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132.106924
During the first half of the eighteenth century, Newton’s work became the emblem of the “new philosophy” all over Europe. It provided a model to be followed in every field and the divide between the friends and the enemies of Reason. Reasons for such a sanctification of Newton are primarily due to the competitor’s disappearance of the polemics against Aristotelianism, which had provided seventeenth-century philosophers with an excellent straw man with its sequel of occult qualities and substantial forms. Secondly, they are to be found in the birth of controversy between Cartesians and Newtonians. This controversy will grow with a snowball effect, starting with a purely scientific issue, namely the theory of vortices, coming to include two overall views of the scientific method and two distinct theories of knowledge. Thus, as the interest in attacking Aristotle vanished since Aristotelianism ceased being perceived as a real competitor, the villain became Descartes, the author of an “illusive philosophy” or “one of the most entertaining romances” ever written.
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158.107416
Theories of graded causation attract growing attention in the philosophical debate on causation. An important field of application is the controversial relationship between causation and moral responsibility. However, it is still unclear how exactly the notion of graded causation should be understood in the context of moral responsibility. One question is whether we should endorse a proportionality principle, according to which the degree of an agent’s moral responsibility is proportionate to their degree of causal contribution. A second question is whether a theory of graded causation should measure closeness to necessity or closeness to sufficiency. In this paper, we argue that we should indeed endorse a proportionality principle and that this principle supports a notion of graded causation relying on closeness to sufficiency rather than closeness to necessity. Furthermore, we argue that this insight helps to provide a plausible analysis of the so-called ‘Moral Difference Puzzle’ recently described by Bernstein.
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10032.107433
We show that knowledge satisfies interpersonal independence, meaning that a non-trivial sentence describing one agent’s knowledge cannot be equivalent to a sentence describing another agent’s knowledge. The same property of interpersonal independence holds, mutatis mutandis, for belief. In the case of knowledge, interpersonal independence is implied by the fact that there are no non-trivial sentences that are common knowledge in every model of knowledge. In the case of belief, interpersonal independence follows from a strong interpersonal independence that knowledge does not have. Specifically, there is no sentence describing the beliefs of one person that implies a sentence describing the beliefs of another person.
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10086.107449
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.
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10112.107461
This essay examines the philosophical significance of Ω-logic in Zermelo- Fraenkel set theory with choice (ZFC). The categorical duality between coalgebra and algebra permits Boolean-valued algebraic models of ZFC to be interpreted as coalgebras. The hyperintensional profile of Ω-logical validity can then be countenanced within a coalgebraic logic. I argue that the philosophical significance of the foregoing is two-fold. First, because the epistemic and modal and hyperintensional profiles of Ω-logical validity correspond to those of second-order logical consequence, Ω-logical validity is genuinely logical. Second, the foregoing provides a hyperintensional account of the interpretation of mathematical and metamathematical vocabulary.
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10138.107475
I argue that the two-dimensional hyperintensions of epistemic topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics provide a compelling solution to the access problem. I countenance an abstraction principle for epistemic hyperintensions based on Voevodsky’s Univalence Axiom and function type equivalence in Homotopy Type Theory. I apply, further, modal rationalism in modal epistemology to solve the access problem. Epistemic possibility and hyperintensionality, i.e. conceivability, can be a guide to metaphysical possibility and hyperintensionality, when (i) epistemic worlds or epistemic hyperintensional states are interpreted as being centered metaphysical worlds or hyperintensional states, i.e. indexed to an agent, when (ii) the epistemic (hyper-)intensions and metaphysical (hyper-)intensions for a sentence coincide, i.e. the hyperintension has the same value irrespective of whether the worlds in the argument of the functions are considered as epistemic or metaphysical, and when (iii) sentences are said to consist in super-rigid expressions, i.e. rigid expressions in all epistemic worlds or states and in all metaphysical worlds or states. I argue that (i) and (ii) obtain in the case of the access problem.
