Philosophical Progress

Articles and blog posts found on 25 April 2024

2024-04-25T23:59:00Z

Ammar Younas, Yi Zeng: Exploring Parallels Between Islamic Theology And Technological Metaphors (pdf, 4345 words)

As the scope of innovative technologies is expanding, their implications and applications are increasingly intersecting with various facets of society, including the deeply rooted traditions of religion. This paper embarks on an exploratory journey to bridge the perceived divide between advancements in technology and faith, aiming to catalyze a dialogue between the religious and scientific communities. The former often views technological progress through a lens of conflict rather than compatibility. By utilizing a technology-centric perspective, we draw metaphorical parallels between the functionalities of new technologies and some theological concepts of Islam. The purpose is not to reinterpret religious concepts but to illustrate how these two domains can coexist harmoniously. This comparative analysis serves as a conversation starter with an intention to mitigate any apprehensions towards technology by highlighting its potential to align with religious concepts. By fostering an environment where technological innovations are seen as tools for enhancement rather than threats to tradition, we contribute to a more inclusive discourse that encourages the religious community to engage with and potentially embrace contemporary technological advancements.

Christopher James Masterman: Some Ways the Ways the World Could Have Been Can't Be (pdf, 15670 words)

Let serious propositional contingentism (SPC) be the package of views which consists in (i) the thesis that propositions expressed by sentences featuring terms depend, for their existence, on the existence of the referents of those terms, (ii) serious actualism— the view that it is impossible for an object to exemplify a property and not exist—and (iii) contingentism—the view that it is at least possible that some thing might not have been something. SPC is popular and compelling. But what should we say about possible worlds, if we accept SPC? Here, I first show that a natural view of possible worlds, well-represented in the literature, in conjunction with SPC is inadequate. Though I note various alternative ways of thinking about possible worlds in response to the first problem, I then outline a second more general problem—a master argument— which generally shows that any account of possible worlds meeting very minimal requirements will be inconsistent with compelling claims about mere possibilia which the serious propositional contingentist should accept.

Finnur Dellsén, Tina Firing, Insa Lawler, James Norton: What Is Philosophical Progress? (pdf, 17574 words)

What is it for philosophy to make progress? While various putative forms of philosophical progress have been explored in some depth, this overarching question is rarely addressed explicitly, perhaps because it has been assumed to be intractable or unlikely to have a single, unified answer. In this paper, we aim to show that the question is tractable, that it does admit of a single, unified answer, and that one such answer is plausible. This answer is, roughly, that philosophical progress consists in putting people in a position to increase their understanding, where ‘increased understanding’ is a matter of better representing the network of dependence relations between phenomena. After identifying four desiderata for an account of philosophical progress, we argue that our account meets the desiderata in a particularly satisfying way. Among other things, the account explains how various other achievements, such as philosophical arguments, counterexamples, and distinctions, may contribute to progress. Finally, we consider the implications of our account for the pressing and contentious question of how much progress has been made in philosophy.

Ginger Schultheis: Reasonable Inferences for Counterfactuals (pdf, 10538 words)

Transitivity, Simplification, and Contraposition are intuitively compelling. Although Antecedent Strengthening may seem less attractive at first, close attention to the full range of data reveals that it too has considerable appeal. An adequate theory of conditionals should account for these facts. The strict theory of conditionals does so by validating the four inferences. It says that natural language conditionals are necessitated material conditionals: A B is true if and only if A B is true throughout a set of accessible worlds. As a result, it validates many classical inferences, including Transitivity, Simplification, Contraposition, and Antecedent Strengthening. In what follows I will refer to these as the strict inferences.

