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960980.197375
To a large extent, the evidential base of claims in the philosophy of science has switched from thought experiments to case studies. We argue that abandoning thought experiments was a wrong turn, since they can effectively complement case studies. We make our argument via an analogy with the relationship between experiments and observations within science. Just as experiments and ‘natural’ observations can together evidence claims in science, each mitigating the downsides of the other, so too can thought experiments and case studies be mutually supporting. After presenting the main argument, we look at potential concerns about thought experiments, suggesting that a judiciously applied mixed-methods approach can overcome them.
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963701.19748
It turns out I’ve blogged rather a lot of philosophy over the years! I like to find ways to categorize and refer back to the more valuable of those old posts, so they aren’t entirely lost to the ages. …
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970056.197496
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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982025.197508
Welcome to our newest PEA Soup Blog Ethics discussion! This discussion focuses on David Estlund‘s recent paper ‘What’s Unjust About Structural Injustice?‘. To begin, we will pass things over to Peter de Marneffe for a critical précis. …
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990212.197526
A typical feature that is singled out in characterizations of the “open society” or the “great society” is its impersonal nature. Karl Popper characterizes the relationships taking place in the open society as “abstract” and “depersonalized”:
“As a consequence of its loss of organic character, an open society may become, by degrees, what I should like to term an ‘abstract society.’ It may, to a considerable extent, lose the character of a concrete or real group of men, or of a system of such real groups. …
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1027767.19754
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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1037083.197552
The new approach to quantum mechanics (QM) is that the mathematics of QM is the linearization of the mathematics of partitions (or equivalence relations) on a set. This paper develops those ideas using vector spaces over the field Z2 = {0.1} as a pedagogical or toy model of (finite-dimensional, non-relativistic) QM. The 0, 1-vectors are interpreted as sets, so the model is “quantum mechanics over sets” or QM/Sets. The key notions of partitions on a set are the logical-level notions to model distinctions versus indistinctions, definiteness versus indefiniteness, or distinguishability versus indistinguishability. Those pairs of concepts are the key to understanding the non-classical ‘weirdness’ of QM. The key non-classical notion in QM is the notion of superposition, i.e., the notion of a state that is indefinite between two or more definite- or eigen-states. As Richard Feynman emphasized, all the weirdness of QM is illustrated in the double-slit experiment, so the QM/Sets version of that experiment is used to make the key points.
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1037109.197565
We propose a distinction between two different concepts of time that play a role in physics: geometric time and creative time. The former is the time of deterministic physics and merely parametrizes a given evolution. The latter is instead characterized by real change, i.e. novel information that gets created when a non-necessary event becomes determined in a fundamentally indeterministic physics. This allows us to give a naturalistic characterization of the present as the moment that separates the potential future from the determined past. We discuss how these two concepts find natural applications in classical and intuitionistic mathematics, respectively, and in classical and multivalued tensed logic, as well as how they relate to the well-known A- and B-theories in the philosophy of time.
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1037187.197578
This paper examines different kinds of definite descriptions denoting purely contingent, necessary or impossible objects. The discourse about contingent/impossible/necessary objects can be organised in terms of rational questions to ask and answer relative to the modal profile of the entity in question. There are also limits on what it is rational to know about entities with this or that modal profile. We will also examine epistemic modalities; they are the kind of necessity and possibility that is determined by epistemic constraints related to knowledge or rationality. Definite descriptions denote so-called offices, roles, or things to be. We explicate these -offices as partial functions from possible worlds to chronologies of objects of type , where is mostly the type of individuals. Our starting point is Prior’s distinction between a ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ definite article ‘the’. In both cases, the definite description refers to at most one object; yet, in the case of the weak ‘the’, the referred object can change over time, while in the case of the strong ‘the’, the object referred to by the definite description is the same forever, once the office has been occupied. The main result we present is the way how to obtain a Wh-knowledge about who or what plays a given role presented by a hyper-office, i.e. procedure producing an office. Another no less important result concerns the epistemic necessity of the impossibility of knowing who or what occupies the impossible office presented by a hyper-office.
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1053794.19759
First, we suggest and discuss second-order versions of properties for solutions for TU games used to characterize the Banzhaf value, in particular, of standardness for two-player games, of the dummy player property, and of 2-efficiency. Then, we provide a number of characterizations of the Banzhaf value invoking the following properties: (i) [second-order standardness for two-player games or the second-order dummy player property] and 2-efficiency, (ii) standardness for one-player games, standardness for two-player games, and second-order 2-efficiency, (iii) standardness for one-player games, [second-order standardness for two-player games or the second-order dummy player property], and second-order 2-efficiency. These characterizations also work within the classes of simple games, of superadditive games, and of simple superadditive games.