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10162.107488
Recently developed graphical causal modeling techniques significantly downplay the role of time in causal inference. Time plays no role in the criteria specifying what it means for causal hypotheses to be observationally equivalent, and the probabilistic criteria used fail to distinguish among hypotheses that – given the assumption that causal variables precede effect variables – involve different time orderings among the variables. Additionally, the causal Markov condition – a central condition for choosing among causal hypotheses given a joint probability distribution – most straightforwardly applies to cases in which the variables are sampled from time-stationary distributions. Finally, it is commonplace to present models in which the variables are not explicitly indexed to times.
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10194.107508
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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10220.107521
In orthodox Standard Quantum Mechanics (SQM) bases and factorizations are considered to define quantum states and entanglement in relativistic terms. While the choice of a basis (interpreted as a measurement context) defines a state incompatible to that same state in a different basis, the choice of a factorization (interpreted as the separability of systems into sub-systems) determines wether the same state is entangled or non-entangled. Of course, this perspectival relativism with respect to reference frames and factorizations precludes not only the widespread reference to quantum particles but more generally the possibility of any rational objective account of a state of affairs in general. In turn, this impossibility ends up justifying the instrumentalist (anti-realist) approach that contemporary quantum physics has followed since the establishment of SQM during the 1930s. In contraposition, in this work, taking as a standpoint the logos categorical approach to QM —basically, Heisenberg’s matrix formulation without Dirac’s projection postulate— we provide an invariant account of bases and factorizations which allows us to to build a conceptual-operational bridge between the mathematical formalism and quantum phenomena. In this context we are able to address the set of equivalence relations which allows us to determine what is actually the same in different bases and factorizations.
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10247.107537
Phenomena in gauge theory are often described in the physics literature via a specific choice of gauge. In foundational and philosophical discussions this is often criticized as introducing gauge dependence, and contrasted against (often aspirational) “gauge-invariant” descriptions of the physics. I argue, largely in the context of scalar electrodynamics, that this is misguided, and that descriptions of a physical process within a specific gauge are in fact gauge-invariant descriptions. However, most of them are non-local descriptions of that physics, and I suggest that this ought to be the real objection to such descriptions. I explore the unitary gauge as the exception to this nonlocality and consider its strengths and limitations, as well as (more briefly) its extension beyond scalar electrodynamics.
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10274.107551
Scientific realists use the “No Miracle Argument” (NMA): it would be a miracle if theories were false, yet got right so many novel and risky predictions. Hence, predictively successful theories are true. Of course, one could easily make up a theory with completely false theoretical assumptions which predicted a phenomenon P (call it a F - theory) if she knew P in advance and used it in framing the theory. But how could she think of a F - theory, without knowing P? Or knowing P but without using it in building the theory? In fact, it is puzzling how one could have built a F - theory even if she used P inessentially: suppose Jill built a F - theory by knowing and using P, but she could have done without it, because, quite independently of her, John built the same theory without using P. This I call Jill using P inessentially, and it is something hard to explain, because it is understandable how the theory was built by Jill, but not by John (Lipton 1991, 166; Alai 2014c, 301).
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10348.107567
The crystalline solids admit of two models: the one of vibrating atoms and the one of phonons. The model of phonons allows explaining certain properties of crystalline solids that the model of vibrating atoms does not allow. Usually, the model of phonons is assigned a diminished ontological status as quasi-particles. Recently, there has been a proposal to homologate the ontological status of phonons with that of emergent particles, such as photons. In this article, this proposal will be critically examined, and it will be proposed that the model of phonons and the model of vibrating atoms are in ontological parity.
