Inuit customs establish that food must be shared with the community. For many Inuit, income from wage-work feeds back into the subsistence economy, as money is needed to buy snowmobiles, gas, or rifles to practice harvesting activities. In the last decade, both scholars and journalists have noted that the commercialization of traditional foods through Facebook is a current controversy among Inuit. This article will discuss this issue contrasting technological essentialism and postphenomenology. While technological essentialism establishes, from a Heideggerian perspective, that (...) technology transforms reality into pure resource, postphenomenology focuses on describing how technology helps to shape the relations between humans and the world. This article will propose that the commercialization of country foods reflects Facebook’s multistability—that is, the fact that any given technology can present the world in multiple ways. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset and Hannah Arendt were two thinkers influenced by the phenomenological tradition for whom worldly experiences within a specific circumstance were essential to what it means to be human. This article, first, examines their notions of ‘amor mundi’ (Arendt) and ‘salvation of circumstance’ (Ortega), pointing out their similarities concerning the individual’s relationship to the world. It then moves on to investigate some of Ortega’s and Arendt’s conceptions about science, technology, and the concomitant bureaucratization and technocratization of the (...) world. The main thesis of this article will be that both thinkers fundamentally coincide on how the individual must relate to an increasingly scientifically and technologically-mediated world that produces isolation and mass–people. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering and consider consequences for how to understand epistemic normativity. Though the view that there are such norms seems intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that (...) there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry. (shrink)

Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...) cannot be settled independently of the choice of a particular resolution to the measurement problem. Specifically, we consider how three standard putative solutions to the measurement problem inform our under- standing of a molecule in isolation, as well as of chemistry’s relation to quantum physics. (shrink)

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

Delusions are standardly defined as attitudes that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. But what evidence do people with delusion have for and against it? Do delusions really go against their total evidence? How are the answers affected by different conceptions of evidence? -/- This chapter focuses on how delusions relate to evidence. I consider what delusions-relevant evidence people with delusions have. I give some reasons to think that people typically have evidence for their delusions, and (...) that the evidence they have against them is often overstated. I draw on this discussion to consider whether delusions are evidentially supported and epistemically rational. Finally, I discuss implications for the nature of delusion, responsibility, and treatment and suggest directions for future research. Throughout, the discussion is sensitive to different conceptions of evidence and rationality in epistemology. -/- A central upshot is that what we should say about the epistemic standing of delusions depends substantively on our positions in epistemology, in particular, on the debate between internalists and externalists about evidence. If we want clarity on the epistemic standing of delusions, we need to incorporate more sophisticated tools from epistemology. (shrink)

While it might seem prima facie plausible that divine foreknowledge is all that is needed for prophecy, this seems incorrect. To issue a prophecy, God hasto know not just how someone will act, but how someone would act were the prophecy issued. This makes some think that Middle Knowledge is required.I argue that Thomas Flint’s two Middle Knowledge based accounts of prophecy are unsatisfactory, but one of them can be repaired. However the resources needed for repair also yield a sketch (...) of a foreknowledge-only account of prophecy. (shrink)

Commentary on Pablo Hubacher Haerle’s paper “Is OCD Epistemically Irrational?”. I argue for expanding our assessment of rationality in OCD by considering a wider range of epistemic parameters and how they fit together.

This is an expanded and thoroughly revised edition of the widely adopted introduction to the philosophical foundations of the human sciences. Ranging from cultural anthropology to mathematical economics, Alexander Rosenberg leads the reader through behaviorism, naturalism, interpretativism about human action, and macrosocial scientific perspectives, illuminating the motivation and strategy of each.Rewritten throughout to increase accessibility, this new edition retains the remarkable achievement of revealing the social sciences’ enduring relation to the fundamental problems of philosophy. It includes new discussions of (...) positivism, European philosophy of history, causation, statistical laws, quantitative models, and postempiricist social science, along with a completely updated literature guide that keys chapters to widely anthologized papers. (shrink)

Argues that Nietzsche tried to create a specific literary character in his writings and discusses the paradoxes of his work.

