1. 120589.773994
    Nietzsche’s first book was entitled The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1872), and one of his very last works was called The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem (1888). As this simple fact indicates, reflection on art (and especially, on music and drama) is an abiding and central feature of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed, very nearly all of his works address aesthetic questions at least in passing. Some of these questions are familiar from the philosophical tradition: e.g., how should we explain the effect tragedy has on us? What is the relation of aesthetic value to other kinds of value?
    Found 1 day, 9 hours ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. 137780.774137
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association () – © The Author(s), . Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/.), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
    Found 1 day, 14 hours ago on Kenneth Pearce's site
  3. 204526.774159
    Neil Mehta has written a fantastic book. A Pluralist Theory of Perception develops a novel theory of perception that illuminates the metaphysical structure, epistemic significance, and semantic role of perceptual consciousness. By and large, I found the core tenets of Mehta’s theory to be highly plausible and successfully defended. I could quibble with some parts (e.g., his claim that our conscious awareness of sensory qualities is non-representational). But I suspect our disagreements are largely verbal, and where they are non-verbal, they are minor. Instead of focusing on disagreements, in this commentary I wish to explore the metaphysical ramifications of Mehta’s theory with respect to the mind-body problem. Mehta has a great deal to say about the metaphysics of perception. Much of it seems to me to be in tension with physicalism. But throughout the book he remains officially neutral on the truth of physicalism, “in reflection of [his] genuine uncertainty” (ibid: 100). I will try to show that Mehta’s commitments lead almost inexorably to dualism (or, at least, away from physicalism) by giving three arguments against physicalism that centrally rely on premises to which Mehta is committed.
    Found 2 days, 8 hours ago on Brian Cutter's site
  4. 206477.774171
    If the philosophy of mathematics wants to be rigorous, the concept of infinity must stop being equivocal (both potential and actual) as it currently is. The conception of infinity as actual is responsible for all the paradoxes that compromise the very foundation of mathematics and is also the basis on which Cantor's argument is based on the non-countability of R, and the existence of infinite cardinals of different magnitude. Here we present proof that all infinite sets (in a potential sense) are countable and that there are no infinite cardinals.
    Found 2 days, 9 hours ago on PhilSci Archive
  5. 264146.77418
    The philosophical literature on mathematical structuralism and its history has focused on the emergence of structuralism in the 19th century. Yet modern abstractionist accounts cannot provide an historical account for the abstraction process. This paper will examine the role of relations in the history of mathematics, focusing on three main epochs where relational abstraction is most prominent: ancient Greek, 17th and 19th centuries, to provide a philosophical account for the abstraction of structures. Though these structures emerged in the 19th century with definitional axioms, the need for such axioms in the abstraction process comes about, as this paper will show, after a series of relational abstractions without a suitable basis.
    Found 3 days, 1 hour ago on PhilSci Archive
  6. 466845.774188
    This entry surveys the literature surrounding certain kinds of views about metaphysics. In particular, the central concern here will be with critiques of metaphysics and responses to those critiques. And so the views under discussion can be thought of as metametaphysical views, or metaontological views. Section 1 distinguishes the views to be discussed—namely, realist and anti-realist views about metaphysics—from views of another kind (namely, realist and anti-realist views in metaphysics). Then the survey of views begins in section 2. The survey is organized around anti-realist views—i.e., views that offer critiques of metaphysics—and realist responses to the anti-realist critiques.
    Found 5 days, 9 hours ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  7. 563015.774195
    [The final chapter of my undergraduate thesis on Modal Rationalism. The initial sections contrast realist vs conceptualist understandings of “metaphysical possibility”, with an eye to helping skeptical readers to grasp the core concept (e.g. …
    Found 6 days, 12 hours ago on Good Thoughts
  8. 725781.774202
    Primitivism about the direction of time is the thesis that the direction of time does not call for an explanation because it is a primitive posit in one’s ontology. In the literature, primitivism has in general come along with a substantival view of time according to which time is an independent substance. In this paper, we defend a new primitivist approach to the direction of time –relational primitivism. According to it, time is primitively directed because change is primitive. By relying on Leibnizian relationalism, we argue that a relational ontology of time must be able to distinguish between spatial relations and temporal relations to make sense of the distinction between variation and change. This distinction, however, requires the assumption of a primitive directionality of change, which ushers in the direction of time. Relational primitivism is an attractive view for those who want to avoid substantivalism about time but retain a primitive direction of time in a more parsimonious ontology.
