-
2827539.347517
The notion of malfunction is critical to biological explanation. It provides a test bed for the normative character of functional attribution. Theories of biological functioning must permit traits to operate but, at the same time, be judged as malfunctioning (in some naturalized, nonarbitrary sense). Whereas malfunctioning has attracted the most attention and discussion in evolutionary etiological approaches, in systemic and organizational theories it has been less discussed.
-
2830389.347603
This paper critically examines the central thesis of Kieran Fox’s I Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein—namely, that Einstein’s intellectual development constitutes a coherent spiritual path culminating in a form of pantheistic mysticism shaped by both Western and Eastern traditions. Fox presents Einstein as the modern heir to a long-suppressed lineage of rational spirituality, extending from Pythagoras and Spinoza to Vedanta and Buddhism, unified by wonder, reverence for nature, and a vision of cosmic unity. While Fox’s account is imaginatively rich and philosophically syncretic, it risks conflating distinct conceptual registers—scientific, metaphysical, and spiritual—and thereby oversimplifying Einstein’s intellectual complexity. Drawing on Einstein’s scientific writings and personal reflections, this study reconstructs a historically grounded portrait of his thought, emphasizing its tensions, ambiguities, and resistance to spiritual closure. The paper argues that Fox’s interpretation, though rhetorically compelling, substitutes a harmonizing spiritual mythology for the conceptual rigor and epistemic humility that defined Einstein’s actual worldview.
-
2830493.347635
In this critical response to John Doris's book "Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality," I analyze his updated take on character skepticism—the view that character traits have surprisingly limited influence on behavior across diverse situations—from a philosophy of science perspective. While I find his updated view compelling, I challenge his reliance on Cohen's conventional effect size benchmarks, arguing that qualitative labels for effect sizes obscure rather than clarify the practical significance of results. I propose that Doris's strongest argument lies in what I call the "disproportion thesis"—the view that personality variables exert less influence, and situational variables more influence, on behavior than our intuitive expectations would predict, creating a disconcerting gap. However, I argue that this thesis requires a more explicit quantification of those prior expectations. I conclude that character skepticism would benefit from formulations of its insights in a way that directly addresses character theorists' empirical commitments, avoiding vague benchmarks and contextualizing effects.
-
2830515.347654
The expression “quantum logic” can take on a variety of meanings. It can refer in a general and informal fashion to the distinguishing features of quantum mechanics, but also to particular interpretations of this theory (Griffiths, 2003), or more technically to the study of quantum-logical gates (Dalla Chiara et al., 2018).
-
2830541.347669
One of the main ontological challenges posed by quantum mechanics is the problem of the indistinguishability of so-called “identical” particles, that is, particles that share the same state-independent properties. In the framework of this philosophical problem, a quasi-set theory was formulated to provide a proper metalanguage to deal with quantum indistinguishability; this theory included certain Urelemente called m-atoms, representing essentially indistinguishable objects. In turn, over the last two decades, the Modal Hamiltonian Interpretation proposed an ontology of properties, totally devoid of objects, where quantum systems are bundles of instances of universal properties. Therefore, the original quasi-set theory, with its m-atoms, does not adequately reflect the structure of an ontology devoid of objects. The purpose to the present article is to introduce a new quasi-set theory that does not include atoms at all: elementary items correspond to properties and are also represented by quasi-sets, which can be only numerically different. The final aim is to apply this new quasi-set theory to the MHI ontology.
-
2830726.347685
Social scripts specify the normal way for people to interact in certain situations. For example, a social script for a restaurant conversation explains why the world over, these conversations take a similar form. I develop an account of how social scripts can structure people’s sexual agency—sometimes, for the worse. I show how people’s sexual agency can be constrained by the presence of a linear social script for heteronormative sexual encounters that escalate in intimacy and terminate in male orgasm. By marking off certain sexual options as deviant, as breaches of social obligations, or as sanctionable, this script can combine with certain motivations and circumstances to explain why people voluntarily take part in sexual encounters that they would ideally like to avoid. I discuss how this situation could be ameliorated by alternative social scripts. For example, in conjunction with changes to ancillary social norms, people would be more empowered if they had social scripts for using safe words to end sexual encounters.