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

The dominating theologian in Europe between Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, Henry of Ghent produced a massive Summa of Ordinary Questions as well as fifteen quodlibets during his long tenure at the University of Paris. His work constituted a new synthesis of faith and reason which competed with that of Thomas Aquinas and influenced the history of both philosophy and theology. The first five articles of the Summa, dealing with various issues associated with human knowledge, constitute an adequate introduction (...) to Henry's thought. In them we find his approach to fundamental principles and themes developed in detail in the rest of his corpus. Of the five, only article one has appeared as a whole in English translation. The next four articles reinforce and develop the findings of the first article, providing additional treatments that indicate Henry's principles and orientation. In fact, these four articles alone provide a condensed but remarkably rich portrait of Henry's basic thought, and so are an invaluable resource for beginning and advanced students alike. Articles 2-5 include important positions on knowledge and reality, a conception of humanity's ultimate purpose and the pursuits most conducive to it, and an approach to faith and reason. These four articles are presented here for the first time in English translation with an introduction and notes. Along with the translation, the volume includes the Latin text of the modern critical edition. --Book cover. (shrink)

The origins of choice -- The reproductive rights debate that ignored reproduction -- Putting reproduction back into reproductive freedom -- Reproductive freedom and human evolution -- Enlisting men in support of reproductive freedom -- Defending reproductive freedom from the dangers of reproductive technology -- Ought there be a law? -- Beyond choice.

Some combinations of attitudes--of beliefs, credences, intentions, preferences, hopes, fears, and so on--do not fit together right: they are incoherent. A natural idea is that there are requirements of "structural rationality" that forbid us from being in these incoherent states. Yet a number of surprisingly difficult challenges arise for this idea. These challenges have recently led many philosophers to attempt to minimize or eliminate structural rationality, arguing that it is just a "shadow" of "substantive rationality"--that is, correctly responding to one's (...) reasons. -/- In *Fitting Things Together*, Alex Worsnip pushes back against this trend--defending the view that structural rationality is a genuine kind of rationality, distinct from and irreducible to substantive rationality, and tackling the most important challenges for this view. In so doing, he gives an original positive theory of the nature of coherence and structural rationality that explains how the diverse range of instances of incoherence can be unified under a general account, and how facts about coherence are normatively significant. He also shows how a failure to focus on coherence requirements as a distinctive phenomenon and distinguish them adequately from requirements of substantive rationality has led to confusion and mistakes in several substantive debates in epistemology and ethics. -/- Taken as a whole, Fitting Things Together provides the first sustained defense of the view that structural rationality is a genuine, autonomous, unified, and normatively significant phenomenon. (shrink)

Naturalism in the philosophy of mathematics is the view that philosophy cannot legitimately gainsay mathematics. I distinguish between reinterpretation and reconstruction naturalism: the former states that philosophy cannot legitimately sanction a reinterpretation of mathematics (i.e. an interpretation different from the standard one); the latter that philosophy cannot legitimately change standard mathematics (as opposed to its interpretation). I begin by showing that neither form of naturalism is self-refuting. I then focus on reinterpretation naturalism, which comes in two forms, and examine the (...) only available argument for it. I argue that this argument, the so-called Failure Argument, itself fails. My overall conclusion is that although there is no self-refutation argument against reinterpretation naturalism, there are as yet no good reasons to accept it. Naturalism in mathematics The consistency of mathematical naturalism The failure argument Objections to the failure argument Philosophy as the default. (shrink)

Se presenta una visión de la epistemología como lógica del pensar y se la lleva a una elaboración de la práctica clínica como una lógica del padecimiento psíquico. Esto basado en los planteamientos de Deleuze y Guattari. Para ello se toma como punto de partida la noción de los movimientos aberrantes que, leyendo la obra de Deleuze, elaboró David Lapoujade entendiéndolos como movimientos que se producen en la relación entre distintos términos heterogéneos, pero manteniendo su heterogeneidad. Esto es vinculado con (...) la invitación que hace el mismo Lapoujade a entender la obra deleuzeana como el desarrollo de lógicas irracionales, intentando pensar desde ahí una lógica de la locura y del padecimiento mental con base en, a su vez, una lógica de las obras literarias de Proust y Kafka, tal como las leen los mismos Deleuze y Guattari. En relación con ello destacamos, por un lado, cierta lógica de conjuntos abiertos y no totalizables que estos últimos autores encuentran en la obra de Proust y, por otro lado, una lógica de la contigüidad que encuentran en la obra de Kafka. Al mismo tiempo, se establecen puntos en común entre estas dos lecturas a propósito de lo esquizoide como algo que excede a la significación del discurso, así como a la normatividad de la conducta. Asimismo, en distintos puntos del escrito se extraerán las implicaciones que estos modos de pensar tienen para una práctica clínica en relación con modos de existencia subjetivos que se escapan a lo que está establecido en el campo social. De esa manera, ponemos en conjunción una aproximación epistemológica con una política. (shrink)