    Found 1 week, 1 day ago on PhilSci Archive
  9. 898889.774209
    In an article published in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2003 I made a number of criticisms concerning what I saw as confusions and problems within the constructivist approach to chemical education (Scerri, 2003). Recently a response was published by the chemical educator, Keith Taber (Taber, 2010). I would now like to take this opportunity to the twentieth century. I believe that this presents a problem for Taber for two reasons. First of all, logical positivism is now a highly discredited view of the nature of science. Moreover, logical positivism has been traditionally, and rather contemptuously, derided by constructivist science educators (e.g., Spencer, 1999).
    Found 1 week, 3 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  10. 956643.774215
    This paper is about a problem which arose in mathematics but is now widely considered by mathematicians to be a matter “merely” for philosophy. I want to show what philosophy can contribute to solving the problem by returning it to mathematics, and I will do that by elucidating what it is to be a solution to a mathematical problem at all.
    Found 1 week, 4 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  11. 1244974.774222
    Spacetime singularities are expected to disappear in quantum gravity. Singularity resolution prima facie supports the view that spacetime singularities are mathematical pathologies of general relativity. However, this conclusion might be premature. Spacetime singularities are more accurately understood as global properties of spacetime, rather than things. Therefore, if spacetime emerges in quantum gravity – as it is often claimed – then so may its singular structure. Although this proposal is intriguing, the attempt to uphold that spacetime singularities may be emergent fails. I provide three arguments in support of this claim, drawing upon different views on spacetime emergence.
    Found 2 weeks ago on PhilSci Archive
  12. 1332118.774229
    [Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Mark Wrathall replaces the former entry on this topic by the previous author.] Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) is a central figure in the development of twentieth-century European Philosophy. His magnum opus, Being and Time (1927), and his many essays and lectures, profoundly influenced subsequent movements in European philosophy, including Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy, Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, Simone de Beauvoir’s feminism, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, Michel Foucault’s post-structuralism, Gilles Deleuze’s metaphysics, the Frankfurt School, and critical theorists like Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Georg Lukács.
    Found 2 weeks, 1 day ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  13. 1559855.774236
    PEA Soup is pleased to introduce this month’s Ethics discussion, featuring Elselijn Kingma and Fiona Woollard’s paper Can You Do Harm to Your Fetus? Pregnancy, Barriers, and the Doing/Allowing Distinction, with a précis from Elizabeth Harman. …
    Found 2 weeks, 4 days ago on PEA Soup
  14. 1706572.774244
    The paper studies in detail a precise formal construction of spacetime from matter suggested by the logician John Burgess. We presuppose a continuous and perdurantistic matter ontology. The result is a systematic method to translate claims about the geometry of a flat relativistic, or classical, spacetime into claims about geometrical relations between matter points. The approach is extended to electric and magnetic fields by treating them as multifields defined on matter, rather than as fields in the vacuum. A few tentative suggestions are made to adapt the method to general relativity and to quantum theories.
    Found 2 weeks, 5 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  15. 1799451.774251
    This article argues that the “qua problem” for purely causal theories of reference grounding is an illusion. Reference can be grounded via description and fit, but purely causal reference grounding is possible too. In fact, “arguments from ignorance and error” suggest that many of our terms have had their reference grounded purely causally. If the qua problem is illusory, then there is no need to adopt a “hybrid” theory of reference grounding of the kind recently recommended by Amie Thomasson (Ontology made easy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015) and Ron Mallon (The construction of human kinds, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016). This opens the door to a “discovery model” of philosophical knowledge, a model we could then choose to accept.