J. Adam Carter, Jesús Navarro: Fake Knowledge-How (pdf, 10072 words)

Knowledge, like other things of value, can be faked. According to Hawley (2011), know-how is harder to fake than knowledge-that, given that merely apparent propositional knowledge is in general more resilient to our attempts at successful detection than are corresponding attempts to fake know-how. While Hawley’s reasoning for a kind of detection resilience asymmetry between know-how and know-that looks initially plausible, it should ultimately be resisted. In showing why, we outline different ways in which know-how can be faked even when a given performance is successful; and in doing so, we distinguish how know-how can be faked (no less than know-that) via upstream and downstream indicators of its presence, and within each of these categories, we’ll distinguish (in connection with detection resilience) both faking symptoms and (various kinds of) criteria. The unappreciated resilience of faked knowledge-how to successful detection highlights a largely overlooked dimension of social-epistemic risk – risk we face not just in our capacity as recipients of testimony, but in our capacity as both (would-be) apprentices and clients of knowledge-how.

Nicholas Colgrove: Defending the Doctrine of the Mean Against Counterexamples: A General Strategy (pdf, 11304 words)

Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean states that each moral virtue stands opposed to two types of vice: one of excess and one of deficiency, respectively. Critics claim that some virtues—like honesty, fair-mindedness, and patience—are counterexamples to Aristotle’s doctrine. Here, I develop a generalizable strategy to defend the doctrine of the mean against such counterexamples. I argue that not only is the doctrine of the mean defensible, but taking it seriously also allows us to gain substantial insight into particular virtues. Failure to take the doctrine seriously, moreover, exposes us to the risk of mistaking certain vices for virtues.

Ted Poston: Review of Thomas Kelly *Bias* (pdf, 1773 words)

Accusations of bias provide a way to rationally dismiss a person’s opinion. Only a philosopher would think that philosophers should rule. Consequently, we should hold with suspicion Plato’s arguments suggesting that the rightful leader will be a philosopher. Attributions of bias are as common as accusations of bias. A coin, a voting system, a thermometer, a media outlet, a person, and a society may all exhibit bias. Sometimes a bias may be a good thing. The visual system has a bias to resolve ambiguous data in a way that produces true beliefs in our environment.

Alexander Pruss's Blog: Brain snatching is not a model of life after death (html, 422 words)

Van Inwagen infamously suggested the possibility that at the moment of death God snatches a core chunk of our brain, transports it to a different place, replaces it with a fake chunk of brain, and rebuilds the body around the transported chunk. …

Articles and blog posts found on 24 April 2024

2024-04-24T23:59:00Z

David Makinson: Display Conventions for Octagons of Opposition (pdf, 8035 words)

As usually presented, octagons of opposition are rather complex objects and can be difficult to assimilate at a glance. We show how, under suitable conditions that are satisfied by most historical examples, different display conventions can simplify the diagrams, making them easier for readers to grasp without the loss of information. Moreover, those conditions help reveal the conceptual structure behind the visual display.

Stephanie Collins: States’ Culpability Through Time (pdf, 11885 words)

Consider contemporary injustices against Indigenous peoples in settler-colonies, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. These injustices have a historical dimension: they can be traced to actions of invasion, dispossession, and genocide that occurred hundreds of years ago. The moral status of the ongoing injustices depends, in part, on their historical dimensions: it matters, morally, that the contemporary injustices are perpetrated against people whose ancestors were here first and whose sovereignty was violated. But who bears culpability for those historical wrongs? Is culpability borne merely by the individuals involved, who are now long-dead? Are those long-ago actions attributable to the ideology of the time, which persists in various ways but which seems to lack the agency necessary for culpability? Or are there presently-existing agents that bear culpability?

Alexander Pruss's Blog: A small disability (html, 972 words)

On the mere difference view of disability, one isn’t worse off for being disabled as such, though one is worse off due to ableist arrangements in society. A standard observation is that the mere difference view doesn’t work for really big disabilities. …

Articles and blog posts found on 23 April 2024

2024-04-23T23:59:00Z

Alexander Blanchard, Claudio Novelli, Luciano Floridi, Mariarosaria Taddeo: A Risk-Based Regulatory Approach to Autonomous Weapon Systems (pdf, 8541 words)

International regulation of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is increasingly conceived as an exercise in risk management. This requires a shared approach for assessing the risks of AWS. This paper presents a structured approach to risk assessment and regulation for AWS, adapting a qualitative framework inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It examines the interactions among key risk factors—determinants, drivers, and types—to evaluate the risk magnitude of AWS and establish risk tolerance thresholds through a risk matrix informed by background knowledge of event likelihood and severity. Further, it proposes a methodology to assess community risk appetite, emphasizing that such assessments and resulting tolerance levels should be determined through deliberation in a multistakeholder forum. The paper highlights the complexities of applying risk-based regulations to AWS internationally, particularly the challenge of defining a global community for risk assessment and regulatory legitimization.

