‘Relativizer’ relationalism posits temporary properties as relations that obtain between the object that instantiates them and the times at which they are instantiated. A tomato, for example, that ripens from green to orange over the course of a working week bears the greenness relation to Monday, and the orangeness relation to Friday. David Lewis (Lewis, David. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds . Oxford: Blackwell and Lewis, David. 1988. “Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe.” Analysis 48: 65–72) takes ‘relativizer’ relationalism to imply that all temporary properties are extrinsic, given that the times through which an object persists are distinct from and external to such objects. If Monday and Friday are independent of our ripening tomato, its colour properties do not come down solely to the way that the tomato is, given that they are at least partially dependent upon these times. A great deal of work has been done in the name of defending relationalism. Many of these responses involve a modification of the ‘relativizer’ view, developing more sophisticated relationalist accounts. This paper will clarify, motivate and defend naïve ‘relativizer’ relationalism. I begin this task with an examination of the view and Lewis’ critique of it within an explicitly relativistic framework. I argue that vestigial Newtonian background assumptions of ‘absolute’ space and time lend force to the problem, and, concomitantly, put relationalism at an unfair disadvantage. If temporary properties are cast as relations that obtain between objects and ‘absolute’ times, then it seems dubious that these properties are intrinsic. However, if we understand these properties to be relations that an object bears to the spacetime region it occupies, a natural solution presents itself. I suggest that ‘relativizer’ relationalists endorse the identity view of supersubstantivalism, which identifies an object with the spacetime region it occupies. This allows these relationalists to recast temporary intrinsics as reflexive relations. Drawing on Rosen’s, (Rosen, Gideon. 2010. “Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.” In Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology , edited by B. Hale, and A. Hoffmann, 109–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press and Francescotti’s (Francescotti, Robert. 1999. “How to Define Intrinsic Properties.” Noûs 33 (4): 590–609) and Francescotti, Robert. 2014. “Intrinsic/Extrinsic: A Relational Account Defended.” In Companion to Intrinsic Properties , 175–98. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter) work on intrinsics, I present the case for thinking that these special relations count as bona fide intrinsic properties.
Abstract The current discourse on moral epistemology (ME), has hardly paid any attention to the question concerning the demarcation of the domain of ME within epistemology. Neither is the subject matter of ME considered unique, nor is the methodology adopted in its investigations considered distinct. We attempt to show in this paper that this omission does not restrict itself to a mere taxonomical oversight but rather leads to certain deeper conceptual concerns. We argue that a casual and porous understanding of the subject matter of ME is the result of conflating moral beliefs and justification with non-moral beliefs and justification. If ME doesn't merit a clear demarcation within epistemology, then the very legitimacy of ME is brought under a cloud, thereby threatening the distinction between ethics and epistemology. We believe G. E Moore foresaw this predicament and our interpretation of his work could offer a possible solution.
Abstract Hornsby and Langton (H&L), put forward the idea of silencing as an "illocutionary disablement". Appealing to Austin's speech act theory, they situate silencing as opposite to speech act and argue that when there is silencing, people's illocutionary act fails and their right to free speech is violated. This paper presents a defence of H&L's account of silencing, against objections raised by Ishani Maitra (2009). Maitra questions the model of illocutionary silencing by arguing that Austin's illocutionary model is inaccurate and vague hence, not useful for the discussions of silencing. In response, I argue that Maitra's understanding of the perlocutionary act is misguided and requires a critical examination. Maitra discusses the notion of the perlocutionary act as the goals that the speaker achieves by securing the uptake. I oppose such a view by arguing that securing the uptake does not ensure the performance of a perlocutionary act
Abstract Our private perception of listening to an individualized playlist during a jog is very different from the interaction we might experience at a live concert. We do realize that music is not necessarily a performing art, such as dancing or theater, while our demands regarding musical performances are conflicting: We expect perfect sound quality and the thrill of the immediate. We want the artist to overwhelm us with her virtuosity and we want her to struggle, just like a human. We want to engage with the musical expression and rely on visual and physical cues. Considering that the ears of today's listeners are used to technologically mediated music, in this paper I explore the unique qualities of musical live performances and examine if our conception allows for new mechatronic inventions, in particular robotic musicians, to participate in this art form. Some of Godlovitch's main thoughts expounded in his work on "musical performance" [11] serve as a reference and starting point for this investigation. His concept of `personalism', which deprives computer-/program-based musical performances from expressive potential and creative accomplishment is an issue that I want to challenge by pointing out new approaches arising from a reective discourse on technology, embodiment and expression. The enquiry conducted illustrates, how in reasoning about machine performers and algorithmic realization of music, we also examine the perceptual, physical and social aspects of human musicianship, reconceptualizing our understanding of a musical live performance.
