A related thesis asserts that Turing's work yields a conceptual analysis of the intuitive notion of numerical computability. I endorse Church's thesis, but I argue against the related thesis. I argue that purported conceptual analyses based upon Turing's work involve a subtle but persistent circularity. Turing machines manipulate syntactic entities. To specify which number-theoretic function a Turing machine computes, we (...) must correlate these syntactic entities with numbers. I argue that, in providing this correlation, we must demand that the correlation itself be computable. Otherwise, the Turing machine will compute uncomputable functions. But if we presuppose the intuitive notion of a computable relation between syntactic entities and numbers, then our analysis of computability is circular. (shrink)

Adams' Thesis states that the probability of a conditional is the probability of the consequent conditional on the antecedent. S. Kaufmann introduced a rival method, the so-called ``local interpretation'', for calculating the probability of a conditional that, according to a purported majority, squares better with intuition in some circumstances. He also gives an example purporting to show that this new method sometimes corresponds to rational action. We challenge the intuitions and expose a mathematical error in the example. We also (...) offer a model for the local interpretivist semantics. This model puts theoretical local interpretivists on ground as solid as that of Thesis abiders for whom conditionals have truth conditions. (shrink)

The Church-Turing thesis makes a bold claim about the theoretical limits to computation. It is based upon independent analyses of the general notion of an effective procedure proposed by Alan Turing and Alonzo Church in the 1930''s. As originally construed, the thesis applied only to the number theoretic functions; it amounted to the claim that there were no number theoretic functions which couldn''t be computed by a Turing machine but could be computed by means of some other kind (...) of effective procedure. Since that time, however, other interpretations of the thesis have appeared in the literature. In this paper I identify three domains of application which have been claimed for the thesis: (1) the number theoretic functions; (2) all functions; (3) mental and/or physical phenomena. Subsequently, I provide an analysis of our intuitive concept of a procedure which, unlike Turing''s, is based upon ordinary, everyday procedures such as recipes, directions and methods; I call them mundane procedures. I argue that mundane procedures can be said to be effective in the same sense in which Turing machine procedures can be said to be effective. I also argue that mundane procedures differ from Turing machine procedures in a fundamental way, viz., the former, but not the latter, generate causal processes. I apply my analysis to all three of the above mentioned interpretations of the Church-Turing thesis, arguing that the thesis is (i) clearly false under interpretation (3), (ii) false in at least some possible worlds (perhaps even in the actual world) under interpretation (2), and (iii) very much open to question under interpretation (1). (shrink)

Buck-passers about value accept two theses about value, a negative thesis and a positive. The negative thesis is that the fact that something is valuable is not itself a reason to promote or appreciate it. The positive thesis is that the fact that something is valuable consists in the fact that there are other reasons to promote or appreciate it. Buck-passers suppose that the negative thesis follows from the positive one, and sometimes insist on it as (...) if it is the central part of their view. But as I'll explain here, what we say about the negative thesis is orthogonal to what we say about the positive one. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, following his elucidation of the ‘postulates’ of possibility, actuality, and necessity, Kant makes a series of puzzling remarks. He seems to deny the somewhat metaphysically intuitive contention that the extension of possibility is greater than that of actuality, which, in turn, is greater than that of necessity. Further, he states that the actual adds nothing to the possible. This leads to the view, fairly common in the literature, that Kant holds that all modal categories, (...) in their empirical applications, are coextensive. I diverge from the common view. First, Kant is not committed to the coextensiveness thesis, understood as above. Instead, he espouses a weaker, epistemological version of the coextensiveness thesis, namely that what we can assert to be really possible is coextensive with what we cognize to be actual. Second, Kant's remarks are not intended to introduce a positive ontological thesis about the extensions of modal categories. Rather, he means to criticize a certain conception of modalities that was prevalent among his rationalist predecessors, i.e., the conception of modalities as various determinations that enter the intensions of concepts of things. (shrink)

