1. 12147.929169
    Ideal Contractarianism views principles of justice as corresponding to what rational, mutually disinterested persons would collectively choose when they are deprived of knowledge about themselves that would allow them to favour their own interests over others’. It is well-known that Ideal Contractarianism faces profound challenges in accounting for justice between generations. We present a unified solution to these problems that involves rejecting the assumption that the parties conceive of their choices as causally efficacious and assumes instead that the parties choose in light of the news value of their decision. We go on to explore what concrete principles would be chosen by the parties as governing intergenerational justice against the backdrop of this assumption, illustrating how the study of dynamic decision problems can be used to shed light on this issue.
    Found 3 hours, 22 minutes ago on Johan E. Gustafsson's site
  2. 22871.929289
    The doctrine of divine immutability (DDI) asserts that God cannot change in accidental property. To understand the doctrine, then, we must first understand this kind of change.
    Found 6 hours, 21 minutes ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  3. 66862.929298
    Decentralised autonomous systems rely on distributed learning to make decisions and to collaborate in pursuit of a shared objective. For example, in swarm robotics the best-of-n problem is a well-known collective decision-making problem in which agents attempt to learn the best option out of n possible alternatives based on local feedback from the environment. This typically involves gathering information about all n alternatives while then systematically discarding information about all but the best option. However, for applications such as search and rescue in which learning the ranking of options is useful or crucial, best-of-n decision-making can be wasteful and costly. Instead, we investigate a more general distributed learning process in which agents learn a preference ordering over all of the n options. More specifically, we introduce a distributed rank learning algorithm based on three-valued logic. We then use agent-based simulation experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of this model. In this context, we show that a population of agents are able to learn a total ordering over the n options and furthermore the learning process is robust to evidential noise. To demonstrate the practicality of our model, we restrict the communication bandwidth between the agents and show that this model is also robust to limited communications whilst outperforming a comparable probabilistic model under the same communication conditions.
    Found 18 hours, 34 minutes ago on J. Lawry's site
  4. 71228.929305
    It’s intuitive to think that an intentional action requires that the agent knows that she’s doing so. In light of some apparent counterexamples, Setiya suggests that this intuitive insight is better captured in terms of credence: performing an intentional action requires the agent to have a higher credence that she’s doing so than she would have otherwise. I argue that there is no such thing as an agent’s credence for what she’s doing.
    Found 19 hours, 47 minutes ago on PhilPapers
  5. 79754.929311
    Exploratory experiments are characterized as experiments that do not test hypotheses. Experiments that do test hypotheses are often characterized as confirmatory experiments. Philosophers of science have pointed out that research programmes can be both confirmatory and exploratory. However, the way confirmatory and exploratory experimentation are each defined precludes single cases of experimentation being jointly confirmatory and exploratory; how can an experiment both test and not test a hypothesis? Here I argue that a recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation is needed, and I appeal to ‘phase IV’ trials to show what this recharacterization could look like. In short, I offer a recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation where the former remains a distinct kind of experimentation but is not necessarily non-hypothesis-testing.
    Found 22 hours, 9 minutes ago on PhilSci Archive
  6. 79788.929318
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable propositions, and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter 2 argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal cognitivism and modal expressivism. I also develop a novel topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel dynamic epistemic two-dimensional hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 3 provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter 4 advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter 5 applies the fixed points of the modal µ-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal µ-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal µ-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter 6 advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine’s ‘criterial’ identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter 7 provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapter 4 is availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting.
    Found 22 hours, 9 minutes ago on PhilSci Archive
  7. 79799.929323
    This essay examines the philosophical significance of Ω-logic in Zermelo- Fraenkel set theory with choice (ZFC). The categorical duality between coalgebra and algebra permits Boolean-valued algebraic models of ZFC to be interpreted as coalgebras. The hyperintensional profile of Ω-logical validity can then be countenanced within a coalgebraic logic. I argue that the philosophical significance of the foregoing is two-fold. First, because the epistemic and modal and hyperintensional profiles of Ω-logical validity correspond to those of second-order logical consequence, Ω-logical validity is genuinely logical. Second, the foregoing provides a hyperintensional account of the interpretation of mathematical vocabulary.