-
2830746.347702
I offer a new interpretation of Heidegger’s analysis of anxiety in Being and Time as an account of the relationship between individual agents and the public normative practices of their communities. According to a prominent recent interpretation, Heidegger’s discussions of anxiety, death and the “call of conscience” together explain how we can respond to the norms of our practices as reasons and subject them to critical reflection. I argue that this is only part of the story. Anxiety is an occasion for Dasein to take responsibility for its ongoing activity of interpreting the possibilities for living and acting made available by the normative practices of its community, which is presupposed and overlooked from the perspective of everyday Dasein. Public normativity underdetermines Dasein’s conception of what it would mean to take up any of the possibilities available in its world as a way of living its own life.
-
2830769.347718
This paper critically assesses Tommie Shelby’s Marxist definition of racism as a kind of ideology. I argue that institutional racism does not necessarily presuppose the Marxist idea of racist ideology, although it always presupposes the idea of race. The idea of race that is necessary to account for institutional racism is clarified. This paper has three main sections. I first analyze (in §1) the Marxist conception of ideology and explain its relationship to institutional racism. Marxist ideology is pejorative in that it entails cognitive distortion for those in the grip of ideology. Hence, Shelby’s Marxist conception of racism—“racism is racist ideology”—entails that racists are necessarily in the grip of cognitively distorted beliefs. Against this view, I argue (in §2) that it is possible to imagine a form of institutional racism that involves racial cognition but no cognitive distortion, hence no ideology in the pejorative sense. The theoretical portion of my paper (§3) analyzes Shelby’s analysis of race and draws attention to a significant theoretical problem (that I call “Shelby’s dilemma”) plaguing Shelby’s conception of racism.
-
2830791.347734
In his exchanges with Bramhall on liberty, Hobbes provides an argument for his understanding of liberty, a “proof” from experience, which appears to be obviously flawed. According to Bramhall, Hobbes is making a basic mistake: he’s assuming that what’s in our minds serves as a legitimate basis for a conclusion about liberty. But close attention to the exchanges related to this argument shows this assessment to be too hasty, because despite first appearances, the dispute between Hobbes and Bramhall regarding this argument is not really about experience. Instead, the dispute amounts to a deeper disagreement about the nature of definitions, how we acquire them, and how we should use them. I argue that when we interpret Hobbes as holding that the definitions of the terms in the debate, such as ‘liberty,’ need no demonstration because they are “explications of our simplest conceptions,” his argument from experience makes better sense and reveals, even in its main points of contention, the coherence of the argument with his most fundamental philosophical commitments regarding method, materialism, and language.
-
2830815.34775
Does consciousness have non-instrumental aesthetic value? This paper answers this question affirmatively by arguing that consciousness is sublime. The argument consists of three premises. (1) An awe experience of an object provides prima facie justification to believe that the object is sublime. (2) I have an awe experience about consciousness through introspecting three features of consciousness, namely the mystery of consciousness, the connection between consciousness and well-being, and the phenomenological complexity of consciousness. (3) There is no good defeater of the justificatory force of my feeling of awe for the sublimity of consciousness. To defend the third premise, I argue against two potential defeaters: The first is that most people do not regard consciousness as sublime. The second is that there does not seem to be physical properties that can ground the sublimity of consciousness. I conclude by emphasizing an important ethical implication of the thesis that consciousness is sublime, namely that it explains why even conscious subjects who cannot have valenced experiences deserve moral consideration.
-
2830836.347766
Utilitarianism is often contrasted with egalitarianism, and sometimes rejected for its alleged neglect of egalitarian concerns. Utilitarians, it appears, do not care who gets what or how we relate to one another, so long as overall well-being is maximized. Egalitarians, on the other hand, prefer social arrangements in which the degree to which some have more than others, or that some are placed above others, is less. I argue, however, that utilitarianism should be considered an egalitarian theory. Real-world egalitarian movements aim to reduce inequalities in wealth and hierarchical social relations. Utilitarianism, I argue, shares these aims, and does so in similar way to contemporary egalitarian theories. If I am right, utilitarianism should not be rejected for failing to be egalitarian, but engaged with as an egalitarian theory—and utilitarians should take egalitarian concerns seriously.