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1053809.197603
Judith Harris’ The Nurture Assumption was a huge influence on me, and the top inspiration for my Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. Her book’s first main lesson is that family resemblance, defined in the broadest possible way to include physical, psychological, and social outcomes, is mostly driven by genetics rather than upbringing. …
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1053918.197615
The advanced division of cognitive labor generates a set of challenges and opportunities for professional philosophers. In this paper, I re-characterize the nature of synthetic philosophy in light of these challenges and opportunities. For my definition of synthetic philosophy see part 2. In part 1, I’ll remind you of the centrality of the division of labor to Plato’s Republic, and why this is especially salient in his banishment of the poets from his Kallipolis. I’ll then focus on the significance of an easily overlooked albeit rather significant character, Damon, mentioned in that dialogue. I’ll argue that if we take the relationship between Socrates and Damon seriously, we’ll notice that in modeling imperfect polities, Plato inscribes Socrates within the advanced division of cognitive labor who defers to Damon as an expert on a key feature of the art of government. In fact, I’ll argue that in Republic, Plato offers us at least two ways to conceptualize philosophy’s relationship to the sciences, and that he alerts us to the social significance of this.
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1053935.197627
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.
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1085455.197643
I am in my boat in a bay which forks into stream A and stream B. I just received a distress signal from two different boats: one carrying two complete strangers (whom I name “Larry” and ”Mary” for easy reference) and another carrying one other person, also a complete stranger (whom I name “Jeri”). If I row to stream A, I can save Larry and Mary, but Jeri will die; if I row to stream B, I can save Jeri, but Mary and Larry will die.
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1086667.197655
It looks like they’ve found protonium in the decay of a heavy particle! Protonium is made of a proton and an antiproton orbiting each other. It lasts a very short time before they annihilate each other. …
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1105173.197668
One does not just walk into Mordor. The same might be said of Hamlet criticism. But in my naive, Hobbit-like way, I read Nicholas Brooke’s essay on Hamlet, and only that.1
Like a shady contractor, Brooke complains that the last guy did the baseboards and appliances all wrong, but he’d be happy to tear it all out and do it right, for a few extra grand. …
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1133275.19768
On explanationist accounts of genealogical debunking, roughly, a belief is debunked when its explanation is not suitably related to its content. We argue that explanationism cannot accommodate cases in which beliefs are explained by factors unrelated to their contents but are nonetheless independently justified. Justification-specific versions of explanationism face an iteration of the problem. The best account of debunking is a probabilistic account according to which subject S’s justification J for their belief that P is debunked when S learns that J is no more likely to be true on the hypothesis that P than on the hypothesis that ¬P . The probabilistic criterion is fully general, applying not only to cases where the learned undercutting defeater is a proposition about our beliefs or other mental states but to any case of undercutting defeat, providing the grounds for a debunking argument against the existence of a special, metacognitive debunking principle.
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1133313.197692
It is one thing to believe something, and it is another to grasp it. For example, everyone knows that life is short, but most of us arguably do not fully grasp this fact. Grasping this fact can have a notable effect on our cognition and behavior, prompting us to reconsider how to best spend our limited time. Similarly, most of us know but seldom grasp that children are starving all around the world and that we could, if we put in a sufficient collective effort, halt much of this suffering. Grasping these facts makes us more inclined to donate to charity—or at least makes us more inclined to feel guilty if we don't. As both of these examples illustrate, grasping seems to be something above and beyond mere belief or knowledge, and it seems to make an important difference to our cognitive and decision-making processes.
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1143168.197703
Basal cognition investigates cognition working upward from nonneuronal organisms. Because basal cognition is committed to empirically testable hypotheses, a methodological challenge arises: how can experiments avoid using zoocentric assumptions that ignore the ecological contexts that might elicit cognitively driven behavior in nonneuronal organisms? To meet this challenge, I articulate the principle of dynamic holism (PDH), a methodological principle for guiding research on nonneuronal cognition. I describe PDH’s relation to holistic research programs in human-focused cognitive science and psychology then present an argument from analogy based on holistic developmental biology. Last, I examine two experiments exemplifying the need for PDH.
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1143193.197716
A classic objection to Humeanism about scientific laws is that Humeans cannot make sense of the counterfactual invariance of the laws. For example, if there were ‘nothing in the entire history of the universe except a single electron’ (Lange, 2009, p. 55) then, intuitively, the laws would still be the same. But classic Humean views don’t seem to get such results.
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1155094.197727
It is tempting to think that legitimate and illegitimate authorities are both types of a single thing. One might not want to call that single thing “authority”. After all, one doesn’t want to say that real and fake money are both types of money. …
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1200918.19774
Almost everyone believes that freedom from deprivation should have significant weight in specifying what justice between generations requires. Some theorists hold that it should always trump other distributive concerns. Other theorists hold that it should have some but not lexical priority. I argue instead that freedom from deprivation should have lexical priority in some cases, yet weighted priority in others. More specifically, I defend semi-strong sufficientarianism. This view posits a deprivation threshold at which people are free from deprivation, and an affluence threshold at which people can live an affluent life, even though their lives may be even further improved beyond that point. I argue that freedom from deprivation in one generation lexically outweighs providing affluence in another generation; in all other cases, freedom from deprivation does not have lexical priority.
