This paper addresses the topic of the expressive qualities of inanimate objects. More specifically, it examines how qualities referring to psychological states, such as cheerfulness, melancholy, liveliness, and sadness, can be attributed to non-sentient things. After presenting some of the main theoretical approaches to this issue in contemporary debates-including projective, arousal, persona, and contour theories-I argue that these approaches struggle to explain how the same expressive qualities can be ascribed to diverse things, such as an atmosphere, a piece of music, a personal feeling, or a bodily expression. As a way out of this issue, I focus on the irreducibility of expressive qualities to other kinds of qualities, presenting them as global qualities of gestalts. Although grounded in things themselves, expressive qualities cannot be reduced to primary (measurable) or secondary (sensory) qualities (Locke, 1690). This allows expressive qualities to be shared by diverse entities, such as landscapes, pieces of music, and psychological states.
The usual considerations about high-level properties perception focus on contents of perceptual experiences. While different types of high-level properties are considered, such as category-related, causal, emotional, and aesthetic, they are all interpreted as elements of experiential content. This paper introduces a new category of perceptual properties-structural phenomenal properties-by utilizing the important distinction between experiential contents and experiential structures. It is argued that while these are not content-properties, some of them have characteristics typical of high-level content properties. In particular, three structural phenomenal properties related to the visual field will be considered: the boundedness of the visual field, its feature-filled character, and its oriented character. It is argued that, similarly to typical high-level properties, their experiential presence does not consist in the presence of an arrangement of low-level properties, but they do supervene on some low-level properties.
Fred Dretske made important contributions to the debate concerning how to distinguish perception from cognition, to the question of whether perceptual content is 'Rich' or 'Sparse' and to developing the thesis that perceptual experience employs a distinctively iconic format of representation. In Dretske (2015) he offered a method or criterion for determining whether or not two subjects have visual experiences with different phenomenal characters, which he dubbed the 'Goldilocks Test'. In this paper I criticize Dretske's proposal, drawing on various visual phenomena in order to argue that this 'Goldilocks Test' is not fit for purpose and that it cannot help us to arbitrate the debate between 'Rich' and 'Sparse' theories of perceptual content.
I discuss Timothy Williamson's approach to philosophical methodology in Overfitting and Heuristics in Philosophy, and its consequences for theories of belief, content, and what is said. I'll argue that a medium-grained approach to these issues, situated in-between classical intensionalism and impossible worlds hyperintensionalism, is worth taking seriously.
A history is a complete possible temporal evolution of the universe. There are two main conceptions of histories: Lewis's divergence, in which distinct histories are all disjoint, and the standard branching time (BT) conception, in which histories overlap and branch towards the future ('open future'). As Greg Restall noted, if a realist conception of histories is adopted, considerations of ontological parsimony favor the standard BT conception over Lewis's divergence. In this note, I observe that perfectly analogous considerations can be raised against the standard BT conception and in favor of a non-standard, 'open past' BT conception, in which histories are allowed to branch both towards the future and the past.
In this paper, first of all, I want to give a criterion for the perceivability of higherlevel properties, i.e., the properties that depend for their own instantiation on the instantiation of low-level properties (colors, shapes, sounds, textures ...); namely, conditions that are necessary and jointly sufficient in order for such a property to be perceivable. Here it is: the higher-level property is given i) immediately; ii) via a grouping operation that involves a perceptual form of attention Moreover, I want to show why some candidate higher-level properties fulfill it and some other such candidates don't (they are only pseudo-perceivable).
In the debate about the reach of perceptual content, some philosophers have appealed to empirical effects as a test for the existence of high-level perception (HLP). Among these effects, perceptual adaptation and perceptual learning have played a major role. In this paper, I will discuss two skeptical challenges to relying on these effects as tests for HLP. The first challenge interrogates their nature as a perceptual process. The second challenge raises doubts regarding their usefulness in specifying the target high-level property.
Timothy Williamson has defended two hypotheses concerning counterfactual conditionals: that necessity can be defined in counterfactual terms; and that we follow a heuristic to the effect that a counterfactual is assessed by assessing the consequent while counterfactually supposing the antecedent. The two hypotheses form the bedrock for a program aiming to reduce the epistemology of modality to the epistemology of counterfactual thinking. This paper argues that the pair of theses, if construed as Williamson intends it, has the unwanted consequence of trivializing our judgements about necessity and possibility, thus threatening the reductionist program. Trivialization can be avoided if we suitably weaken a background hypothesis concerning the way we assess pairs of mutually inconsistent statements. One important corollary of the proposed solution is that the suppositional heuristic need not yield incorrect judgements about counterpossibles, pace Williamson. Moreover, the proposal remains compatible with vacuism, the view that all counterpossibles are true.