Esta investigación se realizó con el objetivo de evaluar el impacto de la pandemia en las expectativas y oportunidades de los jóvenes en la zona metropolitana del Valle de México para seguir estudiando en un contexto de pobreza marcado por la incertidumbre de la COVID-19. El estudio se llevó a cabo con metodología cuantitativa, con alcance descriptivo y correlacional a partir de la definición de tres variables independientes: 1) rango de edad, 2) nivel de estudios, 3) su condición de estudiante; (...) y dos variables dependientes: 1) razón que motiva a los jóvenes a capacitarse; 2) tipo de discriminación. El diseño y análisis fueron trabajados desde teorías sobre pobreza, representaciones sociales y el estado del arte sobre comunicación del COVID-19. Las conclusiones revelan que los jóvenes encuestados encuentran una motivación para aprender en correlación con una mayor preparación; los que poseen estudios universitarios su motivación se centra en mejorar su calidad de vida; mientras que para los de menor nivel de estudios todos los motivos tienen la misma ponderación. En general, las principales motivaciones para aprender se encuentran en el ámbito de la familia, así como influir positivamente en otros. La necesidad de aprender como requisito, para obtener comida o un apoyo económico, y para cuidar de la comunidad, resultan tener la menor frecuencia de motivación, lo que demuestra que las políticas económicas implementadas por el Estado, no han generado las representaciones sociales y culturales suficientes para el progreso integral de las personas. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages the philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that to know the truth you must be the truth. But how to be the truth? Eckhart's answer comes in the form of an imperative: release yourself, let be. Only then will you be able to understand that the deepest meaning of being is releasement. Only then will you become who you truly are. This book interprets Eckhart's Latin and Middle High German writings under the banner of an (...) imperative of releasement, and then shows how the twentieth-century thinker Martin Heidegger creatively appropriates this idea at several stages of his career. Heidegger had a lifelong fascination with Eckhart, referring to him as "the old master of letters and life." Drawing on archival material and Heidegger's marginalia in his personal copies of Eckhart's writings, Moore argues that Eckhart was one of the most important figures in Heidegger's philosophy. This book also contains previously unpublished documents by Heidegger on Eckhart, as well as the first English translation of Nishitani Keiji's essay "Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Meister Eckhart," which he initially gave as a presentation in one of Heidegger's classes in 1938. (shrink)

A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.

The causes and underlying natures of common mental disorders are, for the most part, quite mysterious. Our best taxonomies acknowledge this poverty of causal knowledge about minds, brains, society, and whatever else, to instead classify psychopathology based on clusters of detectable signs and symptoms: what it is to be, say, depressed, is simply to exhibit the minimum number of typical features for the right amount of time. Nothing in this approach references what causes and maintains a characteristic set of symptoms, (...) and so by conceptualizing disorders as syndromes psychiatry stands in stark contrast to somatic medicine, its close cousin, and other successful sciences that classify... (shrink)

En “Acerca de la pregunta: ¿qué significa ilustrar?” de 1784, Mendelssohn sostiene que la ilustración que está conectada con la vocación esencial (wesentlich Bestimmung) del ser humano en tanto que ser humano puede entrar en conflicto no solo con la moralidad –las vocaciones extra-esenciales (außerwesentlichen Bestimmungen)– sino también con la vocación esencial del ciudadano, esto es, como miembro de un Estado. En estos casos, afirma Mendelssohn, es necesario cierto cuidado y precaución, cierta prudencia (Klugheit), en el uso de la ilustración. (...) El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el significado de esta apelación a la prudencia, por parte de Mendelssohn, como símbolo de una Ilustración que, en su compromiso radical con la humanidad, propone una aguda indagación sobre la “situacionalidad” de la razón y su poder emancipador, en la compleja interacción entre teoría y práctica. (shrink)

Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg's and Lee McIntyre's updated and substantially revised Fourth Edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is as a much-used, thematically-oriented introduction to the field.

This book provides an accessible, critical introduction to the three main approaches that dominated work in the philosophy of mathematics during the twentieth century: logicism, intuitionism and formalism.