-
2830858.347782
Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection.
-
2830879.347805
Peter Unger (1980) introduced us to the Problem of the Many. Garden variety macroscopic objects like clouds, tables, trees, and so on lack sharp and clear boundaries. So rather than there being just one collection of particles that’s a good candidate for composing the cloud which I’m looking at, there are actually millions of massively overlapping but distinct collections of particles that are all equally good candidates to each compose a cloud. Recast as an argument, its conclusion is that if there are clouds, tables, trees, etc., then there are millions of each wherever we thought there was only one. Either Nihilism or Manyism.
-
2830901.347821
According to anti-haecceitism, facts about particular things are modally fixed by qualitative matters. According to qualitativism, such facts are metaphysically second-rate, perhaps because grounded in qualitative matters. Qualitativism seems to imply anti-haecceitism, so objections to the latter threaten the former. The most powerful sort of apparent counterexample to anti-haecceitism, I think, consists in a pair of situations that seem the same, and qualitatively symmetric, for a stretch of time, but that differ in how that symmetry breaks. I examine this sort of candidate counterexample in depth, and argue that the prospects for resisting it are heavily sensitive to broader metaphysical considerations, specifically ones about ontology, time, and causation. So, anti-haecceitism’s and qualitativism’s prospects are heavily sensitive to such considerations.
-
2830921.347837
I consider the claim that directing is a more fundamental kind of speech act than asserting, in the sense that the conditions under which an action counts as an assertion are sufficient for it to count as a directive. I show how this follows from a particular way of conceiving intentionalism about speech acts, on which acts of assertion are attempts at changing a common body of information—or conversational common ground—grounded in conversational participants’ practical attitude of acceptance. I suggest that the function of assertion in conversation is not to share information, but to signal that we can be relied on to act as though some information is true, and to foster that same reliability in others.
-
2830943.347853
Imprecise probabilities are often modelled with representors, or sets of probability functions. In the recent literature, two ways of interpreting representors have emerged as especially prominent: vagueness interpretations, according to which each probability function in the set represents how the agent’s beliefs would be if any vagueness were precisified away; and comparativist interpretations, according to which the set represents those comparative confidence relations that are common to all probability functions therein. I argue that these interpretations have some important limitations. I also propose an alternative—the functional interpretation—according to which representors are best interpreted by reference to the roles they play in the theories that make use of them.
-
2830965.347868
Many people think there is something objectionable about “selective outrage.” After investigating how to best characterise what selective outrage is and what these objections target, this paper argues that selective outrage can actually have important positive effects. Because we often have limited resources with which to enforce norms, it can be collectively prudent to prioritise enforcing norms that are well-established or collectively recognisable over those that are not. This will sometimes require responding to individual wrongs that seem less immoral, outrageous or in need of attention than others. We argue that when we encounter agents who are outraged about a violation of a genuinely valuable norm but not another relevantly similar violation, we should generally refrain from objecting unless we have good independent evidence the agent’s outrage stems from objectionable motives.
-
2856026.347883
Greetings from Doha, Qatar! The next excerpt from Unbeatable awaits. [from Chapter 4: A World of Irrationality: The Best Case For and Against Government]
What’s the nicest way to say, “You’re wrong”? You could try blaming errors on “lack of information.” Better yet, accuse a villain of deliberately spreading lies. …
-
2888228.347899
In “Two Conceptions of Necessity”, Martin Davies and Lloyd Humberstone construct a two-dimensional modal logic to formalize Gareth Evans’ distinction between superficial and deep modalities, thereby addressing Saul Kripke’s notions of “contingent a priori propositions” and “necessary a posteriori propositions”. However, Davies and Humberstone’s two-dimensional modal logic fails to account for the necessity a posteriori of identity statements involving proper names, thus falling short of satisfying the explanatory demands of two-dimensional semantics. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a new formalization approach for two-dimensional semantics: replacing the doubly-indexed mechanism of possible worlds with variable semantic models, transforming the vertical axis in the 2D-matrix from a designated “actual world” to specific semantic models corresponding to distinct worlds—termed “world-models”. Each possible world corresponds to a world-model that describes it, with the primary difference between world-models lying in the interpretation function’s distinct valuations to individual constants. This formal framework not only more appropriately handles Kripkean identity statements involving proper names but also aligns more closely with David Chalmers’ epistemic interpretation of two-dimensional semantics.
