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23126.835197
This paper is concerned with the semantics for the logics of ground that derive from a slight variant GG of the logic of [Fine, 2012b] that have already been developed in [deRosset and Fine, 2023]. Our aim is to outline that semantics and to provide a comparison with two related semantics for ground, given in [Correia, 2017] and [Kramer, 2018a]. This comparison highlights the strengths and difficulties of these different approaches. KEYWORDS: Impure Logic of Ground; Truthmaker Semantics; Logic of Ground; Ground This paper concerns the semantics for the logics of ground deriving from a slight variant GG of the logic of [Fine, 2012b] that have already been developed in [deRosset and Fine, 2023]. Our aim is to outline that semantics and to provide a comparison with two related semantics for ground, given in [Correia, 2017] and [Kramer, 2018a]. This will serve to highlight the strengths and difficulties of these different approaches. In particular, it will show how deRosset and Fine’s approach has a greater degree of flexibility in its ability to acccommodate different extensions of a basic minimal system of ground. We shall assume that the reader is already acquainted with some of the basic work on ground and on the framework of truthmaker semantics. Some background material may be found in [Fine, 2012b, 2017a,b].
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86108.835341
Artificial neural networks and supervised learning have become an essential part of science. Beyond using them for accurate input-output mapping, there is growing attention to a new feature-oriented approach. Under the assumption that networks optimized for a task may have learned to represent and utilize important features of the target system for that task, scientists examine how those networks manipulate inputs and employ the features networks capture for scientific discovery. We analyse this approach, show its hidden caveats, and suggest its legitimate use. We distinguish three things that scientists call a “feature”: parametric, diagnostic, and real-world features. The feature-oriented approach aims for real-world features by interpreting the former two, which also partially rely on the network. We argue that this approach faces a problem of non-uniqueness: there are numerous discordant parametric and diagnostic features and ways to interpret them. When the approach aims at novel discovery, scientists often need to choose between those options, but they lack the background knowledge to justify their choices. Consequentially, features thus identified are not promised to be real. We argue that they should not be used as evidence but only used instrumentally. We also suggest transparency in feature selection and the plurality of choices.
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316997.835356
This work explores the hypothesis that subjectively attributed meaning constitutes the phenomenal content of conscious experience. That is, phenomenal content is semantic. This form of subjective meaning manifests as an intrinsic and non-representational character of qualia. Empirically, subjective meaning is ubiquitous in conscious experiences. We point to phenomenological studies that lend evidence to support this. Furthermore, this notion of meaning closely relates to what Frege refers to as "sense", in metaphysics and philosophy of language. It also aligns with Peirce's "interpretant", in semiotics. We discuss how Frege's sense can also be extended to the raw feels of consciousness. Sense and reference both play a role in phenomenal experience. Moreover, within the context of the mind-matter relation, we provide a formalization of subjective meaning associated to one's mental representations. Identifying the precise maps between the physical and mental domains, we argue that syntactic and semantic structures transcend language, and are realized within each of these domains. Formally, meaning is a relational attribute, realized via a map that interprets syntactic structures of a formal system within an appropriate semantic space. The image of this map within the mental domain is what is relevant for experience, and thus comprises the phenomenal content of qualia. We conclude with possible implications this may have for experience-based theories of consciousness.
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375210.835369
This paper presents an argument for the realism about mechanisms, contents, and vehicles of mental representation at both the personal and subpersonal levels, and showcases its role in instrumental rationality and proper cognitive functioning. By demonstrating how misrepresentation is necessary for learning from mistakes and explaining certain failures of action, we argue that fallible rational agents must have mental representations with causally relevant vehicles of content. Our argument contributes to ongoing discussions in philosophy of mind and cognitive science by challenging anti-realist views about the nature of mental representation, and by highlighting the importance of understanding how different agents can misrepresent in pursuit of their goals. While there are potential rebuttals to our claim, our opponents must explain how agents can be rational without having mental representations. This is because mental representation is grounded in rationality.