Certain philosophers maintain that there is a ‘constitutive threshold for belief’: to believe that p just is to have a degree of confidence that p above a certain threshold. On the basis of this view, these philosophers defend what is known as ‘the Lockean Thesis ’, according to which it is rational to believe that p just in case it is rational to have a degree of confidence that p above the constitutive threshold for belief. While not directly speaking (...) to the controversy over the Lockean Thesis, this paper defends the general idea behind it—namely, the thesis that there is some threshold such that it is rational to believe that p if and only if it is rational to have a degree of confidence great than that threshold. This paper identifies the threshold in question—not with the alleged constitutive threshold for belief—but with what I call ‘the practical threshold for rational belief’. Roughly, the thesis defended here is that it is rational to believe that p if and only if it is rational to have a degree of confidence that p that rationalizes engaging in certain types of practical reasoning. (shrink)

Traditionally, many writers, following Kleene (1952), thought of the Church-Turing thesis as unprovable by its nature but having various strong arguments in its favor, including Turing’s analysis of human computation. More recently, the beauty, power, and obvious fundamental importance of this analysis, what Turing (1936) calls “argument I,” has led some writers to give an almost exclusive emphasis on this argument as the unique justification for the Church-Turing thesis. In this chapter I advocate an alternative justification, essentially presupposed (...) by Turing himself in what he calls “argument II.” The idea is that computation is a special form of mathematical deduction. Assuming the steps of the deduction can be stated in a first order language, the Church-Turing thesis follows as a special case of Gödel’s completeness theorem (first order algorithm theorem). I propose this idea as an alternative foundation for the Church-Turing thesis, both for human and machine computation. Clearly the relevant assumptions are justified for computations presently known. Other issues, such as the significance of Gödel’s 1931 Theorem IX for the Entscheidungsproblem, are discussed along the way. (shrink)

This paper develops a trivalent semantics for indicative conditionals and extends it to a probabilistic theory of valid inference and inductive learning with conditionals. On this account, (i) all complex conditionals can be rephrased as simple conditionals, connecting our account to Adams's theory of p-valid inference; (ii) we obtain Stalnaker's Thesis as a theorem while avoiding the well-known triviality results; (iii) we generalize Bayesian conditionalization to an updating principle for conditional sentences. The final result is a unified semantic and (...) probabilistic theory of conditionals with attractive results and predictions. (shrink)

Many writers in the field of business ethics seem to have accepted R. Edward Freeman’s argument to the effect that what he calls “the separation thesis,” or the idea that business and morality can be separated in certain ways, should be rejected. In this paper, I discuss how this argument should be understood more exactly, and what position “the separation thesis” refers to. I suggest that there are actually many interpretations (or versions) of the separation thesis going (...) around, ranging from semantic, empirical and reformative to some which are straightforwardly normative. While it is generally agreed that the separation thesis should be rejected, then, there is not as much agreement on what this thesis actually says. I suggest that whether or not we should<br>reject the separation thesis, however, ultimately must depend on how we understand it more exactly—on certain interpretations, the thesis comes out as more or less trivially false, but we should demand more evidence or argument to reject it on certain other interpretations. This result presents a challenge for all those writers who are committed to the rejection of the separation thesis. (shrink)

The aim of the thesis is to show that there are some synthetic necessary truths, or that synthetic apriori knowledge is possible. This is really a pretext for an investigation into the general connection between meaning and truth, or between understanding and knowing, which, as pointed out in the preface, is really the first stage in a more general enquiry concerning meaning. (Not all kinds of meaning are concerned with truth.) After the preliminaries (chapter one), in which the problem (...) is stated and some methodological remarks made, the investigation proceeds in two stages. First there is a detailed inquiry into the manner in which the meanings or functions of words occurring in a statement help to determine the conditions in which that statement would be true (or false). This prepares the way for the second stage, which is an inquiry concerning the connection between meaning and necessary truth (between understanding and knowing apriori). The first stage occupies Part Two of the thesis, the second stage Part Three. In all this, only a restricted class of statements is discussed, namely those which contain nothing but logical words and descriptive words, such as "Not all round tables are scarlet" and "Every three-sided figure is three-angled". (The reasons for not discussing proper names and other singular definite referring expressions are given in Appendix I.). (shrink)

This entry introduces the Lockean Thesis and sketches the ways in which the lottery paradox, the preface paradox, and the problem of merely statistical evidence can be used to put pressure on the Lockean Thesis.