-
2888288.34792
The Resolution Matrix Semantics (RMS) framework introduces a transformative approach to modal logic by prioritizing truth values over relational structures, using "blinking" indeterminate truth values (e.g., t for "either necessary truth or contingent truth") and sub-interpretations to resolve them (Kuznetsov¹). This framework resonates with the poly-logic nature of human cognition, where thinking is not confined to a single logical pathway but involves multiple, concurrent streams of reasoning guided by what Vladimir Bibler terms "poly-logic substantive control" (Bibler²). This essay explores the philosophical implications of RMS, particularly its sub-interpretation mechanism, and argues that it mirrors the inherently poly-logic structure of human thought. By drawing parallels with Bibler's philosophy, incorporating insights from quantum cognitive models, and extending these ideas to computational paradigms like parallel computing, RMS offers a model for a pluralistic, precise, and rapid approach to thinking and decision-making.
-
2926430.347936
Nolan (this volume) describes a pair of cases in which an infinite number of clowns are apparently able to conjure up whatever they like simply be forming the right intentions. His is the latest contribution to a growing literature that uses so-called ‘New Zeno’ cases to argue for surprising philosophical conclusions about (inter alia) infinity, motion, causation, ability, the laws of physics, or the logic of counterfactuals. In this response, it is argued that New Zeno cases - Nolan’s clown cases included - are not, on reflection, all that puzzling, and the thought that there are deep philosophical lessons to be learned from them has been largely overstated. The reasons for this turn out to have interesting parallels in the literature on the consequence argument for incompatibilism about free will and the grandfather paradox for time travel.
-
3003636.347955
Positively misleading errors are errors of statistical reasoning in which adding data to an analysis will systematically and reliably strengthen support for an erroneous hypothesis over a correct one. This pattern distinguishes them from other errors of statistical inference and pattern recognition. Here I provide a general account of positively misleading errors by describing an exemplar case from biology along with a candidate case from clinical medicine. Though well known in biology (phylogenetic systematics, to be precise), positively misleading errors are likely more widespread and deserve to be brought to the attention of the wider research community. This will facilitate a better understanding of them and sharpen our ability to assess statistical and probabilistic methods, providing resources for researchers to more effectively identify, diagnose, and dislodge these errors of statistical inference. This reflects the way we have gained a better understanding of scientific reasoning from studying other errors of statistical and probabilistic reasoning.
-
3056416.347971
Completeness says that, for every pair of prospects, at least one of the prospects is at least as preferred as the other. I present a new money-pump argument that Completeness is a requirement of rationality. In comparison with earlier money-pump arguments for Completeness, this argument relies on a unidimensional form of stochastic dominance and the behavioural assumption that agents pick in a probabilistic manner when no option is optimal. Moreover, unlike some of the previous arguments, the new argument is based on a forcing money pump, that is, an exploitation scheme where the agent is rationally required at each step to go along with the scheme.
-
3065791.347986
Free verse often leaves me cold: my dirty little secret. But when the going gets tough—the saying goes—read criticism, so I opened The Modern Element, a book of criticism by Adam Kirsch. Kirsch’s own poetry is written in strict iambic pentameter, but as a reader he seems to have an infinite patience for the freer kind. …
-
3098992.348002
What is the nature of curiosity? There are two types of account currently in the literature. According to one, curiosity is a metacognitive desire. It is a motivation to acquire knowledge or get true beliefs, for examples. According to the other more recent proposal, curiosity is a desire-like attitude that embeds a question as its content. The present paper proposes a third alternative. It is designed to explain how curiosity might be extremely widespread in the animal kingdom and to better explain how it can admit of degrees (and be satisfied by degrees), as well as to explain how it can be traded off against other values in decision-making. On the proposed account, curiosity directly motivates innate or learned investigative behavior. It makes such behavior seem attractive and renders subsequent learning rewarding. No questions are needed; nor is any contentious form of self-awareness required. The paper begins by critiquing the two existing theories, building on those criticisms to develop the motoric theory thereafter.