    Found 22 hours, 10 minutes ago on PhilSci Archive
  8. 79808.929329
    I argue that the two-dimensional hyperintensions of epistemic topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics provide a compelling solution to the access problem. I countenance an abstraction principle for epistemic hyperintensions based on Voevodsky’s Univalence Axiom and function type equivalence in Homotopy Type Theory. I apply, further, modal rationalism in modal epistemology to solve the access problem. Epistemic possibility and hyperintensionality, i.e. conceivability, can be a guide to metaphysical possibility and hyperintensionality, when (i) epistemic worlds or epistemic hyperintensional states are interpreted as being centered metaphysical worlds or hyperintensional states, i.e. indexed to an agent, when (ii) the epistemic (hyper-)intensions and metaphysical (hyper-)intensions for a sentence coincide, i.e. the hyperintension has the same value irrespective of whether the worlds in the argument of the functions are considered as epistemic or metaphysical, and when (iii) sentences are said to consist in super-rigid expressions, i.e. rigid expressions in all epistemic worlds or states and in all metaphysical worlds or states. I argue that (i) and (ii) obtain in the case of the access problem.
    Found 22 hours, 10 minutes ago on PhilSci Archive
  9. 128960.929336
    Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions aim at survival and the satisfaction of the body’s needs, rather than truth or the good of the mind. Each of these faculties makes a distinctive and, indeed, an indispensable contribution to the preservation of life. Commentators have largely focused on how the senses keep us alive. By comparison, the imagination and passions have been neglected. In this paper, I reconstruct Malebranche’s account of how the imagination contributes to the preservation of the body by compensating for the limitations of the senses. First, the imagination represents non-actual states of affairs, such as probable or possible future states. Second, the imagination forges new and often helpful associations based on past experiences. Third, the imagination (mis)represents that objects will cause pleasure and pain, thereby imbuing them with emotional significance they would otherwise lack. Together, these features flesh out Malebranche’s view that the imagination is necessary for the preservation of life.
    Found 1 day, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers
  10. 128982.929342
    One day while I was staying at a Buddhist monastery, a monk remarked to me that “without belief in rebirth, Buddhism is nihilism with a happy face.” Writing in a similar vein, Westerho (2017) contends that “the endeavor of naturalizing Buddhism…is fundamentally awed” because, on naturalist assumptions—which rule out rebirth—one can achieve the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice—the cessation of su ering (duḥkha-nirodha)—by killing oneself. The thought behind these and similar worries appears to be the following: Buddhism is—in some sense to be precisi ed—pessimistic about our existence. Moreover, if there is no round of rebirth from which to free anyone (including oneself), then we lack the chief instrumental reason identi ed in the Buddhist tradition to remain alive (not to mention to live virtuously): that doing so is necessary to secure liberation. Things are looking bleak: if life is su ering and we don’t have future rebirths to worry about, why carry on living—let alone perpetuate humanity?
    Found 1 day, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers
  11. 129007.929347
    Can the ethical features of a work of art bear on its aesthetic value? Are they ever appropriate bases for aesthetic evaluation? The battle lines of this debate are largely agreed upon by its contemporary disputants. “Autonomists” answer in the negative; while many of them are happy to concede that one can issue ethical evaluations of a work of art—e.g., Triumph of the Will is evil—such an evaluation is totally independent of proper aesthetic evaluation. Such Autonomists evaluate art aesthetically and ethically, but hold the two evaluations apart; Leini Reifinstahl’s paean to Hilter is an aesthetic masterpiece, they might say, and as a separate matter, evil; “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” the hit produced by R. Kelly and sung by Aaliyah, his then-15-year-old secret bride is (aesthetically) groovy and (ethically) disturbing; HBO’s Game of Thrones is epic and entertaining, and (unrelatedly) misogynistic.