The recognition that human minds/brains are finite systems with limited resources for computation has led some researchers to advance theTractable Cognition thesis: Human cognitive capacities are constrained by computational tractability. This thesis, if true, serves cognitive psychology by constraining the space of computational‐level theories of cognition. To utilize this constraint, a precise and workable definition of “computational tractability” is needed. Following computer science tradition, many cognitive scientists and psychologists define computational tractability as polynomial‐time computability, leading to theP‐Cognition (...) class='Hi'>thesis. This article explains how and why the P‐Cognition thesis may be overly restrictive, risking the exclusion of veridical computational‐level theories from scientific investigation. An argument is made to replace the P‐Cognition thesis by theFPT‐Cognition thesisas an alternative formalization of the Tractable Cognition thesis (here, FPT stands for fixed‐parameter tractable). Possible objections to the Tractable Cognition thesis, and its proposed formalization, are discussed, and existing misconceptions are clarified. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a contextualist reading of the KK-thesis. In the first part, I present the general problem and I contrast three concepts of knowledge with respect to the KK-thesis, (Hintikka, Lemmon, and Williamson) that all rely on a univocal interpretation of the K-predicate. In the second part, I provide a contextualist framework based upon an indexical interpretation of the K-predicate and the notion of epistemic context. I show how this framework can integrate different concepts of (...) knowledge, and how it highlights the crucial significance of the KK-thesis for epistemology. (shrink)

Perhaps more controversial than whether physicalism is true is what exactly would have to be true for physicalism to be true. Everyone agrees that, intuitively at least, physicalism is the thesis that there is nothing over and above the physical. The disagreements arise in how to get beyond this intuitive formulation. Until about ten years ago, participants in this debate were concerned primarily with answering two questions. First, what is it for a property, kind, relation, or individual to be (...) a physical one? (shrink)

The article focuses on the new rhetoric category of quasi-logical arguments, defined as arguments similar to logical or mathematical demonstrations, and therefore having an effect on the audience. Connecting the similarity of arguments to formal demonstrations with the claim of effect on audience is conceived in this article as the thesis of effectiveness of quasi-logical arguments. The components of the thesis are reconstructed and analyzed, and their precise definitions are proposed. The analysis shows that the category of quasi-logical (...) arguments is ambiguously defined and currently includes three different concepts based on a different understanding of similarity. Subsequently, it is showed that based on Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s works, the explanation of quasi-logical arguments’ effect on an audience can be offered in terms of socially shared standards of community or in terms of individual processing of arguments. It is shown that these explanations can be in conflict each other regarding the assumption of the addressee’s acquaintance with formal principles. (shrink)

The Thesis of Theory-Laden [TTL] holds that is not possible a neutral observation. From this thesis, some philosophers have inferred that the facts, i.e., the subject’s independent reality, do not exist or that they are social constructions only. The aim of this paper is assess if TTL necessarily implies a constructivist point of view or if, conversely, we can still speak about the reality. In order to do this, we will clarify these terms: "the theory-ladenness of observation" and (...) "constructivism". Then, we will argue that although TTL is possible, we are not committed to constructivism, and on the contrary, TTL can be an interesting frame to the realistic thesis. Finally, we will point out the impact this had has when evaluating many epistemological proposals. La tesis de la carga teórica de la observación [CTO] sostiene que no es posible una observación neutral. A partir de esta tesis, algunos filósofos han derivado que los hechos, o mejor, la realidad independiente del sujeto, no existen o que son solo construcciones sociales. El objetivo de este artículo es evaluar si CTO implica necesariamente una visión constructivista o si, por el contrario, permite seguir hablando de realidad. Para ello, se aclararán los conceptos de "carga teórica de la observación" y de "constructivismo". Posteriormente, se defenderá que pese a la plausibilidad de CTO, no estamos comprometidos a adoptar el constructivismo, antes bien, CTO puede ser un interesante marco para las tesis realistas. Finalmente, se señalarán algunas repercusiones que esto tiene a la hora de evaluar propuestas epistemológicas. (shrink)