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1311499.197753
Here you are, just trying to eat your BLT in peace, and someone at your table starts going on about being a vegan. Your eyes roll as your blood pressure rises. You wish they would just shut up. It’s not that you don’t care about animal suffering. In other contexts, you actually care quite a bit – you would definitely do something if you thought a neighbor was mistreating their dog. You’re a good person—an animal lover even! But it’s hard to care that much about the ethics of meat-eating when these vegan types are just so preachy and annoying. This is, we suspect, a very common experience. When we’re told that something we see as ordinary— like eating meat—is actually wrong, our first reaction is to get irritated and dismissive. If it’s not about bacon, it’s about plastic straws. Or a phrase we’ve been using for years but that’s now considered offensive. Or having to share your pronouns.
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1316347.197766
The paper argues against a commitment to metaphysical necessity, semantic modalities are enough. The best approaches to elucidate the semantic modalities are (still) versions of lingustic ersatzism and fictionalism, even if only developed in parts. Within these necessary properties and the difference between natural and semantic laws can be accounted for. The proper background theory for this is an updated version of Logical Empiricism, which is congenial to recent trends in Structural Realism. The anti-metaphysical attitude of Logical Empiricism deserves revitalization. Another target besides metaphysical necessity are substantial forms of iterated modalities, as used, for instance, in the philosophy of religion.
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1316376.197778
According to the cognitive model of psychopathology, maladaptive beliefs about oneself, others, and the world are the main factors contributing to the development and persistence of various forms of mental suffering. Therefore, the key therapeutic process of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—a therapeutic approach rooted in the cognitive model—is cognitive restructuring, i.e., a process of revision of such maladaptive beliefs. In this paper, I examine the philosophical assumptions underlying CBT and offer theoretical reasons to think that the effectiveness of belief revision in psychotherapy is very limited. This is the case, I argue, because the cognitive model wrongly assumes that our body of beliefs is unified, while it is in fact fragmented.
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1328143.19779
Suppose that you very quickly crush the head of a very long stretched-out serpent. Specifically, suppose your crushing takes less time than it takes for light to travel to the snake’s tail. Let t be a time just after the crushing of the head. …
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1360964.197803
Work in philosophy of mind often engages in descriptive phenomenology, i.e., in attempts to characterize the phenomenal character of our experience. Nagel’s famous discussion of what it’s like to be a bat demonstrates the difficulty of this enterprise (1974). But while Nagel located the difficulty in our absence of an objective vocabulary for describing experience, I argue that the problem runs deeper than that: we also lack an adequate subjective vocabulary for describing phenomenology. We struggle to describe our own phenomenal states in terms we ourselves find adequately expressive. This paper aims to flesh out why our phenomenological vocabulary is so impoverished – what I call the impoverishment problem. As I suggest, this problem has both practical and philosophical import. After fleshing out the problem in more detail, I draw some suggestive morals from the discussion in an effort to point the way forward towards a solution.
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1374083.197815
I distinguish five types of discrimination, three of which are personal-level and distinctively visual. I explain their implication relations. Then I argue that the plausibility of the claim that seeing something requires discriminating it, as opposed to simply attributing some properties to it, hinges on the type of discrimination under consideration. A weak form of discrimination trivializes the debate. Stronger notions of discrimination, however, cannot be understood without attribution. Attribution appears to form the fundamental level of personal-level representation.
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1374159.197835
What is it to say, “they are my child?” The semantics of possessives such as ‘my’ are intriguing for a number of reasons, but here I wish to pick up on a particular ambiguity present in many uses of possessives. That is, an ambiguity between the sense of a possessive that merely indicates that the subject of an utterance stands in some relationship to the object of the utterance, and the sense of a possessive that indicates that the subject of the utterance owns the object of the utterance: that the object is the property of the subject. Call the former sense of such possessives the relational sense, and the latter the propertarian sense. This ambiguity is noted by Peters and Westerståhl, who write that in fact many possessive utterances actually have very little to do with ‘real’ possession or ownership (Peters and Westerståhl 2013 715). To give a couple of examples, take the following possessive utterances, which on their most natural reading are relational possessives:
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1374185.197847
Conciliationism is the family of views that rationality requires agents to reduce confidence or suspend belief in p when acknowledged epistemic peers (i.e. agents who are (approximately) equally well-informed and intellectually capable) disagree about p. While Conciliationism is prima facie plausible, some have argued that Conciliationism is not an adequate theory of peer disagreement because it is self-undermining. Responses to this challenge can be put into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups: the Solution Responses which deny Conciliationism is self-undermining and attempt to provide arguments which demonstrate this; and the Skeptical Responses which accept that Conciliationism is self-undermining but attempt to mitigate this result by arguing this is either impermanent and/or not very worrisome. I argue that, by Conciliationism’s own lights, both kinds of responses (almost certainly) fail to save Conciliationism from being self-undermining. Thus, Conciliationism is (almost certainly) permanently self-undermining. This result is significant because it demonstrates that Conciliationism is likely hopeless: there is likely nothing that can save Conciliationism from this challenge. I further argue that Conciliationism, like any view, should be abandoned if it is (almost certainly) hopeless.