This paper focuses on Jessica Wilson’s determinable-based account of metaphysical indeterminacy and its relationship to the concept of vague identity. The determinable-based account comprises a distinction between meta-level and object-level accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy. I first argue that the distinction cannot be clearly applied to some theories. In particular, I argue that even though Wilson categorizes the constitution account of metaphysical indeterminacy as a meta-level account, from one perspective it can be defensibly regarded as an object-level account, because it is bound to posit genuinely indeterminate states of affairs and provides an explanation of boundary indeterminacy that is structurally analogous to the explanation provided by Wilson’s object-level account. This interim conclusion is important, because it has been argued that the constitution account, when applied to some more complex types of boundary indeterminacy, cannot avoid commitment to vague identity, in spite of the declarations of some of its proponents. The ultimate goal of this paper is to argue that, contrary to Wilson’s claims, the determinable-based account must embrace vague identity too.
Abstract Naturgesetze spielen eine zentrale Rolle in der Wissenschaftstheorie. Traditionell fokussierten Wissenschaftstheoretiker auf (Fundamental-)Gesetze der Physik, die man als zumindest wahre, universell gültige und kontrafaktische Konditionale stützende Aussagen ansah. Wiewohl diese Behauptung üuber Gesetze für den Bereich der Physik wohl zutre_en mag, scheinen doch die Gesetze in den Spezialwissenschaften andere Charakteristika aufzuweisen. Von ihnen wird behauptet, sie hätten Ausnahmen, seien also Ceteris-Paribus-Gesetze. Den Ausführungen von Peter Lipton in seinem Artikel "All Else Being Equal" folgend wird eine zweiteilige Forschungsfrage er örtert: Existieren genuine Ceteris-Paribus-Gesetze und, wenn ja, was ist darunter genau zu verstehen? Der Beitrag dieser Arbeit liegt insofern in einer kritischen Würdigung von Liptons Vorschlag als auch in seiner anschließenden Einordnung begrüundet
Abstract Few philosophers today embrace quantitative hedonism, which states that a person's well-being depends only on the amount of her experienced happiness and suffering. Despite recent attempts to rehabilitate it, most philosophers still consider it untenable. The most influential arguments levelled against it by Mill, Moore, Nozick and Kagan purport to demonstrate that well-being must depend on more than only the amount of experienced happiness and suffering. I argue in this paper that quantitative hedonism can rebut these arguments by pointing out a shared systematic aw in their argumentative structure. In particular, I argue that they are based on thought experiments that invoke either structurally unreliable intuitions or intuitions that are not in tension to the tenets of quantitative hedonism. While this does not rehabilitate the theory by itself, it shows that the classical arguments against quantitative hedonism provide less evidence against it than commonly thought and certainly do not conclusively prove it wrong
Abstract Given the lack of generally accepted moral standards, one of the controversial questions for those who investigate moral heuristics is whether we can argue that moral heuristics can lead to mistaken moral judgments. This paper suggests that, even if we agree that moral standards are different and chosen subjectively, deviations from them are possible and we can prove such deviations in a logically correct way. However, in this case, it must be admitted that not every deviation is a mistake. Deviation becomes a mistake only when a person departs from the standard which she or he considers as right. There are cases where it is impossible to establish the fact of a mistake: when a person chooses a moral standard post hoc, in the light of which the decision would be right (only when there is a deviation from all moral standards which a person considers as right, it is possible to recognize the decision as mistaken). Accepting the idea of the subjectivity of a moral standard, it is also necessary to accept the idea of relativity of moral heuristics: the normative standard chosen by a person also determines which method of moral decision making will be considered as a heuristic.
