It is common to define affordances (the action possibilities offered by the environment) either as dispositions of objects in the environment or subject-environment relations. Drawing on Gibson’s original framework and subsequent developments, I identify four core criteria for evaluating comprehensive theories of affordances: environmental basis, subject-relativity, socio-cultural situatedness, and empirical tractability. I argue that neither of the common approaches adequately satisfies all four. Dispositionalism properly captures environmental basis and empirical tractability but struggles with subject-relativity and socio-cultural situatedness. Relationalism shows the reverse pattern. To move beyond this impasse, I propose a response-dependent account: an environmental feature affords an action just in case it would elicit the relevant action-oriented responsiveness in suitable subjects under empirically specifiable conditions, where that counterfactual responsiveness constitutes the feature’s affording that action. This treats affordances as environmental properties while explaining systematic variation across subjects and contexts without reducing them either to dispositions or to organism–environment relations, thereby offering a more unified framework that integrates the core insights of both views and provides a stable foundation for empirical research.
Neopragmatist treatments of a domain of discourse eschew inflationary semantic notions, such as heavyweight representation relations, in favor of functional explanations. Neopragmatists often do this by providing an alternative, non-truth-conditional semantics for the discourse in question. This paper develops a neopragmatist treatment of logical necessity that pursues a different approach. It accepts a truth-conditional possible-worlds semantics, but provides a metasemantic account that appeals only to neopragmatist-friendly notions. The success of possible-worlds semantics is explained not by its correctly capturing representational structure, but by a functional explanation: a crucial function of logical modals is to express commitments to rules that govern all language games. I provide a formal explication that highlights the isomorphism between the semantic quantification over possible worlds and the metasemantic quantification over language games. The resulting account also explains what logical necessity has in common with other flavors of modality and secures the hardness of the logical “must”.
The Adoption Problem suggests that it is impossible to rationally choose or adopt new basic logical principles. It aims to refute cognitivist views according to which adopting a logical principle is accepting or coming to believe a general principle, and then applying it in reasoning – according to which it is coming to have a belief whose content is a general proposition, which is then applied in reasoning. In this paper, we explore a new solution to the Adoption Problem inspired by Ramsey’s view of general beliefs as ‘habit[s] of singular belief’ (Ramsey 1929: 148). According to him, beliefs with a general content are special in that they are dispositional states. We show how this feature paves the way for a solution to the Adoption Problem which combines cognitivism with a form of expressivism.
This article presents an account of social power dynamics that centers on the notions of attention, control and scripts, elucidated through active inference as the evolution of shared policies with attractive tendencies. The acquisition and maintenance of social power depends on (changing) established habits: patterns such as languages, traditions, currencies, and other cultural norms—all of which will be framed in this article as scripts, because they represent communicable and iterable policies, or sequences of discrete steps. The first line of argument explored is social power as an effect of agents or groups exploring and exploiting how scripts control perspectives; i.e., attention. It will be argued that social power manifests through scripts in the capacity to modulate information-processing, and material conditions, through scripts as policies that organize attention and behavior. These processes can be understood as flows of information which can be modulated, and are therefore amenable to an information-theoretic, computational analysis. Observing the effects of scripts directing behavior as the basis of power and its material effects, leads to an argument about power as—effective and/or ever more possibilistic—computation, where computation is understood as a function occurring on a finite substrate that transforms an input into an output. Social empowerment is thus what grants agents more computing opportunities (as in: the concentration of attention and behavior as/or the transformation of matter), shaping the unfolding of future trajectories. Starting from the context of active inference, social power is therefore conceptualized as a function of variables including attention-attraction capabilities and information-processing efficiency, which together enable both script-creation and/or maintenance. Through an analysis of script-function, it is examined how power relations materialize through attention as information-processing, revealing straightforward connections between social habits, cognitive-behavioral patterns, and ensuing materiotechnical realities.
Contemporary debates on mixed emotions focus largely on how opposite valences coexist within individual experience, typically under controlled laboratory conditions. This paper broadens the discussion by developing a relational and ritual-based account of mixed affective complexes in early Confucian thought. Using grief for deceased parents as a paradigm case, we show that Confucius understands mourning not as a mere expression of grief but as a structured process in which an initial sorrow is deliberately sustained, guided, and gradually transformed through a shared temporal and ritual framework. Mencius further identifies specific forms of unease that burial rites are designed to resolve, while Xunzi explains how ritual structures recalibrate and integrate intense grief into a stabilized mixed affective complex. Taken together, these perspectives reveal a social-relational model in which affective complexity emerges not only within individual minds but through patterned interactions, communal norms, and ritual practices that reshape emotional life over time. While mourning provides a paradigmatically clear instance, the model we articulate offers a broader framework for understanding how emotions in general become mixed, stabilized, and ethically meaningful through ritual and relational processes.