    Found 2 weeks, 6 days ago on Max Deutsch's site
  16. 1994901.774262
    This paper defends a conceptualistic version of structuralism as the most convincing way of elaborating a philosophical understanding of structuralism in line with the classical tradition. The argument begins with a revision of the tradition of “conceptual mathematics”, incarnated in key figures of the period 1850 to 1940 like Riemann, Dedekind, Hilbert or Noether, showing how it led to a structuralist methodology. Then the tension between the ‘presuppositionless’ approach of those authors, and the platonism of some recent versions of philosophical structuralism, is presented. In order to resolve this tension, we argue for the idea of ‘logical objects’ as a form of minimalist realism, again in the tradition of classical authors including Peirce and Cassirer, and we introduce the basic tenets of conceptual
    Found 3 weeks, 2 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  17. 2135563.774269
    [Chapter One of my undergraduate thesis on Modal Rationalism. Excuse the outdated references to “current” events — it was written in 2006. Still, I hope it may serve as a useful introduction to some key ideas in the philosophy of language. …
    Found 3 weeks, 3 days ago on Good Thoughts
  18. 2166379.774276
    Could we transfer you from your biological substrate to an electronic hardware by simulating your brain on a computer? The answer to this question divides optimists and pessimists about mind uploading. Optimists believe that you can genuinely survive the transition; pessimists think that surviving mind uploading is impossible. An influential argument against uploading optimism is the multiplicity objection. In a nutshell, the objection is as follows: If uploading optimism were true, it should be possible to create not only one, but multiple digital versions of you. However, you cannot literally become many. Hence, you cannot survive even a single instance of uploading, and optimism about uploading is misguided. In this paper, I will first spell out the multiplicity objection in detail and then provide a two-pronged defence against the objection. First, uploading pessimists cannot establish that uploading optimism has the contentious implication. Second, it is in fact plausible to think that we could become multiple distinct persons. Optimists’ hope for a digital afterlife is therefore not thwarted by the prospect of multiplicity.
    Found 3 weeks, 4 days ago on Clas Weber's site
  19. 2166402.774285
    There appears to be an epistemic gap between the personal and the impersonal. The apparent epistemic gap presents a challenge to reductionist views about personal identity according to which facts about personal identity are grounded in impersonal facts about physical and/or psychological continuity. I discuss and reject two strategies of trying to close the apparent epistemic gap, a phenomenalist and a Cartesian one. I then develop and motivate an alternative account of the epistemic gap based on the special perspecti-val character of inside imagination. The imagination-based account explains why there appears to be an epistemic gap between the personal and the impersonal and at the same time avoids a corresponding ontological gap.
    Found 3 weeks, 4 days ago on Clas Weber's site
  20. 2264422.774295
    In this paper, I argue that facts about an individual’s sexual identity are partially or fully grounded in facts about their sexual orientation, where an individual’s sexual identity (e.g. being queer, being straight) has to do with the social position they occupy, and their sexual orientation (e.g. being homosexual, being heterosexual) has to do with the sexual dispositions they have. The main argument for this orientation-based theory is that it gets the right results in cases in which an individual hasn’t come out yet to themselves or others. I reply to Matthew Andler’s argument against the orientation-based theory, which is that it gets the wrong results in cases having to do with (a) intergenerational gay friendship and (b) “str8 dudes,” men who have sex with men but who present themselves online as straight. I also argue that, at least in the case of being queer, Andler’s own cultural theory is consistent with sexual identity facts being partially grounded in sexual orientation facts.
    Found 3 weeks, 5 days ago on Ben Caplan's site
  21. 2391175.774301
    “From the Archives” is a new blog series that will share some of my favorite posts, lightly revised and updated, from my 18 years of archives at philosophyetc.net. I’ll kick things off with my undergraduate honours thesis on “Modal Rationalism”, which I think remains a neat general introduction to some core issues in metaphysics, modal epistemology, and the philosophy of language. …
    Found 3 weeks, 6 days ago on Good Thoughts
  22. 2398594.774308
    Since the early debates on teleosemantics, there have been people objecting that teleosemantics cannot account for evolutionarily novel contents such as “democracy” (e.g., Peacocke 1992). Most recently, this objection was brought up by Garson (2019) and in a more moderate form by Garson & Papineau (2019). The underlying criticism is that the traditional selected effects theory of functions on which teleosemantics is built is unable to ascribe new functions to the products of ontogenetic processes and thus unable to ascribe functions to new traits that appear during the lifetime of an individual organism. I will argue that this underlying thought rests on rather common misunderstandings of Millikan’s theory of proper functions, especially her notions of relational, adapted, and derived proper functions (Millikan 1984: Ch. 2). The notions of relational, adapted, and derived proper functions not only help us solve the problem of novel contents and can ascribe functions to the products of ontogenetic selection mechanisms but are indispensable parts of every selected effects theory.
    Found 3 weeks, 6 days ago on PhilSci Archive
  23. 2732264.774317
    We present the problem of perceptual agreement (of determinate color) and submit that it proves to be a serious and long overlooked obstacle for those insisting that colors are not objective features of objects, viz., nonobjectivist theories like C. L. Hardin’s (2003) eliminativism and Jonathan Cohen’s (2009) relationalism.