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375240.835381
The present paper is divided in two parts . In the first part we will propose Meinong’s theory of time outlined in 1899 interpreted in such a way that the subtlety of his argumentation is emphasised. In the second, we will discuss different solutions for the celebrated McTaggart’s paradox, reaching the conclusion that a theory of time suggested by the reflections of the Austrian Philosopher seems to be the most adequate perspective for tackling this problem . Meinong is concerned with time above all in his essays of 1894 and 1899; thereafter he deals again with the topic only in a cursory manner. Certainly the best of his reflections on the subject is the Third Section of the 1899 essay, and thus we will concern ourselves almost exclusively with this . Let us emphasise that time is not a Meinong’s topic, but briefly in the central part of his thinking, i.e. during the passage from his first psychological-descriptive works – influenced by his teacher Brentano – to the theoretical-objective period, stimulated firstly by the reading of Twardowski and Bolzano . In spite of this we have the feeling that in this short writing the Austrian philosopher outlines a theory of time which ante litteram opens a possible solution of the paradoxes connected with the flux of time, like McTaggart’s. We have to admire the remarkable subtlety of his psychological analysis, accompanied by a clear awareness of the objectivity of time; the latter helps him to avoid the psychologistic drift of Bergson’s perspective, the former to stay away from the scientistic point of view more and more in fashion in connection with modern physics .
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485038.835393
According to urban legend, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Death is number two.1
I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is, I’d bet that the most dreaded form of public speaking is to stand onstage, alone, attempting to make an audience of strangers laugh. …
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494667.835403
A specter is haunting economics—the specter of revealed preference theory. Many philosophers of old have entered into an alliance to exorcise this specter; Sen (1977) and Hausman (2012), Dietrich and List (2016), and Guala (2012; 2019). In the face of the trenchant critique it has faced, the longevity of revealed preference theory is quite surprising. While it still holds considerable power among economists, in recent years also philosophers have begun to offer novel arguments in its defense (e.g., Vredenburgh 2020; Clarke 2020; Thoma 2021a; 2021b). At its core, revealed preference theory can be stated as the view that preferences are just patterns in choice-behavior. My aim in this paper is to argue against the revival of revealed preference theory. Towards this end, I will first outline the different facets of revealed preference theory (Section 2). I will then briefly present the two most common arguments that philosophers of economics have offered against it. In particular, I will look at the argument from belief and the argument from causality (Section 3).
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494950.835415
A classic and fraught question in the philosophy of film is this: when you watch a film, do you experience yourself in the world of the film, observing the scenes? In this paper, we argue that this subject of film experience is sometimes a mere impersonal viewpoint, sometimes a first-personal but unindexed subject, and sometimes a particular, indexed subject such as the viewer herself or a character in the film. We first argue for subject pluralism: there is no single answer to the question of what kind of subjectivity, if any, is mandated across film sequences. Then, we defend unindexed subjectivity: at least sometimes, films mandate an experience that is first-personal but not tied to any particular person, not even to the viewer. Taken together, these two theses allow us to see film experience as more varied than previously appreciated and to bridge in a novel way the cognition of film with the exercise of other imaginative capacities, such as mindreading and episodic recollecting.
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605932.835427
This analysis shows Cantor's diagonal definition in his 1891 paper was not compatible with his horizontal enumeration of the infinite set M. The diagonal sequence was a counterfeit which he used to produce an apparent exclusion of a single sequence to prove the cardinality of M is greater than the cardinality of the set of integers N.
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812348.835438
Leddington (2016) remains the leading contemporary philosophical account of magic, one that has been relatively unchallenged. In this discussion piece, I have three aims; namely, to (i) criticise Leddington’s attempt to explain the experience of magic in terms of belief-discordant alief; (ii) explore the possibility that much, if not all, of the experience of magic can be explained by mundane belief-discordant perception; and (iii) argue that make-believe is crucial to successful performances of magic in ways Leddington at best overlooks and at worst denies.
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826442.835449
Empirical research provides striking examples of non-human animal responses to death, which look very much like manifestations of grief. However, recent philosophical work appears to challenge the idea that animals can grieve. Grief, in contrast to more rudimentary emotional experiences, has been taken to require potentially human-exclusive abilities like a fine-grained sense of particularity, an ability to project toward the distal future and the past, and an understanding of death or loss. This paper argues that these features do not rule out animal grief and are present in many animal loss responses. It argues that the principal kind of “understanding” involved in grief is not intellectual but is instead of a practical variety available to animals, and outlines ways that the disruption to an animal’s life following a loss can hinge upon a specific individual and involve a degree of temporal organisation.