One of the central debates in the contemporary science of affectivity concerns the structure of affective valence. Recent discussion has focused on the possibility of affectively mixed experiences–experiences that are pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. Yet this debate has almost exclusively centered on one class of such experiences: mixed emotions. In this paper, we argue that affective perceptual experiences provide a promising avenue for advancing our understanding of affectively mixed experience. Focusing on the neglected case of olfaction, we first argue that phenomenological evidence supports the existence of affectively mixed olfactory experiences. We then show that, owing to the distinctive temporal dynamics of olfactory processing, these experiences resist a reductive explanation in terms of the vacillation hypothesis, the leading reductive account of affectively mixed phenomenology. Finally, we assess the existing empirical evidence for affectively mixed olfactory experiences and propose experimental paradigms to guide future research.
In this paper, I argue that there is a problem with the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (MWI). I show this by relying on the notion of envariance. Zurek's work on envariance was intended to strengthen the MWI by providing a non-circular derivation of the Born rule within the MWI framework. However, I will argue that envariance actually undermines the MWI by showing that in many situations, the system-environment terms in the entangled universal quantum state don't correspond to distinct entities as MWI-advocates such as David Wallace claim they do. After making my envariance-based objection to the MWI, I show that three other interpretations—the Relational Quantum Mechanics interpretation, the de Broglie-Bohm (aka the Pilot Wave) interpretation, and the GRW interpretation—do not adopt all the assumptions needed for envariance, and so can sidestep the problem that envariance presents to the MWI. My argument against the MWI is of relevance to the philosophy of middle-sized objects since it highlights a problem with the claim that a multiplicity of middle-sized objects emerge in different worlds from a universal quantum state.
Contemporary philosophy of emotion tends to focus on specific, identifiable emotions such as anger, shame, or envy. While this work has illuminated the political and moral roles of discrete emotions, it often overlooks vague or ineffable emotions or feelings that resist easy classification. This paper revisits Allison Jaggar’s concept of outlaw emotions—unarticulated, uncomfortable feelings that signal estrangement from dominant norms while carrying a potential for critical reflection. Whereas feminist readings have emphasized the epistemic promise of outlaw emotions in contexts of oppression, we argue that the phenomenon is both more radical and more widely applicable. Outlaw emotions can arise whenever individuals feel out of tune with established social or institutional practices, producing discomfort that may prompt moral and political reconsideration. We illustrate this through case studies of soldiers experiencing persistent estrangement and unease during and after military missions, situating these cases within broader discussions of moral injury and moral distress. Importantly, however, we challenge the portrayal of outlaw emotions as inherently liberatory or epistemically authoritative. Outlaw emotions should instead be understood as affective disruptions that open space for reflection without a predetermined outcome. Drawing on constructionist theories of emotion, we further argue that outlaw emotions are not reducible to combinations of discrete basic emotions but are culturally mediated affective phenomena that precede labeling. In bringing together philosophical, empirical, and phenomenological perspectives, our paper expands the scope of Jaggar’s concept while challenging teleological accounts of emotion and highlighting the ambiguous, disruptive, and generative potential of outlaw feelings.
This paper presents a novel approach to a formal theory of validity compatible with an inferentialist theory of meaning based on an expressivist conception of logical vocabulary. The formal theory of validity is obtained by adapting Tennant’s requirement for natural deduction, that the major premise of an elimination rule must be an assumption, to the naturalised sequent calculus framework proposed by Hlobil. The result is an inconsistent theory of validity which rejects transitivity not only for object-theoretic but also meta-theoretic reasoning.
This article analyzes the use of analogical devices – such as metaphors, comparisons, and argumentation by analogy—in four contemporary French eloquence contests: Concours Lysias, Prix Mirabeau, Fleurs d’éloquence, and Les Libres-parleurs de Montreuil. It argues that the type and frequency of these rhetorical tools reflect the underlying conceptions of “eloquent speech” promoted by each contest’s institutional and educational context. For instance, legal pleadings in Lysias rely heavily on precedent and a contrario arguments, while Fleurs d’éloquence emphasizes aesthetic and didactic uses of metaphor. In contrast, Montreuil’s speeches focus on expressive, narrative-driven analogies, and Mirabeau’s contestants often adopt a playful, ironic tone. The study concludes that analogy serves as a key indicator of how each contest balances logos, pathos, authenticity, and performance, revealing how eloquence competitions recontextualize and renegotiate social discourses in contemporary France.
In recent years, religious naturalism has emerged as a philosophical-spiritual movement that seeks to synthesize the seemingly incompatible poles of naturalism and religion. Rejecting any appeal to supernatural entities, religious naturalism nevertheless affirms the human need for meaning and spiritual fulfillment within a thoroughly naturalistic framework. This paper explores whether religious naturalists can indeed “have their cake and eat it too”, in other words, whether they can maintain its naturalistic principles while providing a meaningful form of religiosity. Drawing on the work of key figures such as Jerome A. Stone, Ursula Goodenough, and Donald Crosby, the paper examines how religious naturalism redefines religious concepts such as the sacred in naturalistic terms. Ultimately, this inquiry considers whether religious naturalism is a coherent and viable option in the contemporary landscape of the philosophy of religion.