    Found 1 day, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers
  12. 137441.929353
    This essay will explore the history and conceptual development of emergent theories of space in the Early Modern period, that is, those hypotheses that regard space as a supervenient or emergent property or effect of a non-spatial substance or substances. While emergent space hypotheses have been become the dominate methodology in contemporary quantum gravity research, a number of natural philosophical systems developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially the monadologies put forward by Leibniz and the precritical Kant, proposed analogous conceptions to these modern approaches in physics. In particular, two quantum gravity hypotheses, loop quantum gravity and causal set theory, will serve as the basis for a detailed comparison with the structure of these Early Modern emergent space theories, with Kant’s depiction of the emergence of matter and space from his non-spatial monads constituting the main focus.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  13. 137502.92936
    I discuss the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic approaches to reformulating a theory with symmetries, and offer an account of the special value of intrinsic formalisms, drawing on a distinction between which mathematical expressions are meaningful within an extrinsic formalism and which are not.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  14. 137525.929366
    Real human agents, even when they are rational by everyday standards, sometimes assign different credences to objectively equivalent statements, such as “Orwell is a writer” and “E.A. Blair is a writer”, or credences less than 1 to necessarily true statements, such as not-yet-proven theorems of arithmetic. Anna Mahtani calls this the phenomenon of “opacity”. Opaque credences seem probabilistically incoherent, which goes against a key modelling assumption of probability theory. I sketch a modelling strategy for capturing opaque credence assignments without abandoning probabilistic coherence. I draw on ideas from judgment-aggregation theory, where we face similar challenges of defining the “objects of judgment”.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  15. 137554.929372
    Ian Hacking’s wide-ranging and penetrating analysis of science contains two well-developed lines of thought. The first emphasizes the contingent history of our inquiries into nature, focusing on the various ways in which our concepts and styles of reasoning evolve through time, how their current application is constrained by the conditions under which they arose, and how they might have evolved differently. The second is the mistrust of the idea that the world contains mind-independent natural kinds, preferring nominalism to ‘inherent structurism’. These two pillars of thought seem at first to be mutually reinforcing: the lack of natural structure can help make sense of scientific variability and revision, while variability and revision provide reason to suspect that natural structure is little more than idealization. In what follows, I argue that these two pillars not only fail to support each other, but in fact conflict. One of them must fall, and it is clear which.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  16. 137592.929379
    Mechanistic explanations are a mainstay of causal accounts in cell biology. Such explanations are underpinned in large part by a network of part–part interactions, e.g. protein–protein or protein–nucleic-acid interactions. These interactions have traditionally either been discovered in a focused, experiment-by-experiment manner or via so-called ‘hypothesis-free’ large-scale interactome studies, which require subsequent verifications of the individual interactions of interest. In all such studies, regardless of the scale and mode of experimentation, there is a tacit assumption that an ‘interaction’ is constituted simply by the proximity between and/or enzymatic changes imparted on the two parts (of note, multipart interactions can still be thought of as being composed of a number of two-part interactions). However, very few substantive theoretical accounts of what may actually constitute an ‘interaction’ in the context of the cell have been put forth. Starting with the example of a mechanistic explanation of an important cellular phenomenon (the mitochondrial respiratory chain), I develop a two-part account of protein– protein interactions, with implications for other types of cellular part–part interactions. First, I map out four aspects relevant to the sequence of events taking place in protein–protein interactions, and, second, propose (i) interaction-enabling properties of proteins and (ii) interaction-enabling properties of the proteins’ environment as elements that could be explained by relevant lawlike generalizations. These generalization-based explanations could answer contrastive why-this-and-not-that types of questions pertaining to different aspects of a protein–protein interaction of interest in a mechanistic explanation.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  17. 140379.929386
    Suppose epiphenomenalism is true about qualia, so qualia are nonphysical properties that have no causal impact on anything. Let w0 be the actual world and let w1 be a world which is exactly like the actual world, except that (a)~there are no qualia (so it’s a zombie world) and (b)~instead of qualia, there are causally inefficacious nonphysical properties that have a logical structure isomorphic to the qualia of our world, and that occur in the corresponding places in the spatiotemporal and causal nexuses. …
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on Alexander Pruss's Blog
  18. 149268.929393
    Pace libertarian fantasies, you cannot do without politics. Indeed, as I’ve put it, politics might be a necessary evil. One reason this is so is that what we call “politics” refers to the institutional manifestation (i.e., a set of practices and institutions) of an underlying realm of social reality, the “political.” The political is this part of social reality where the possibility of cooperation between individuals is established by the recognition of legitimate forms of authority and the identification of a common good. …
    Found 1 day, 17 hours ago on The Archimedean Point
  19. 180394.929399
    In this paper we examine moving spotlight theories of time: theories according to which there are past and future events and an objective present moment. In Section 1, we briefly discuss the origins of the view. In Section 2, we describe the traditional moving spotlight view, which we understand as an ‘enriched’ B-theory of time, and raise some problems for that view. In the next two sections, we describe versions of the moving spotlight view that we think are better and which solve those problems. In Section 3, we describe a version of the view that combines permanentism – the thesis that all things always exist – with propositional temporalism, the thesis that some propositions are sometimes true and sometimes false. In Section 4, we discuss a version of the view that is like an ‘enriched’ presentism. We conclude with some brief thoughts on issues that remain outstanding.