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10376.10758
Explainable AI (xAI) methods are important for establishing trust in using black-box models. However, recent criticism has mounted against current xAI methods that they disagree, are necessarily false, and can be manipulated, which has started to undermine the deployment of black-box models. Rudin (2019) goes so far as to say that we should stop using black-box models altogether in high-stakes cases because xAI explanations ‘must be wrong’. However, strict fidelity to the truth is historically not a desideratum in science. Idealizations–the intentional distortions introduced to scientific theories and models–are commonplace in the natural sciences and are seen as a successful scientific tool. Thus, it is not falsehood qua falsehood that is the issue. In this paper, I outline the need for xAI research to engage in idealization evaluation. Drawing on the use of idealizations in the natural sciences and philosophy of science,
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49300.107593
Davide Grossi Artificial Intelligence, Bernoulli Institute, University of Groningen ILLC/ACLE, University of Amsterdam The Netherlands d.grossi@rug.nl its application varies in complexity and depends, in particular, on whether relevant past decisions agree, or exist at all. The contribution of this paper is a formal treatment of types of the hardness of case-based decisions. The typology of hardness is defined in terms of the arguments for and against the issue to be decided, and their kind of validity (conclusive, presumptive, coherent, incoherent). We apply the typology of hardness to Berman and Hafner’s research on the dynamics of case-based reasoning and show formally how the hardness of decisions varies with time.
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57893.107605
In political philosophy, reflective equilibrium is a standard method used to systematically reconcile intuitive judgments with theoretical principles. In this paper, we propose that survey experiments and a model selection method—i.e., the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-based model selection method—can be viewed together as a methodological means of satisfying the epistemic desiderata implicit in reflective equilibrium. To show this, we conduct a survey experiment on two theories of distributive justice, prioritarianism and sufficientarianism. Our experimental test case and AIC-based model selection method demonstrate that the refined sufficientarian principle, a widely accepted principle of distributive justice, is no more plausible than the prioritarian principle. This tells us that some changes of certain intuitions revolving around sufficientarianism should be examined (separately) based on the findings of the survey experiment and AIC model selection. This shows the potential of our approach—both practically and methodologically—as a novel way of applying reflective equilibrium in political philosophy.
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62383.107618
This paper examines the logic of conditional obligation, which originates from the works of Hansson, Lewis, and others. Some weakened forms of transitivity of the betterness relation are studied. These are quasi-transitivity, Suzumura consistency, acyclicity and the interval order condition. The first three do not change the logic. The axiomatic system is the same whether or not they are introduced. This holds true under a rule of interpretation in terms of maximality and strong maximality. The interval order condition gives rise to a new axiom. Depending on the rule of interpretation, this one changes. With the rule of maximality, one obtains the principle known as disjunctive rationality. With the rule of strong maximality, one obtains the Spohn axiom (also known as the principle of rational monotony, or Lewis’ axiom CV). A completeness theorem further substantiates these observations. For interval order, this yields the finite model property and decidability of the calculus.
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62938.107648
One feature of language is that we are able to make mistakes in our use of language. Amongst other sorts of mistakes, we can misspeak, misspell, missign, or misunderstand. Given this, it seems that our metaphysics of words should be flexible enough to accommodate such mistakes. It has been argued that a nominalist account of words cannot accommodate the phenomenon of misspelling. I sketch a nominalist trope-bundle view of words that can.
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65850.10766
‘Naturalism’ is a term so notorious for its murkiness that entire anthologies have been devoted largely to the task of pinning down its meaning – and for all that, nothing near consensus has been reached. Agreement is elusive even on how the available options are best taxonomized. One general tendency is to distinguish ‘ontological’ or ‘metaphysical’ versions – those that recognize only ‘physical’ or ‘material’ or ‘scientific’ items, eschewing, for example, angels or abstracta – from ‘epistemological’ or ‘methodological’ versions – those that recognize only ‘empirical’ or ‘scientific’ ways of finding out about the world, eschewing, for example, revelation – but these broad categories contain multitudes. So the task of explicating the current state of naturalism about logic is unusually daunting.
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113377.107676
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. …
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115623.10769
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.
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115671.107703
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.
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115714.107715
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.
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115738.107727
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.
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115769.107755
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.
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173521.107768
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.
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173545.107781
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.
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215887.107794
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. …
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219534.107807
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?
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228204.107822
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.
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278350.107837
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.