Basil Müller: Coordination in Social Learning: Expanding the Narrative on the Evolution of Social Norms (doc, 15857 words)

A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social learning evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social norms, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection.

Christoph Hueck: Empirical Access to Life’s Teleological Forces via an Active and Co-Constitutive Relation between Subject and Object (pdf, 6770 words)

This article proposes an approach to understanding life that overcomes reductionist and dualist approaches. Kant’s analysis of the conditions of knowing an organism shows that attempts to explain its teleology and autopoiesis from the interactions of its components is problematic. Based on an analysis by Van de Vijver and colleagues, a co-constitutive relationship between the cognitive activities of the observer and the living features of the organism is described. Using the example of a developmental series, it is shown that within this active relational process, both autopoiesis and teleology of the organism manifest themselves on the mental level of the observer. The Kantian mode of objectification, which refers to the sensually perceptible appearance of an organism, can be supplemented by an active mode of relational objectification that encompasses the life of the organism. The analysis introduces a phenomenological first-person perspective on the study of life "from within", which enables an empirical investigation of the vital properties of an organism.

Constant Bonard, Filippo Contesi, Teresa Marques: The Defectiveness of Propaganda (pdf, 9598 words)

We argue that, in the predominant sense of the term, propaganda is a necessarily negative phenomenon. We follow Ross’s (2002) account and claim that, with some refinements, it is an explanatorily useful analysis of political propaganda. We then assess two prominent attempts that aim at classifying positive or legitimate cases of public communication as cases of propaganda, namely Ross’s (2013) revision of her previous model, and Stanley’s (2015) influential account. We show that some of the cases in contention are problematic and that no satisfactory reasons are provided to count other nonproblematic cases as propaganda. We also argue that the arguments these authors offer for their revisionary understanding of propaganda are inconclusive. In particular, the motivation for counting legitimate public communication as propaganda is lacking.

Hasen (Tim) Khudairi (Bowen): Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics (pdf, 99054 words)

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 two-dimensional semantics. Chapter 3 provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper- )intensions. Chapter 4 advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truth-maker 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.

Hinna Khaan: Nothingness and Paraconsistent Logic (pdf, 4268 words)

This paper explores the concept of "Nothingness" and its connection to Graham Priest's paraconsistent logic, with a critical focus on Heidegger's ontological perspective. Heidegger argues that logic and ontology are incompatible, and truth extends beyond mere propositions, tied to the indescribable experience of "Nothing." He contends that logical rules are not essential for ontological truth, leading to two conceptions of truth: fundamental and propositional. The study delves into this profound examination, considering the implications for understanding truth and the limitations of logic in grasping the elusive aspects of existence.

Kyle van Oosterum: Future Selves, Paternalism and Our Rational Powers (doc, 6699 words)

This paper challenges the two aims of Michael Cholbi’s Rational Will View (RWV) which are to (1) offer an account of why paternalism is presumptively or pro tanto wrong and (2) relate the relative wrongness of paternalistic interventions to the rational powers that such interventions target (Sections 1 and 2). Some of a paternalizee’s choices harm their future selves in ways that would be wrong if they were done to others. I claim this challenges Cholbi’s second aim (2) because the cases his account deems particularly wrong turn out to be not to be as wrongful as expected (Section 3). When this second aim is challenged, it has knock-on effects on the capacity of the RWV to discern which cases of paternalism are generally more wrongful than others, which undermines Cholbi’s first aim (1). I consider responses on behalf of Cholbi’s view but conclude that the account is insufficient on its own to vindicate its two aims (Section 4). Finally, I draw on recent work that adopts ideas from the practical reasoning literature to help determine paternalism’s wrongness (Section 5). I argue this helps Cholbi’s view withstand my objections, but we must remain skeptical of why interceding with rational powers is particularly wrong.