There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent writing in the philosophy of mind.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The correspondence theory of truth has experienced something of a revival recently in the form of the Truthmaker Axiom: whatever is true, something makes it true. We consider various postulates which have been proposed to characterize truthmaking, in particular, the Disjunction Thesis (DT), that whatever makes a disjunction true must make one or other disjunct true. In conjunction with certain other assumptions, DT leads to triviality. We show that there are elaborations of truthmaking on which DT holds (which must (...) therefore take steps to avoid the triviality); but that there are more plausible accounts of truthmaking on which DT fails. (shrink)

Two experiments (N1 = 141, N2 = 40) investigate two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis for the first time. Aristotle’s Thesis is a negated conditional, which consists of one propositional variable with a negation either in the antecedent (version 1) or in the consequent (version 2). This task allows us to infer if people interpret indicative conditionals as material conditionals or as conditional events. In the first experiment I investigate between-participants the two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis crossed with (...) abstract versus concrete task material. The modal response for all four groups is consistent with the conditional event and inconsistentwith the material conditional interpretation. This observation is replicated in the second experiment. Moreover, the second experiment rules out scope ambiguities of the negation of conditionals. Both experiments provide new evidence against thematerial conditional interpretation of conditionals and support the conditional event interpretation. Finally, I discuss implications formodeling indicative conditionals and the relevance of this work for experimental philosophy. (shrink)

In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have argued (implicitly and explicitly) that epistemically rational individuals might compose epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, epistemically rational groups might be composed of epistemically irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they together imply that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists might be logically independent of one another. We develop a formal model of scientific inquiry, define (...) four criteria for individual and group epistemic rationality, and then prove that the four definitions diverge, in the sense that individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We conclude by explaining implications of the inconsistency thesis for (i) descriptive history and sociology of science and (ii) normative prescriptions for scientific communities. (shrink)

The Qualitative Thesis says that if you leave open P, then you are sure of if P, then Q just in case you are sure of the corresponding material conditional. We argue the Qualitative Thesis provides compelling reasons to accept a thesis that we call Conditional Locality, which says, roughly, the interpretation of an indicative conditional depends, in part, on the conditional’s local embedding environment. In the first part of the paper, we present an argument—due to Ben (...) Holguín—showing that, without Conditional Locality, the Qualitative Thesis is in tension with a margin for error principle on rational sureness. We show Conditional Locality reconciles the Qualitative Thesis with the margin for error principle. In the second part, we argue the full range of data supports what we call the Strong Qualitative Thesis. Without Conditional Locality, the Strong Qualitative Thesis has unacceptable consequences. But with Conditional Locality, it is tenable. (shrink)

John Danaher and Sven Nyholm have argued that automation, especially of the sort powered by artificial intelligence, poses a threat to meaningful work by diminishing the chances for meaning-conferring workplace achievement, what they call “achievement gaps”. In this paper, I argue that Danaher and Nyholm’s achievement gap thesis suffers from an ambiguity. The weak version of the thesis holds that automation may result in the appearance of achievement gaps, whereas the strong version holds that automation may result on (...) balance loss in possibilities for workplace achievements, i.e., in the appearance of an overall gappier work landscape. Against the strong version of the achievement gap thesis, I characterize situations where automation may result in boons to meaning-conferring workplace achievements: the appearance of what I call achievement spread and achievement swaps. Nevertheless, Danaher and Nyholm are right to worry about some uses of automation whereby human workers become subservient to AI. But these situations are better framed, I argue, as autonomy gaps rather than achievement gaps. (shrink)