    Found 2 days, 2 hours ago on Ross P. Cameron's site
  20. 193435.929408
    ‘Own-body perception’ refers to the perception of one’s body as one’s own body. The chapter reviews various disruptions to own-body perception, including what is known about their neural correlates. It argues that it is crucial to distinguish between the sense of ownership for one’s body as an object of perception—the body-as-object—and the sense of ownership for one’s body as that by which and through which one perceives the world —the body-as-subject. Despite the fact that illusory own-body perception provides an excellent case for illustrating this distinction, most discussions to date of own-body perception have failed to make this distinction and apply it to the various clinical and experimental findings. The chapter summarizes one recent model of the body-as-subject, according to which the body-as-subject is based on sensorimotor integration. Finally, it uses this model to clarify the phenomenon of illusory own-body perception, and it suggests directions for future research.
    Found 2 days, 5 hours ago on Evan Thompson's site
  21. 193463.929414
    Cognitive neuroscience tends to conceptualize mindfulness meditation as inner observation of a private mental realm of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and tries to model mindfulness as instantiated in neural networks visible through brain imaging tools such as EEG and fMRI. This approach confuses the biological conditions for mindfulness with mindfulness itself, which, as classically described, consists in the integrated exercise of a whole host of cognitive and bodily skills in situated and ethically directed action. From an enactive perspective, mindfulness depends on internalized social cognition and is a mode of skillful, embodied cognition that depends directly not only on the brain, but also on the rest of the body and the physical, social, and cultural environment.
    Found 2 days, 5 hours ago on Evan Thompson's site
  22. 232483.929422
    There are four main families of views of who we are: Bodies (or organisms) Brains (or at least cerebra) Body-soul composites Souls. For the sake of filling out logical space, and maybe getting some insight, it’s worth thinking a bit about what other options there might be. …
    Found 2 days, 16 hours ago on Alexander Pruss's Blog
  23. 244407.929428
    This chapter is a guide to the basics of metaphysical grounding. It offers an accessible overview of its features and uses, comparing this concept with other forms of dependency one can find in the literature. It emphasizes two major theoretical roles grounding is claimed to play in philosophical theorizing: (i) accounting for a distinctive form of non-causal determination and (ii) illuminating the hierarchical structure of reality. The chapter aims at persuading the reader of the usefulness of grounding by discussing how some objections targeting these roles can be mitigated.
    Found 2 days, 19 hours ago on PhilPapers
  24. 244432.929434
    There are lots of things you likely believe: that the Earth is round, that Paris is the capital of France, that you’re reading a super cool paper right now. What is belief? Belief is, roughly, the attitude of regarding something to be true or taking it to be the case (Schwitzgebel 2023). Belief is a doxastic attitude with propositional content; i.e. we believe propositions. More specifically, for every proposition, you can believe it, withhold on it, or disbelieve it (i.e. believe its negation). This is known as the tripartite model of belief. For example: I believe the sun will rise tomorrow; I withhold belief that a fair coin will land heads; I disbelieve that Notre Dame beat Ohio State in football last year (sadly).