Leszek Wronski, Zalán Gyenis: How to serve two epistemic masters (pdf, 6149 words)

We extend a result by Gallow concerning the impossibility of following two epistemic masters, so that it covers a larger class of pooling methods. We also investigate a few ways of avoiding the issue, such as using nonconvex pooling methods, employing the notion of imperfect trust or moving to higher-order probability spaces. Along the way we suggest a conceptual issue with the conditions used by Gallow: whenever two experts are considered, whether we can trust one of them is decided by the features of the other!

Mariska Leunissen: Physiognomy (pdf, 7238 words)

Physiognomy(fromthelaterGreekphysiognōmia,which is a contraction of the classical form physiognōmonia)refers to the ancient science of determining someone’sinnatecharacteronthe basisoftheiroutward,andhenceobservable,bodilyfeatures.Forinstance,Socrates’famous snub nose was universally interpreted by ancient physio gnomistsasaphy siognomicalsign of hisinnatelustfulness,which he only overcame through philosophical training.Thediscipline in its technical form wit hit sown specialized practitioners first surface sin Greece in the fifth centuryBCE,possibly through connections with the Near East,wherebodilysignswere taken as indicators of someone’sf utureratherthan his character.Theshifttocharacter perhaps arises from the widespread cultural practice in the ancient Greek and Roman world oftreatingsomeone’sou twardappearance as indicative for his personality,whichisalready

Marissa LeBlanc, Jon Williamson, Francesco De Pretis, Jürgen Landes, Elena Rocca: Individual consent in cluster randomised trials for non-pharmaceutical interventions: going beyond the Ottawa statement (pdf, 5740 words)

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Matteo Colombo: For a Few Neurons More. Tractability and Neurally-Informed Economic Modelling (pdf, 10077 words)

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.

Matthew Bennett: Social Virtue Epistemology (pdf, 1748 words)

Here are some things we know about conflicts around the world in April 2024. On 7 October 2023 Hamas killed over 1200 people in Israel and took more than 240 hostage. In response Israel launched an assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and displaced millions. Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine continue; since 2022 Russia has repeatedly ignored international humanitarian law, tortured and murdered civilians, and destroyed basic infrastructure in civilian areas. Civil war continues in Sudan, and the country faces imminent famine. Approximately 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance.

Mehrzad Ali Moin: Reconsidering Taylor's Design Argument (doc, 8872 words)

Contemporary philosophers have largely neglected Richard Taylor’s design argument. Given that the initial responses to the argument were largely negative, one might be tempted to conclude that the argument is simply philosophically inadequate. This paper rejects that conclusion by showing how Taylor’s argument has been misunderstood by his critics. In defending Taylor, it is shown that the two types of objections levied against him fail to even blemish his design argument, let alone refute it. Consideration is also given to the argument’s historical lineage, along with a proposal for future considerations of the connection between epistemological realism and design.

Philippe Huneman: Selection (pdf, 20396 words)

One of Darwin’s major contributions to our understanding of evolution, namely natural selection, seems a very simple idea. However natural selection is a very subtle concept and biologists and philosophers have been struggling for decades to make sense of it and justify its explanatory power. In this chapter, first I present the most general formulations of natural selection in terms of necessary conditions, and I argue that none of them capture all the aspects of the concept. Second, I question the explanatory status of selection, asking what exactly it is supposed to explain, and considering its relationship with stochastic factors (i.e. genetic drift). Second, I investigate its metaphysical status, asking whether it can be seen as a law, and to what extent it would deprive evolution of any contingency. The last section presents controversies about the units and levels of selection, and, after exposing the philosophical assumptions proper to various positions, sketches a pluralist conception.

Stephan Krämer: The Dynamics of Indexical Belief (pdf, 7554 words)

Indexical beliefs pose a special problem for standard theories of bayesian updating. Sometimes we are uncertain about our location in time and space. How are we to update our beliefs in situations like these? In a stepwise fashion, I develop a constraint on the dynamics of indexical belief. As an application, the suggested constraint is brought to bear on the Sleeping Beauty problem.