Abstract When it comes to disagreements about religious, moral or political questions, many people consider a tolerant `live-and-let-live' attitude to be the best reaction toward conflicting opinions. However, many epistemologists are rather skeptical about the epistemic acceptability of such a tolerant attitude. More specifically, the worry is that a tolerant reaction toward recognized disagreement is necessarily epistemically irrational. After setting out this worry in a little more detail, I will present and discuss three different arguments for the epistemic irrationality of a tolerant attitude toward disagreement. I will argue that while all these arguments ultimately fail, they still reveal some substantial limitations to the epistemic adequacy of intellectual tolerance.
Abstract There seem to be things we ought not to believe and others we are permitted to believe. Belief is treated as a normative phenomenon both in everyday and academic discourse. At the same time, normativity can be seen as a threat to a naturalistic understanding of the world. Whilst naturalistic claims are of descriptive nature, norms are prescriptive. It is usually held that they cannot be reduced to statements of fact. This problem is also pertinent to the normativity of belief. How is such a phenomenon to be understood within a naturalist framework? Sullivan-Bissett provides a naturalistic account of epistemic normativity in which she explains epistemic normativity in terms of biological functions of belief-producing mechanisms. Importantly, her account is error-theoretic: She argues that we mistake doxastic strategies, which are at best normative in a hypothetical sense, to be categorical epistemic norms. In continuation of Sullivan-Bissett's account, I draw attention to one of the belief-producing mechanisms which is responsible for bringing about these mistaken beliefs. I claim that normative conformity { a social-learning mechanisms { brings about our beliefs in the existence and categorical validity of epistemic norms. Keeping with the evolutionary perspective employed by Sullivan- Bissett, I answer questions about the function and phylogeny of our mistaken beliefs in epistemic normativity by means of normative conformity and in line with Sullivan-Bissett's account.
Abstract In this paper, I argue that Steadfast Views of peer disagreement - a family of views according to which standing firm in the face of peer disagreement can be rationally permissible are incoherent. First, I articulate two constraints that any Steadfast Views of disagreement should endorse: (i) Steadfastness's Core (ii) The Deference Principle. I show that (i) and (ii) are inconsistent: they cannot both be true. My argument, briefly put, is that one cannot rationally treat one's peer's opinion as unconditionally relevant to a hypothesis, H, but conditional on the supposition of a disagreement, irrelevant to H. Because Steadfast Views endorse a set of mutually inconsistent propositions, I conclude that Steadfast Views are incoherent
Among fundamental metaphysical quests, one might wonder: Why is there anything at all rather than just nothing? Many reject that question because they think it is meaningless, trivial, or necessarily unanswerable. But I provide reasons for thinking that the Why question could make sense and one might even expect an answer to it. I begin by asking why the world is not empty of all concrete things. One might regard this question as important if one accepts that it is, in some sense, possible for all concrete things to vanish, one-by-one. I argue finally that possible replies to the Why question concerning concrete things might point to realities that are abstract instead of concrete. Abstract realities might be explanatorily powerful without their power being guaranteed by Logic.
Abstract This essay examines a new way to exercise democratic control over the market. Instead of a democratic government interfering with a market's outcomes (e.g. via taxes or minimum wages), we may also "democratize" the market by requiring that all relevant group agents who participate in that market (notably: firms) be democratically governed. This is what I call an agent-democratic market. The purpose of this essay is to argue for the claim that agent-democratic markets are a normatively viable way to democratize the market - and potentially constitute a genuine alternative to the standard approach of subjecting market outcomes to democratic control
Abstract Philosophers often invite their readers to categorize imaginary objects. These objects are not only hypothetical: many of them cannot exist because of physical or technological reasons. They are unprecedented or unheard-of objects. By categorizing imaginary objects, philosophers expect to gain knowledge about our concepts. In this paper, I challenge this general assumption: not every conceivable object can be described in terms of our existing categories. Although prominent philosophers held similar views in the past, they made no effort to provide a satisfactory explanation for such impossibility. The argument that I will develop in the following pages rests mainly on three philosophical assumptions: a) that concepts whose content philosophers attempt to describe denote "monothetic classes"; b) that concept formation depends largely on "ecological salience" (a notion developed in the field of ethnobiology); c) that in any monothetic class, we can draw a proper distinction between definitional and correlated properties.