    Found 2 days, 19 hours ago on PhilPapers
  25. 254250.929443
    The notion of (moral or other) norms having “categorical” authority over us—whether we endorse them or not—can seem mysterious. This motivates some people to look to hypothetical imperatives (like, “if you’re thirsty, you should drink a glass of water”) as a model for securing “normativity on the cheap”. …
    Found 2 days, 22 hours ago on Good Thoughts
  26. 287601.929453
    There are two distinct approaches to Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. Black-box approaches use Bayesian theory to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a cognitive system without reference to the mediating causal processes; while mechanistic approaches make claims about the neural mechanisms which generate the outputs from the inputs. This paper concerns the relationship between these two approaches. We argue that the dominant trend in the philosophical literature, which characterizes the relationship between black-box and mechanistic approaches to Bayesian cognitive science in terms of the dichotomy between instrumentalism and realism, is misguided. We propose that the two distinctions are orthogonal: black-box and mechanistic approaches to Bayesian modelling can each be given either an instrumentalist or a realist interpretation. We argue that the current tendency to conflate black-box approaches with instrumentalism and mechanistic approaches with realism stems from unwarranted assumptions about the nature of scientific explanation, the ontological commitments of scientific theories, and the role of abstraction and idealization in scientific models. We challenge each of these assumptions to reframe the debates over Bayesian modelling in cognitive science.
    Found 3 days, 7 hours ago on Zoe Drayson's site
  27. 287635.929462
    Explicit knowledge is consciously accessible to the knower: the person can introspect what it is that they know and ar,culate it in the form of a statement (DummeC 1991, Davies 2015, Thompson 2023). If a person possesses some knowledge which they are unable to ar,culate to themselves or others, this knowledge is said to be implicit rather than explicit. Standard examples of implicit knowledge include a speaker’s knowledge of language, or prac,cal knowledge such as how to ride a bike. The concept of implicit knowledge, however, raises challenging philosophical ques,ons. If aCribu,ons of mental states only make sense against a background assump,on of ra,onal rela,ons between thought and ac,on (see e.g. Davidson 1980), then it seems difficult to aCribute knowledge to a person who is unable to assert what they know. And it is hard to see how there can be non-introspectable knowledge if one thinks that there is a cons,tu,ve connec,on between being in a mental state and having introspec,ve knowledge about that state (see e.g. Shoemaker 1994).
    Found 3 days, 7 hours ago on Zoe Drayson's site
  28. 302147.929471
    This paper advances the development of a phylogeny-based psychology in which cognitive ability types are individuated as characters in the evolutionary biological sense. I explain the character concept and its utility in addressing (or dissolving) conceptual problems arising from discoveries of cognitive abilities across a wide range of species. I use the examples of stereopsis in the praying mantis, internal cell-to-cell signaling in plants, and episodic memory in scrub jays to show how anthropocentric cognitive ability types can be reformulated into cognitive characters, thereby promoting the integration of psychology with other sciences of evolved traits.
    Found 3 days, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers
  29. 302172.929476
    Following Post program, we will propose a linguistic and empirical interpretation of G¨odel’s incompleteness theorem and related ones on unsolvability by Church and Turing. All these theorems use the diagonal argument by Cantor in order to find limitations in finitary systems, as human language, which can make “infinite use of finite means”. The linguistic version of the incompleteness theorem says that every Turing complete language is G¨odel incomplete. We conclude that the incompleteness and unsolvability theorems find limitations in our finitary tool, which is our complete language.
    Found 3 days, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers
  30. 302205.929482
    There is an apparent tension in Shepherd’s accounts of space and time. Firstly, Shepherd explicitly claims that we know that the space and time of the unperceived world exist because they cause our phenomenal experience of them. Secondly, Shepherd emphasizes that empty space and time do not have the power to effect any change in the world. My proposal is that for Shepherd time has exactly one causal power: to provide for the continued existence of self-same or changing objects. Because Shepherd takes causation to be a relation whereby two objects combine to form a third, their effect, whenever we perceive a continually existing object, since time is a proper part of such objects, our perception of time is caused by time itself. Likewise, space’s causal power is to provide for the possibility of the motion or rest of objects, and so when we perceive objects with space as a proper part, we come into causal contact with space.
    Found 3 days, 11 hours ago on PhilPapers