Stephan Krämer: Chance and Actuality (pdf, 12016 words)

The relation between chance and actuality gives rise to the following puzzle. On the one hand, it may be a chancy matter what will actually happen. On the other hand, standard semantics for ‘actually’ imply that sentences beginning with ‘actually’ are never contingent. In order to elucidate this puzzle, a kind of objective semantic indeterminacy will be defended: in a chancy world, it may be a chancy matter which proposition is expressed by sentences containing ‘actually’. As an application, this thesis is brought to bear on certain counterexamples to the Principal Principle recently proposed by Hawthorne & Lasonen-Aarnio.

Alexander Pruss's Blog: Value and aptness for moral concern (html, 920 words)

In two recent posts (this and this) I argued that dignity does not arise from value. I think the general point here goes beyond value. Some entities are more apt for being morally concerned about than others. …

D. G. Mayo's blog: 5-year Review: B. Haig: [TAS] 2019 update on P-values and significance (ASA II)(Guest Post) (html, 1452 words)

This is the guest post by Bran Haig on July 12, 2019 in response to the “abandon statistical significance” editorial in The American Statistician (TAS) by Wasserstein, Schirm, and Lazar (WSL 2019). In the post it is referred to as ASAII with a note added once we learned that it is actually not a continuation of the 2016 ASA policy statement. …

Good Thoughts: What am I most wrong about? (html, 1317 words)

A year ago, I wrote a post lamenting the lack of “cross-camp” engagement in philosophy, and highlighting the challenges I’d most like to see addressed (by non-consequentialists, opponents of effective altruism, and proponents of “neutrality” in population ethics). …

Articles and blog posts found on 22 April 2024

2024-04-22T23:59:00Z

James Hart: Limited Aggregation’s Non-Fatal Non-Dilemma (pdf, 8927 words)

Limited aggregationists argue that when deciding between competing claims to aid we are sometimes required and sometimes forbidden from aggregating weaker claims to outweigh stronger claims. Joe Horton presents a ‘fatal dilemma’ for these views. Views that land on the First Horn of his dilemma suggest that a previously losing group strengthened by fewer and weaker claims can be more choice-worthy than the previously winning group strengthened by more and stronger claims. Views that land on the Second Horn suggest that combining two losing groups together and two winning groups together can turn the losing groups into the winning groups and the winning groups into the losing groups. This paper demonstrates that the ‘fatal dilemma’ is neither fatal nor a dilemma. The First Horn is devastating but avoidable and the Second Horn is unavoidable but not devastating. Nevertheless, Horton’s argument does help to narrow down the acceptable range of views.

Keith DeRose: Horrific Suffering, Divine Hiddenness, and Hell: The Place of Freedom in a World Governed by God (pdf, 95582 words)

Part One: A Powerful Problem ............................................................................................. 1 1. A Brief Look at Where We’re Going: The Problem of Horrific Suffering, Two Other Forms of the Problem of Evil, and the Place of Human Free Will in a World Governed by a Wholly Good God ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1

T. Parent: Knowledge of One's Own Credences (pdf, 9368 words)

This paper has two parts: Part I discusses a problem concerning subjective probabilities. Part II outlines a partial solution to the problem, mainly by defending a kind of “transparency” thesis concerning knowledge of one’s own judgments. Part I will primarily be of interest to those who take seriously the notion of subjective probability. (This need not imply that it is the most important notion, but rather just that it is worthwhile.) Part II will appeal primarily to those interested in knowledge about one’s own mental states. But hopefully, those who are attracted to Part I will be drawn into Part II as well, given that latter bears on the problem from the former. Indeed, the main message will be that the theory of subjective probability can benefit substantially by adopting a transparency view of self-knowledge.