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836869.835466
This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceiv-ability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths (cf. Chalmers, 1996; 2010) in light of a hyperintensional regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability – i.e., the epistemic possibility – thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.
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872240.83548
Boredom – that inescapable accoutrement of human existence – is more than a common affective encounter. It is an experience of key phenomenological significance. Boredom gives rise to perceptions of meaninglessness, difficulties in effective agency, lapses of attention, an altered perception of the passage of time, and to an impressively diverse array of behavioral outcomes. Above all, it shapes our world and lives.
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1057584.835495
Welfare subjectivists face a dilemma. On the one hand, traditional subjectivist theories—such as the desire-fulfillment theory—are too permissive to account for the well-being of typical mature human beings. On the other hand, more “refined” theories—such as the life-satisfaction theory—are too restrictive to account for the well-being of various welfare subjects, including newborns, those with profound cognitive impairments, or non-human animals. This paper examines a class of welfare subjectivism that addresses this dilemma with sensitivity to the diversity in welfare subjects. First, the most-sophisticated-attitude view (MSA) is introduced. MSA holds that an object, , is good for a subject, , in proportion to the strength of ’s pro-attitude towards if and only if the pro-attitude at issue is ’s most sophisticated type. Typically, the well-being of typical mature human beings is assessed in terms of one’s authentic whole-life satisfaction, whereas that of human newborns is assessed in terms of something less sophisticated such as pleasure. MSA offers the rationale for this difference based on an underexplored version of perfectionism: procedural perfectionism. Next, provided that MSA may involve an implausibly strong claim, this paper examines two moderate variations of MSA that accept the partial relevance of less sophisticated types of valenced attitude. Finally, it is illustrated how MSA and its variations have plausible implications regarding the well-being of enhanced or dis-enhanced people.
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1073150.835506
Scientific and ordinary understanding of human social behaviour assumes that the Humean theory of motivation is true. The present chapter explores whether and in which sense the Humean theory of motivation may be true in the light of recent empirical and theoretical work in the computational neuroscience of social motivation. It is argued that the Humean theory is false, if an increasingly popular model in computational neuroscience turns out to be correct. According to this model, brains are probabilistic prediction machines, whose function is to minimize the uncertainty about their sensory exchanges with the environment. If brains are these kinds of machines, then we should reconceive the nature of social motivation without appealing to desire. We should rather focus our attention on how social motivation is biased towards reduction of social uncertainty, and on how social norms and other social institutions function as uncertainty minimizing devices.
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1073233.83552
Humean Supervenience (HS) is a metaphysical model of the world according to which all truths hold in virtue of nothing but the total spatiotemporal distribution of perfectly natural intrinsic properties. David Lewis and others have worked out many aspects of HS in great detail. A larger motivational question, however, remains unanswered: As Lewis admits, there is strong evidence from fundamental physics that HS is false. What then is the purpose of defending HS? In this paper, we argue that the philosophical merit of HS is largely independent of whether it correctly represents the world’s fundamental structure. In particular, we show that insofar as HS is an apt model of the world’s higher-level structure, it thereby provides a powerful argument for reductive physicalism and explains otherwise opaque inferential relations. Recent criticism of HS on the grounds that it misrepresents fundamental physical reality is, therefore, beside the point.
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1110616.835534
This position paper discusses relationships among hybrid neural-symbolic models, dual-process theories, and cognitive architectures. It provides some historical backgrounds and argues that dual-process (implicit versus explicit) theories have significant implications for developing neural-symbolic (neurosymbolic) models. Furthermore, computational cognitive architectures can help to disentangle issues concerning dual-process theories and thus help the development of neural-symbolic models (in this way as well as in other ways).
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1125339.835548
I distinguish between pure self-locating credences and superficially self-locating credences, and argue that there is never any rationally compelling way to assign pure self-locating credences. I first argue that from a practical point of view, pure self-locating credences simply encode our pragmatic goals, and thus pragmatic rationality does not dictate how they must be set. I then use considerations motivated by Bertrand’s paradox to argue that the indifference principle and other popular constraints on self-locating credences fail to be a priori principles of epistemic rationality, and I critique some approaches to deriving self-locating credences based on analogies to non-self-locating cases. Finally, I consider the implications of this conclusion for various applications of self-locating probabilities in scientific contexts, arguing that it may undermine certain kinds of reasoning about multiverses, the simulation hypothesis, Boltzmann brains and vast-world scenarios.