A new speculative ontology of aesthetics. In Aesthesis and Perceptronium, Alexander Wilson presents a theory of materialist and posthumanist aesthetics founded on an original speculative ontology that addresses the interconnections of experience, cognition, organism, and matter. Entering the active fields of contemporary thought known as the new materialisms and realisms, Wilson argues for a rigorous redefining of the criteria that allow us to discriminate between those materials and objects where aesthesis (perception, cognition) takes place and those where it doesn't. (...) Aesthesis and Perceptronium negotiates between indiscriminately pluralist views that attribute mentation to all things and eliminative views that deny the existence of mentation even in humans. By recasting aesthetic questions within the framework of "epistemaesthetics," which considers cognition and aesthetics as belonging to a single category that can neither be fully disentangled nor fully reduced to either of its terms, Wilson forges a theory of nonhuman experience that avoids this untenable dilemma. Through a novel consideration of the evolutionary origins of cognition and its extension in technological developments, the investigation culminates in a rigorous reevaluation of the status of matter, information, computation, causality, and time in terms of their logical and causal engagement with the activities of human and nonhuman agents. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

A collection of essays by Alexander Rosenberg, the distinguished philosopher of science. The essays cover three broad areas related to Darwinian thought and naturalism: the first deals with the solution of philosophical problems such as reductionism, the second with the development of social theories, and the third with the intersection of evolutionary biology with economics, political philosophy, and public policy. Specific papers deal with naturalistic epistemology, the limits of reductionism, the biological justification of ethics, the so-called 'trolley problem' in (...) moral philosophy, the political philosophy of biological endowments, and the Human Genome Project and its implications for policy. Rosenberg's important writings on a variety of issues are here organized into a coherent philosophical framework which promises to be a significant and controversial contribution to scholarship in many areas. (shrink)

In The LEGO Movie, Vitruvius's notion of the "The Special" introduces what will be a central motif for the film. As it turns out, the one who finds this "Piece of Resistance" is not quite the hero he was expected to be. Emmet Brickowoski, a construction worker, will find this "Piece of Resistance". Throughout the film, others suggest to Emmet both implicitly and explicitly that he brings nothing of value to any particular individual or to society, and that consequently he (...) himself has no value. If one interpret The LEGO Movie as being driven by Emmet's quest for discovering his value, the real philosophical turning point in the film is not when Emmet's double‐decker couch permits the Master Builders to escape from the sinking submarine and they realize that Emmet's ideas actually are useful. Rather, it is when Emmet realizes their approval is irrelevant to his value. (shrink)

'A wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and place. A monumental achievement.' - Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors. 'A notorious fiend', 'generally odious', 'he seems hideous, and so he is.' Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he (...) not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures and personal dramas? Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought. He also reveals the world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, from the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai gardens, where he would begin work on some of his last great works. As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee's gripping and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli's world - and his work - more completely than ever before. (shrink)

Two sources of possible disagreement in bioethics may be associated with pessimism about what bioethics can achieve. First, pluralism implies that bioethics engages with interlocutors who hold divergent moral beliefs. Pessimists might believe that these disagreements significantly limit the extent to which bioethics can provide normatively robust guidance in relevant areas. Second, the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics suggests that interlocutors may hold divergent views on the nature of bioethics itself—particularly its practicality. Pessimists may suppose that interdisciplinary disagreements could frustrate the (...) goals of bioethics. In this article, I explore how wonder may alleviate the concerns of the first group of pessimists regarding problems associated with pluralism, provided that we are willing to accept some interdisciplinary frustrations. Then, I invite readers of this issue of The Journal of Medicine & Philosophy to test these intuitions by considering the role of wonder in these articles. (shrink)

Understanding Computers and Cognition presents an important and controversial new approach to understanding what computers do and how their functioning is related to human language, thought, and action. While it is a book about computers, Understanding Computers and Cognition goes beyond the specific issues of what computers can or can't do. It is a broad-ranging discussion exploring the background of understanding in which the discourse about computers and technology takes place. Understanding Computers and Cognition is written for a wide audience, (...) not just those professionals involved in computer design or artificial intelligence. It represents an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about what it means to be a machine, and what it means to be human. Book jacket. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of philosophers have promoted a quasi-realist (or projectivist) interpretation of Hume's theory of causation. In this paper, we argue against the quasi-realist interpretation of Hume, on the grounds that there is a direct clash between a fundamental element of Hume's system (his empiricist theory of content) and one of the main constraints that governs any form of quasi-realism (and so a fortiori, quasi-realism about causation).