    Found 1 month ago on Elay Shech's site
  24. 2850539.774323
    David Hume famously remarked on a curious response we have to certain works of art that cause us to feel unhappiness or distress: It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well-written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other passions, that are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle; and as soon as the uneasy passions cease to operate, the piece is at an end. (1757 [1987: 216]) This odd connection between the simultaneous pleasure and distress caused by tragic drama is remarked upon in Aristotle’s Poetics, the earliest philosophical attempt in the West to construct an aesthetic theory.
    Found 1 month ago on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  25. 2955384.774329
    In contemporary philosophy of physics, there has recently been a renewed interest in the theory of geometric objects—a programme developed originally by geometers such as Schouten, Veblen, and others in the 1920s and 30s. However, as yet, there has been little-to-no systematic investigation into the history of the geometric object concept. I discuss the early development of the geometric object concept, and show that geometers working on the programme in the 1920s and early 1930s had a more expansive conception of geometric objects than that which is found in later presentations— which, unlike the modern conception of geometric objects, included embedded submanifolds such as points, curves, and hypersurfaces. I reconstruct and critically evaluate their arguments for this more expansive geometric object concept, and also locate and assess the transition to the more restrictive modern geometric object concept.
    Found 1 month ago on PhilSci Archive
  26. 2955405.774337
    The concept of "information" is one of the key words that describe modern society. It is used in a variety of settings, from daily life to academic research, and it is now difficult to understand modern society without it. On the other hand, the independent use of the concept in various situations has led to the polysemous nature of the concept, and even when the same term is used, it has different meanings in different areas of usage. The fragility of these conceptual foundations is one of the central concerns in the philosophy of information. Thus, the "analysis and organization of information concepts" emerges as an important task in the philosophy of information (cf. Adriaans and van Benthem eds. 2008; Floridi 2011). The importance of this task is not limited to simply analyzing and organizing concepts, but also includes resolving the differences that arise between different domains (concerning information concepts).
    Found 1 month ago on PhilSci Archive
  27. 2968901.774345
    It is uncontroversial that definite plurals in natural language stand for pluralities and permit predicates that are inherently distributive as in (1a) as well as predicates that can apply both collectively or distributively, as in (1b): (1) a. The stones are grey. b. The stones are heavy.
    Found 1 month ago on Friederike Moltmann's site
  28. 3056934.774352
    How the semantic significance of numerical discourse gets determined is a metasemantic issue par excellence. At the sub-sentential level, the issue is riddled with difficulties due to the contested metaphysical status of the subject matter of numerical discourse, i.e. numbers and numerical properties and relations. I propose to set those difficulties aside and focus instead on the sentential level, specifically, on obvious affinities between whole numerical and non-numerical sentences and how their significance is determined. From such a perspective, Frege’s 1884 construction of number, while famously mathematically untenable, fares better than other approaches in the philosophy of mathematics. Despite the work’s foundational untenability, it is metasemantically superior to extant alternatives.
    Found 1 month ago on Ori Simchen's site
  29. 3417097.774358
    Symmetry fundamentalism claims that symmetries should be taken metaphysically seriously as part of the fundamental ontology. The main aim of this paper is to bring some novel objections against this view. I make two points. The first places symmetry fundamentalism within a broader network of philosophical commitments. I claim that symmetry fundamentalism entails idealization realism which, in turn, entails the reification of further theoretical structures. This might lead to an overloaded ontology as well as open the way to criticisms from metaphysical frameworks that reject such reifications. The second point contrasts symmetry fundamentalism with the now common view that regards symmetries as stipulations guiding empirical research and theory construction. I claim that both views clash each other and cannot be held together. I finish the paper with a more positive prospect that will be developed in future work—symmetry deflationism.
    Found 1 month, 1 week ago on PhilSci Archive
  30. 3417120.774365
    In this paper, I critically assess two recent proposals for an interpretation-independent understanding of non-relativistic quantum mechanics: the overlap strategy (Fraser & Vickers, 2022) and the textbook account (Egg, 2021). My argument has three steps. I first argue that they presume a Quinean-Carnapian meta-ontological framework that yields flat, structureless ontologies. Second, such ontologies are unable to solve the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. Finally, only structured ontologies are capable of solving the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. But they require some dose of speculation. In the end, I defend the conservative way to do quantum ontology, which is (and must be) speculative and non-neutral.
    Found 1 month, 1 week ago on PhilSci Archive