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1413709.83556
There continues to be significant confusion about the goals, scope and nature of modelling practice in neuroeconomics. This paper aims to dispel some such confusion by using one of the most recent critiques of neuroeconomic modelling as a foil. The paper argues for two claims. First, currently, for at least some economic model of choice behaviour, the benefits derivable from neurally-informing an economic model do not involve special tractability costs. Second, modelling in neuroeconomics is best understood within Marr’s three-level of analysis framework and in light of a co-evolutionary research ideology. The first claim is established by elucidating the relationship between the tractability of a model, its descriptive accuracy, and its number of variables. The second claim relies on an explanation of what it can take to neurally-inform an economic model of choice behaviour.
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1645188.835572
We discuss the challenges that the standard (Humean and non-Humean) accounts of laws face within the framework of quantum gravity where space and time may not be fundamental. This paper identifies core (meta)physical features that cut across a number of quantum gravity approaches and formalisms and that provide seeds for articulating updated conceptions that could account for QG laws not involving any spatio-temporal notions. To this aim, we will in particular highlight the constitutive roles of quantum entanglement, quantum transition amplitudes and quantum causal histories. These features also stress the fruitful overlap between quantum gravity and quantum information theory. Keywords: spacetime, laws of nature, quantum gravity, quantum entanglement, transition amplitude, quantum causal histories.
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1674093.835583
In thought insertion, patients claim to have thoughts which are not their own. I offer an account of the thought insertion delusion by utilising the notion of commitment, that is, the experience of a conscious state as being appropriate or fitting. The proposed explanation of thought insertion relies on two main tenets. One is that the experience of a thought as being one's own is the experience of regarding that thought as being correct. The other is that patients with thought insertion do not experience being committed to the thoughts that they disown. I extend this account to the case of patient RB, who disowns some of his conscious memories, and to the case of anarchic hand syndrome, in which patients disown some of their conscious actions.
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1866305.835595
According to the causal-historical theory of reference, natural kind terms refer in virtue of complicated causal relations the speakers have to their environment. A common objection to the theory is that purely causal relations are insufficient to fix reference in a determinate fashion. The so-called hybrid view holds that what is also needed for successful fixing are true descriptions associated in the mind of the speaker with the referent. The main claim of this paper is that the objection fails: reference fixing of natural kind terms can be purely causal. The main argument draws inspiration from recent theoretical advances made in metaphysics of kinds by Marion Godman, Antonella Mallozzi, and David Papineau. The main claim is that their notion of super-explanatory properties may explain how reference of many kind terms can be fixed purely causally.
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1921346.835606
The main message of Neuroethics is that neuroscience forces us to reconceptualize human agency as marvelously diverse and flexible. Free will can arise from unconscious brain processes. Individuals with mental disorders, including addiction and psychopathy, exhibit more agency than is often recognized. Brain interventions should be embraced with cautious optimism. Our moral intuitions, which arise from entangled reason and emotion, can generally be trusted. Nevertheless, we can and should safely enhance our brain chemistry, partly because motivated reasoning crops up in everyday life and in the practice of neuroscience itself. Despite serious limitations, brain science can be useful in the courtroom and marketplace. Recognizing all this nuance leaves little room for anxious alarmism or overhype and urges an emphasis on neurodiversity. The result is a highly opinionated tour of neuroethics as an exciting field full of implications for philosophy, science, medicine, law, and public policy.
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1924074.835618
In the first part I argued that the primary form of Kripkenstein’s skeptical challenge is to explain what it is for an expression to have a particular meaning in a speaker’s idiolect (rather than another) (Kripke 1982: 11, Reiland 2023c). Having presented the challenge, Kripkenstein goes through and criticizes answers in terms of explicit instructions, dispositions to use, simplicity, experiential states, taking the state to be primitive, and Fregean sense, and concludes that it can’t be answered.