I compare the logical expressivism of Hlobil and Brandom with the inferential expressivism of Incurvati and Schlöder with an emphasis on their respective analyses of negation. I conclude that these differences do not run very deep. For negation specifically, Incurvati and Schlöder, but not Hlobil and Brandom, appeal to a primitive expression for rejection in the object language. However, I note that both ultimately admit primitive rejection and, thus, that this difference is merely one of abstraction. Nevertheless, I suggest that it would be useful for Hlobil and Brandom to follow Incurvati and Schlöder’s lead on rejection in the object language. Conversely, it would be useful for Incurvati and Schlöder to adopt the overall meta-semantic strategy of Hlobil and Brandom. I sketch a synthesis that combines the best features of either approach.
Given that Mystical Atheism appears at first glance as a contradiction in terms, this paper will address the question as to how to explain this paradoxical juxtaposition. I argue that this juxtaposition of mysticism and atheism involves a deeper logic, which we find in three key philosophers in Mystical Atheism: Spinoza, Schelling, and Laozi. I choose these three also because they are entangled in a significant event in the history of philosophy which echoes this paradox, namely the pantheism dispute in Germany, where any association with Spinoza meant tarnishing one’s name with the suspicion of atheism. But how might pantheism, where everything is meant to be about God or the divine, be seen as atheism in which nothing is? This paper will explore this logic of all and nothing with each of these three philosophers, as they also relate together in this history, to better understand the meaning of Mystical Atheism.
We need a concept for the neglected practice of overcoming gratitude in ambiguous situations where it has bad effects, despite being appropriate. This concept can be found in the philosophy and psychology of forgiveness. Several cases illustrate how gratitude may be bad, mixed with a feeling of dependence, and how overcoming it may be important. There are also reasons for thinking that gratitude can be excessive without being inappropriate. If this is accurate, the question arises as to whether anything can be done about it without abandoning appropriate gratitude; whether there is some practice that allows us to overcome troubled gratitude while remaining grateful as we should be, but without the bad effects. We refer to this as ‘forgiving’ benefits, drawing attention to the analogy with another technique of indirect action on oneself and others, and distinguishing it from renouncing gratitude. We apply a process account tailored to the forgiveness of wrongs to the ‘forgiveness’ of benefits, answer possible objections and take a normative stance on the significance of that nameless practice.
Despite great performance on many tasks, language models (LMs) still struggle with reasoning, sometimes providing responses that cannot possibly be true because they stem from logical incoherence. Extending on the arguments of Asher and Bhar (2024), we show that logical incoherencies follow from an LLM’s computation of its internal representations, in particular from an LLM’s failure to take account of the different roles that different expressions may play in determining content. Linguistics and logicians have shown the importance of the fact that logical operators provide a structure on which to compute content recursively. We extend this view of logical tokens to structure at the discursive level with an eye to improving pragmatic reasoning as well as deductive reasoning. The key in reasoning is that these structures introduce operations over an LM’s latent representations that constrain how they may evolve. We show how LLMs can leverage those structures.
This article deals with what is traditionally called “legal analogy”. Despite being one of the classic topics of general jurisprudence, our understanding of this type of argument remains quite limited. Indeed, there are at least three central questions that are still far from receiving an uniform answer: What is the structure of legal analogy? What are its rules of use? And, finally, what is its force? Over the past fifteen years, several authors have proposed a new kind of reductionist explication, according to which the structure, rules of use, and force of legal analogy are reducible—either wholly or partially—to those of another argumentative scheme: balancing. Among this group of authors, it is Bartosz Brożek who has developed the most detailed version of this type of reductionist explanation, which he himself has named the “Partial Reductibility Thesis”. My aim here is precisely to rebut this thesis.
Self-narration is a common practice of meaning-making that helps us configure experiences in our personal past and imagine our personal futures. It is widely assumed that it can be conducive to self-knowledge, self-understanding, and social recognition. Over the last decades, philosophical research has made substantial process in understanding the characteristics, dynamics, and purposes of self-narration. However, some important aspects of this practice have remained understudied. These aspects include the various socio-culturally shaped forms and norms of self-narration, as well as the epistemic, affective, moral, social, and cultural possibilities and limitations of self-narration. This thematic collection showcases original research that systematically investigates the benefits and harms of various forms of self-narration from philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives. In this editorial, I briefly summarise the epistemic aims of this collection of Topoi titled “Possibilities and Limitations of Self-Narration,” describe how it contributes to the diversification of scholarship on self-narration, and provide a thematically organised overview of the contributions.