The aim of my paper is to compare three alternative formal reconstructions of van Inwagen’s famous argument for incompatibilism. In the first part of my paper, I examine van Inwagen’s own reconstruction within a propositional modal logic. I point out that, due to the expressive limitations of his propositional modal logic, van Inwagen is unable to argue directly (that is, within his formal framework) for incompatibilism. In the second part of my paper, I suggest to reconstruct van Inwagen’s argument within a first-order predicate logic. I show, however, that even though this reconstruction is not susceptible to the same objection, this reconstruction can be shown to be inconsistent (given van Inwagen’s own assumptions). At the end of my paper, I suggest to reconstruct van Inwagen’s argument within a quantified counterfactual logic with propositional quantifiers. I show that within this formal framework van Inwagen would not only be able to argue directly for incompatibilism, he would also be able to argue for crucial assumptions of his argument.
This article proposes a “third way” in the philosophy of time beyond A-theory and the block universe, in which time is understood as a purely local phenomenon. It does so by starting with simple metaphysical assumptions about substances and their properties. Based on these assumptions, the notions of “before”, of change, and of time as a local quantification of change can be derived non-circularly, i.e. without invoking temporal concepts. I then proceed to prove the irreversibility of local time by showing that the propositional content of the local past cannot be changed, since this would imply a contradiction, whereas that of the future can. Time’s familiar asymmetric character, in particular the difference between the fixed past and the open or “branching” future, is therefore a non-illusory but purely local phenomenon. Such a model requires no past-present-future distinction valid for the entire cosmos, and is therefore consistent with special and general relativity. The article furthermore explores the implications of this model for the notion of an evolving universe.
Abstract This article will address the views of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz - the leading representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School. I will present arguments proving that the Polish philosopher could have anticipated contemporary metaontological discussions. In the first part, I will provide a profile of Ajdukiewicz as a representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School. I will outline the assumptions of his metaepistemological projects: radical conventionalism and semantic epistemology. In the second part, I will argue that the former project resulted in views on existence similar to Hilary Putnam's and Eli Hirsch's, whereas the outcomes of the other project are views similar to those of Amie Thomasson and her easy ontology project.
Abstract This paper aims to provide a unifying approach to the analysis of understanding coherencies (interrogative understanding, e.g. understanding why something is the case) and understanding subject matters (objectual understanding) by highlighting the contextualist nature of understanding. Inspired by the relevant alternatives contextualism about knowledge, I will argue that understanding (in the above mentioned sense) inherently has context-sensitive features and that a theory of understanding that highlights those features can incorporate our intuitions towards understanding as well as consolidate the different accounts of how to analyse understanding. In developing a contextualist account of understanding, I will argue that an account of the features commonly taken to be central to understanding greatly benefits from a contextualist framework. Central to my analysis will be the claim that a person has to fulfill the function of a competent problem solver in order to qualify for the ascription of understanding. In addition to the theoretical elucidation of my contextualist approach to understanding, a demanding hypothetical scenario will be developed to function as a test case.
Abstract Time travel, it has been argued, leads to paradoxes, and in particular to a problem known as the grandfather paradox. Lewis has famously argued for the now standard view that the grandfather paradox is merely apparent. But underlying Lewis's solution is a faulty account of ability statements - one, according to which ability statements express possibility statements. I argue, contrary to Vihvelin and others, that an ameliorated view of ability statements allows for the same treatment of the seeming paradox. Hence, Lewis's take on the grandfather paradox stands despite the failure of the particular view of ability statements it is built upon.
Abstract We argue that Kraay's "theistic multiverse" response to the objections to theism [11] is unsuccessful as it simply shifts the problems leveled against theism from the level of possible worlds to the level of possible universes. Furthermore, when we restate the objections at the level of possible universes, we can show how Kraay's conclusion about the uniqueness of the theistic multiverse is undermined.