Alexander Pruss's Blog: Does culpable ignorance excuse? (html, 1252 words)

It is widely held that if you do wrong in culpable ignorance (ignorance that you are blameworthy for), you are culpable for the wrong you do. I have long though think this is mistaken—instead we should frontload the guilt onto the acts and omissions that made one culpable for the ignorance. …

Scott Aaronson's blog: My Passover press release (html, 881 words)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – From the university campuses of Assyria to the thoroughfares of Ur to the palaces of the Hittite Empire, students across the Fertile Crescent have formed human chains, camel caravans, and even makeshift tent cities to protest the oppression of innocent Egyptians by the rogue proto-nation of “Israel” and its vengeful, warlike deity Yahweh. …

Articles and blog posts found on 21 April 2024

2024-04-21T23:59:00Z

David Thorstad: The zetetic turn and the procedural turn (pdf, 10573 words)

Epistemology has taken a zetetic turn from the study of belief towards the study of inquiry. Several decades ago, theories of bounded rationality took a procedural turn from attitudes towards the processes of inquiry that produce them. What is the relationship between the zetetic and procedural turns? In this paper, I argue that we should treat the zetetic turn in epistemology as part of a broader procedural turn in the study of bounded rationality. I use this claim to motivate and clarify the zetetic turn in epistemology, as well as to reveal the need for a second zetetic turn within practical philosophy.

David Wallace: Real Patterns in Physics and Beyond (pdf, 9395 words)

I apply Dennett’s ‘real patterns’ idea to the ontology of physics, and specifically to the puzzle of how to relate the very different ontologies one finds at different scales in physics (e.g. particles vs continua, or fields vs particles). I argue that real patterns provide part but not all of the answer to the puzzle, and locate the rest of the answer in the structural-realist idea that ontology in general is secondary to (mathematically-presented) structure. I make some suggestions for the application of these ideas outside physics, including in the philosophy of mind context that motivated Dennett’s original proposal.

Hanoch Ben-Yami: The Vienna Declaration on The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (pdf, 248 words)

We, the signatories of this declaration, express our disagreement with the views stated in The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (NYDAC). First, there is strong philosophical support for the attribution of a confused concept of consciousness to the NYDAC Signatories (NYDACS). Their concept is a derivative of Descartes’ conception of perception, based on his claim that colours, sounds, and other qualities we perceive are in the mind – this mind probably identified by many if not all NYDACS with the brain. Descartes’ reasons were all flawed, and no valid reason has since been provided to support his position or any of its descendants, including the NYDACS’s.

Joeri Witteveen: Golden spikes, scientific types, and the ma(r)king of deep time (pdf, 18672 words)

Chronostratigraphy is the subfield of geology that studies the relative age of rock strata and that aims at producing a hierarchical classification of (global) divisions of the historical time-rock record. The ‘golden spike’ or ‘GSSP’ approach is the cornerstone of contemporary chronostratigraphic methodology. It is also perplexing. Chronostratigraphers define each global time-rock boundary extremely locally, often by driving a gold-colored pin into an exposed rock section at a particular level. Moreover, they usually avoid rock sections that show any meaningful sign of paleontological disruption or geological discontinuity: the less obvious the boundary, the better. It has been argued that we can make sense of this practice of marking boundaries by comparing the status and function of golden spikes to that of other concrete, particular reference standards from other sciences: holotypes from biological taxonomy and measurement prototypes from the metrology of weight and measures. Alisa Bokulich (2020b) has argued that these ‘scientific types’ are in an important sense one of a kind: they have a common status and function. I will argue that this picture of high-level conceptual unity is mistaken and fails to consider the diversity of aims and purposes of standardization and classification across the sciences. I develop an alternative, disunified account of scientific types that shows how differences in ontological attitudes and epistemic aims inform scientists’ choices between different kinds of scientific types. This perspective on scientific types helps to make sense of an intriguing mid-twentieth-century debate among chronostratigraphers about the very nature of their enterprise. Should chronostratigraphers conventionally make boundaries by designating golden spikes, or should they attempt to mark pre-existing ‘natural’ boundaries with the help of a different kind of scientific type?