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1928925.835628
Let “phenomenal dogmatism” be the thesis that some experiences provide some beliefs with immediate justification, and do so purely in virtue of their phenomenal character. A basic question-mark looms over phenomenal dogmatism: Why should the fact that a person is visited by some phenomenal feel suggest the likely truth of a belief? In this paper, I press this challenge, arguing that perceptually justified beliefs are justified not purely by perceptual experiences’ phenomenology, but also because we have justified second-order background beliefs to the effect that the occurrence of certain perceptual experiences is indicative of the likely truth of certain corresponding beliefs. To bring this out, I contrast “perceptual dogmatism” with “moral dogmatism”: the thesis that some emotional experiences provide some moral beliefs with immediate justification, and do so purely in virtue of their phenomenal character. I argue that moral dogmatism is much less antecedently appealing, precisely because the counterpart second-order beliefs here are much less plausible.
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1981832.835639
At several key points throughout his Treatise, Hume refers to certain “general rules” which, he claims, we are “mightily addicted to”, and which frequently make us “carry our maxims beyond those reasons, which first induc’d us to establish them” (T 3.2.9.3). As Michael Gill (2006, 221) observes, Hume typically italicizes the term ‘general rules’, thus seemingly referring to “a specific, well-defined piece of his technical apparatus”. Unfortunately, Hume never explains what he means by the term. Nevertheless, he clearly thinks that general rules influence many of our beliefs, passions, and moral judgments. It is therefore important to understand exactly how Hume understands them. This is my aim in this paper.
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2003348.83565
Last time I presented a class of agent-based models where agents hop around a graph in a stochastic way. Each vertex of the graph is some ‘state’ agents can be in, and each edge is called a ‘transition’. …
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2097300.835661
Emotional hardcore and other music genres featuring screamed vocals are puzzling for the appreciator. The typical fan attaches appreciative value to musical screams of emotional pain all the while acknowledging it would be inappropriate to hold similar attitudes towards their sonically similar everyday counterpart: actual human screaming. Call this the screamed vocals problem. To solve the problem, I argue we must attend to the anti-sublimating aims that get expressed in the emotional hardcore vocalist’s choice to scream the lyrics. Screamed vocals help us see the value in rejecting (a) restrictive social norms of emotional expressiveness and (b) restrictive artistic norms about how one ought to express or represent pain in art, namely that if one is going to do so they must ensure the pain has been ‘beautified’. In developing this second point I argue that emotional hardcore is well-suited (though not individually so) for putting pressure on longstanding views in the history of aesthetics about the formal relationship between art and human pain.
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2155011.835672
It is a familiar story that, where Kant humbly draws a line beyond which cognition can’t reach, Husserl presses forward to show how we can cognize beyond that limit. Kant supposes that cognition is bound to sensibility and that what we experience in sensibility is mere appearance that does not inform us about the intrinsic nature of things in themselves. By contrast, for Husserl, it makes no sense to say we experience anything other than things in themselves when we enjoy sensory perception. Kant’s conception, then, by doing just that, is nonsensical. I argue that Husserl’s account does not deliver on its promise. Things as they are in themselves are just as cognitively out of reach on Husserl’s understanding of them as they are on Kant’s. Further, the charge of nonsense Husserl raises against Kant’s conception of things in themselves applies—indeed, with greater force—to his own.
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2181179.835682
Illusionists and a posteriori physicalists agree entirely on the metaphysical nature of reality—that all concrete entities are composed of fundamental physical entities. Despite this basic agreement on metaphysics, illusionists hold that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, whereas a posteriori physicalists hold that it does. One explanation of this disagreement would be that either the illusionists have too demanding a view about what consciousness requires, or the a posteriori physicalists have too tolerant a view. However, we will argue that this divergence of opinion is merely an upshot of the semantic indeterminacy of the term ‘conscious’ and its cognates. We shall back up this diagnosis by showing how semantic indeterminacy of the kind in question is a pervasive feature of language. By illustrating this pattern with a range of historical examples, we shall show how the dispute between the illusionists and their a posteriori physicalist opponents is one instance of a common kind of terminological imprecision. The disagreement between the illusionists and the a posteriori physicalists is thus not substantial. In effect, the two sides differ only about how to make an indeterminate term precise. The moral is that they should stop looking for arguments designed to settle the dispute in their favour.