-
3099010.348018
This target-article proposes a solution to a puzzle: why is it that, across a wide range of domains, evaluative beliefs are apt to shift our evaluative experience in both short-term and long-term ways? And why are these top-down influences on affective valuation so powerful? The explanation is that it was a vitally-important adaptive problem for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to swiftly acquire the values of the tribe, including not just tastes in food, fear of local predators and dangers, and so on, but also a whole suite of local norms, as well as a default positive valuation of co-tribal members themselves.
-
3206850.348034
In order to assign non-zero probabilities to such things as a lottery ticket in an infinite fair lottery or hitting a specific point on a target with a uniformly distributed dart throw, some people have proposed using non-zero infinitesimal probabilities in a hyperreal field. …
-
3223733.34805
Fragmentation is a widely discussed thesis on the architecture of mental content, saying, roughly, that the content of an agent’s belief state is best understood as a set of information islands that are individually coherent and logically closed, but need not be jointly coherent and logically closed, nor uniformly accessible for guiding the agent’s actions across different deliberative contexts. Expressivism is a widely discussed thesis on the mental states conventionally expressed by certain categories of declarative discourse, saying, roughly, that prominent forms of declarative utterance should be taken to express something other than the speaker’s outright acceptance of a representational content. In this paper, I argue that specific versions of these views—Topical Fragmentation and Semantic Expressivism—present a mutually beneficial combination. In particular, I argue that combining Topical Fragmentation with Semantic Expressivism fortifies the former against (what I call) the Connective Problem, a pressing objection that lays low more familiar forms of Fragmentation. This motivates a novel semantic framework: Fragmented Semantic Expressivism, a bilateral state-based system that (i) prioritizes fragmentationist acceptance conditions over truth conditions, (ii) treats representational content as hyperintensional, and (iii) gives expressivistic acceptance conditions for the standard connectives. Finally, we discuss the distinctive advantages of this system in answering the problem of logical omniscience and Karttunen’s problem for epistemic ‘must’.
-
3228711.348065
Proof automation is crucial to large-scale formal mathematics and software/hardware verification projects in ITPs. Sophisticated tools called hammers have been developed to provide general-purpose proof automation in ITPs such as Coq and Isabelle, leveraging the power of ATPs. An important component of a hammer is the translation algorithm from the ITP’s logical system to the ATP’s logical system. In this paper, we propose a novel translation algorithm for ITPs based on dependent type theory. The algorithm is implemented in Lean 4 under the name Lean-auto. When combined with ATPs, Lean-auto provides general-purpose, ATP-based proof automation in Lean 4 for the first time. Soundness of the main translation procedure is guaranteed, and experimental results suggest that our algorithm is sufficiently complete to automate the proof of many problems that arise in practical uses of Lean 4. We also find that Lean-auto solves more problems than existing tools on Lean 4’s math library Mathlib4.
-
3291823.348079
This article examines the epistemological and ontological consequences of ultra-specialization in contemporary science. We argue that the increasing fragmentation of knowledge undermines intersubjective intelligibility, producing a form of objectivity detached from shared meaning and ontological resistance. Drawing on Kantian and phenomenological traditions, particularly the works of Husserl and Bachelard, we show that ultra-specialization leads to a redefinition of the scientific object as a procedural artifact rather than a point of rational encounter. We introduce the distinction between the intentionality of the scientist and the systemic intention of science, highlighting the dissociation between epistemic agency and formalized knowledge production. This condition generates cognitive opacity, institutional technocracy, and political distrust. In response, we propose structural reforms: deep interdisciplinarity, reintroduction of philosophical reflection within scientific practice, and the creation of epistemic translation platforms. Ultimately, we advocate for a pluralistic and reflexive model of science grounded not in technocratic closure but in the intersubjective articulation of reality. Science must not only produce valid results—it must make them intelligible and meaningful.