Mirko Farina, Andrea Lavazza, Sergei Levin: Pushing The Boundaries of The Quarantine Model: Philosophical Concerns and Policy Implications (pdf, 8381 words)

The quarantine model, recently proposed by Pereboom and Caruso, is one of the most influential models developed to date in the context of criminal justice. The quarantine model challenges the very idea of criminal punishment and asserts that nobody deserves punishment on a fundamental level. Instead, in order to deal with offenders, it proposes a series of incapacitation measures based on public safety concerns. In this article, we examine several objections to the quarantine model that demonstrate how, in our view, it can be improved. These mainly pertain to (2.1) the difficulty of reliably identifying dangerous individuals and consequently the need to base confinement decisions on probability, and (2.2) the potential for the quarantine model not to properly deter certain crimes. Three additional objections are raised with respect to (3.1) the rights that are potentially suppressed in the quarantine model; (3.2) the role of “genetic justice”; and (3.3) the difficulty it faces accommodating reasons-responsiveness. Whereas these objections do not constitute knock-down arguments against the quarantine model, they highlight issues that invite closer scrutiny, at least if it is to be considered as a credible framework for the development of viable policies in criminal justice.

Neil Dewar: The Hole Argument and Determinism(s) (pdf, 9571 words)

This paper does two things. First, it reviews the recent debate between Halvorson and Manchak (2022) and Menon and Read (2024), looking for a reading of the former that is sympathetic to the concerns of the latter. Second, it considers whether there is a notion of determinism for spacetime theories that is adequate for the purposes of (Halvorson & Manchak, 2022); it concludes that there is not, but that we learn much of interest by considering the question.

Robert van Leeuwen: From S-matrix theory to strings: Scattering data and the commitment to non-arbitrariness (pdf, 22688 words)

The early history of string theory is marked by a shift from strong interaction physics to quantum gravity. The first string models and associated theoretical framework were formulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the S-matrix program for the strong interactions. In the mid-1970s, the models were reinterpreted as a potential theory unifying the four fundamental forces. This paper provides a historical analysis of how string theory was developed out of S-matrix physics, aiming to clarify how modern string theory, as a theory detached from experimental data, grew out of an S-matrix program that was strongly dependent upon observable quantities. Surprisingly, the theoretical practice of physicists already turned away from experiment before string theory was recast as a potential unified quantum gravity theory. With the formulation of dual resonance models (the hadronic string theory ), physicists were able to determine almost all of the models parameters on the basis of theoretical reasoning. It was this commitment to non-arbitrariness , i.e., a lack of free parameters in the theory, that initially drove string theorists away from experimental input, and not the practical inaccessibility of experimental data in the context of quantum gravity physics. This is an important observation when assessing the role of experimental data in string theory.

Simon Saunders: Finite frequentism explains quantum probability (pdf, 12383 words)

I show that frequentism, as an explanation of probability in classical statistical mechanics, can be extended in a natural way to a decoherent quantum history space, the analogue of a classical phase space. The result is further a form of finite frequentism, in which Gibbs’ concept of an infinite ensemble of gases is replaced by the total quantum state expressed in terms of the decoherence basis, as defined by the history space. It is a form of finite and actual frequentism (as opposed to hypothetical frequentism), insofar as all the microstates exist, in keeping with the decoherence-based Everett interpretation, and some versions of pilot-wave theory.

Vincent Lam, Daniele Oriti: The quantum gravity seeds for laws of nature (pdf, 9439 words)

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.

Mostly Aesthetics: Naive Sprung Rhythm (html, 1380 words)

Metric poetry is rhythmic language laid above, and to some degree matching, an underlying pulse. If you do not know where in that pulse you are, you may mangle the verse. In iambic pentameter the pulse is easy: five strong beats, separated by weaker off-beats. …

Articles and blog posts found on 20 April 2024

2024-04-20T23:59:00Z

Amy Berg: Why Ten Percent? (pdf, 10077 words)

While effective altruists (EAs) spend a lot of time researching which ways to do good are the most effective, historically many have assumed, with relatively little argument, that the benchmark for membership in the movement is a commitment to donate 10% of your earnings. This points to an asymmetry between the two halves of effective altruism: EAs tend to have relatively restricted standards for effectiveness (where to give), but they have much looser standards for altruism (how much to give). I investigate explanations for this asymmetry. While some possible justifications may work (pending empirical support), others look flimsier. I conclude that this means EA likely is, or anyway ought to be, more demanding than some of its proponents currently claim.

Jordi Fernández: Thought Insertion and Commitment (doc, 6495 words)

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.

Under the Net: Tractatus Translatus (html, 977 words)

Legend has it that Damion Searls learnt Norwegian in order to translate Jon Fosse, whom he had read in German and identified as a genius. Searls’ translations of Fosse are, by all accounts, superb. So it is intriguing to learn that he has now translated Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, joining other post-centenary interpreters, Michael Beaney, a historian of early analytic philosophy, and Alexander Booth, a poet. …

Good Thoughts: Utopian Enemies of the Better (html, 581 words)

One of the most common fallacies in applied ethics and public policy is to reason from “X is good” to “Doing Y without X should be prohibited”. Presumably the implicit thought is that by prohibiting not-X, you’ll get more X. …

Articles and blog posts found on 19 April 2024

2024-04-19T23:59:00Z

Christopher Willard-Kyle: Ignorance, Soundness, and Norms of Inquiry (doc, 4078 words)

The current literature on norms of inquiry features two families of norms: norms that focus on an inquirer’s ignorance and norms that focus on the question’s soundness. I argue that, given a factive conception of ignorance, it’s possible to derive a soundness-style norm from a version of the ignorance norm. A crucial lemma in the argument is that just as one can only be ignorant of a proposition if the proposition is true, so one can only be ignorant with respect to a question if the question is sound.

James Harold: Defending Aesthetic Internalism: Liking, Loving, and Wholeheartedness (pdf, 8698 words)

In my view, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd is one of the very best works of modern musical theater. When I learn that it will be performed nearby, I begin to look into buying tickets. That is not to say that I always end up going: in many cases, the tickets are too expensive; in others, I learn something disappointing about the casting choice or announced changes to the book or the songs; in others, I have other plans that make it impossible to attend. However, whether or not I end up attending, my immediate response to learning that Sweeney Todd is being staged is to be moved to try to attend. By contrast, I do not think very highly of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot. If I were to learn that Camelot was being staged near me, I would not bother to check ticket prices. I doubt I would see it even if it were free, unless there were some independent consideration moving me to do so, such as a desire to accompany a friend. It seems natural to explain the difference in my motivations in these two cases by pointing to the difference in my judgements of the merits of the two musicals. My high opinion of Sweeney Todd explains my motivation to see it again; my low opinion of Camelot explains my lack of motivation to revisit it.

Sophie Kikkert, Barbara Vetter: Options and Agency (pdf, 1871 words)

This is an original manuscript of an article published in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2024.2339470. John Maier’s Options and Agency is an excellent book. It is brimming with insights and original ideas; in just about 160 pages of text, it provides the reader with an entirely novel perspective on different issues in metaphysics, semantics, and the philosophy of action. It is lucidly written and a joy to read. While we disagree with some core points (to be elaborated below), we highly recommend the book to anyone interested in agency, modality, and the intersection between the two. Maier voices an attractive ambition: we should work towards a philosophy of agency that emphasises the possible and the future, not a philosophy of action that privileges the actual and the past. To understand agency, Maier argues, we must start from the plurality of options that agents face at every stage of their lives. These options are practically indispensable, analytically irreducible, and key to explaining how human (and perhaps also other) beings can have free will.

Thomas Grote, Konstantin Genin, Emily Sullivan: Reliability in Machine Learning (pdf, 6622 words)

Issues of reliability are claiming center-stage in the epistemology of machine learning. This paper unifies different branches in the literature and points to promising research directions, whilst also providing an accessible introduction to key concepts in statistics and machine learning – as far as they are concerned with reliability.

D. G. Mayo's blog: 5-year review: The NEJM Issues New Guidelines on Statistical Reporting: Is the ASA P-Value Project Backfiring? (i) (html, 1867 words)

In a July 19, 2019 post I discussed The New England Journal of Medicine’s response to Wasserstein’s (2019) call for journals to change their guidelines in reaction to the “abandon significance” drive. …