In Greece, the problem of responsibility for choices was originally discussed by poets and legislators. Philosophical analysis developed in relation to these reflections, and Plato wanted to undermine the authority of poets with a new approach, inspired by Socrates. Aristotle tackled the question starting from Plato's position. His approach was not limited to the question of the responsibility of those who perform evil actions, but extends to a general evaluation of the entire sphere of human actions. The problem of responsibility in Aristotle is discussed on the basis of a precise ontology of events, and falls within the field of moral psychology and physics. Alexander of Aphrodisias even came to support the thesis that in two identical situations we always have the possibility of choosing one action or its opposite. This is based on the very complex Aristotelian idea of causation as a one-way dependence relationship, which does not always imply necessity.
For Kant transcendental freedom consists in the power of agents to produce actions without being causally determined by antecedent conditions in exercising this power. He contends that we cannot establish whether we are actually or even possibly free in this sense. Kant claims only that our conception of ourselves as transcendentally free involves no inconsistency, and that as a result the belief that we are free in this sense meets a relevant standard of minimal credibility. Justification of this belief ultimately depends on practical reasons: the need to believe that we are subject to moral obligation and that we are morally responsible. I argue that the belief that we are transcendentally free does satisfy an appropriate standard of minimal credibility, but that the practical reasons Kant adduces for it should be controversial.
The paper addresses the question of whether the representability of high-level properties in the content of perceptual experience is compatible with a purely sensory characterization of high-level perceptual phenomenology. Two positions are distinguished, sensory liberalism and cognitive liberalism, which respectively provide an affirmative and a negative answer to the above question. After presenting the "conceptualist argument" against sensory liberalism and the main challenges that it raises, the paper proceeds to show how sensory liberalism can be defended and why it should be preferred to its main competitor within the liberal camp.
Smith's Film, Art and the Third Culture is dedicated to developing a naturalized aesthetics of film, and at the heart of his proposal for a methodological "triangulation" is the principle that our research should take serious account of three levels of analysis, each with its respective type of evidence: the phenomenological level, the psychological level, and the neurophysiological level. While Smith addresses many aspects of our perceptual, emotional, and cognitive engagement with movies within this framework, he rarely discusses what underlies our visual engagement with films: the fact that they are depictions, i.e. (moving) pictorial representations. In this paper, I aim to fill this gap by discussing the notions of depiction and pictorial experience within Smith's methodological framework. In the first part, I analyse the relationship between empirical research in experimental psychology and neurocognitive sciences and the philosophy of pictures through the lens of triangulation, showing there are good empirical reasons to hold Wollheim's seeing-in theory of pictorial experience. In the second part, I emphasise that pictures are cultural products grounded in authorial intentions, conventions, and norms, and I propose a way in which a naturalized account could shed light on the relationship between a subset of these norms-what Wollheim termed "the standard of correctness"-and pictorial experience.
In this paper, we provide a novel definition of moralism as a failure in moral judgment, and we seek to identify its two main sources (relational and substantive). After defining moralism, we spell out a taxonomy of different kinds of moralism, the opposite-yet equally defective-moral failures, and the corresponding correct attitudes. Then, we examine how some proximate notions (judgmentalism, moral fury, hypocrisy, paternalism, puritanism, moral grandstanding) may have parallels with or differ from one or more of the four kinds of moralism identified. Finally, we argue that for there to be moralism, we must presuppose some features inherent in moral judgment which moralism perturbs in terms of its exercise and legitimate area of competence.
Na & iuml;ve Realism has become increasingly popular as a theory about veridical perceptions. At the heart of this view is the idea that conscious perceptions are relational events, in which mind-independent aspects of the environment are actual constituents of the experience. Despite its growing popularity, several aspects of the na & iuml;ve realist proposal regarding the nature of veridical perception and its phenomenal character remain unclear. Na & iuml;ve Realists sometimes disagree on some of their central claims or have yet to fully articulate their commitments on key aspects of the view. In this paper, I aim to contribute to identifying the most representative version of Na & iuml;ve Realism, which may serve as a point of reference for future discussions: Standard Na & iuml;ve Realism. To this end, I consider how leading proponents of Na & iuml;ve Realism typically frame their view on crucial issues, such as the scope of the na & iuml;ve realist claims regarding visual consciousness, and the idea that the phenomenal character of veridical perceptions is determined by aspects of the mind-independent environment. I conclude by addressing a challenge to the version of Na & iuml;ve Realism discussed in the paper.
This paper explores the epistemic implications of endorsing a specific category of conspiracy theories, which I term "toxic conspiracy theories" (following Basham, 2018). I contend that these theories exert a profound and distinctive impact on our belief system, not only shaping perspectives on the specific events they are purported to explain, but also influencing our broader understanding of sociopolitical reality. I delineate a surprising result of this doxastically encompassing nature of toxic conspiracy theories: if some toxic conspiracy theory is true, then a belief in a false one can be remarkably illuminating. Consequently, adherents of toxic conspiracy theories may, contrary to prevailing opinion, possess a more astute grasp of sociopolitical realities than their counterparts who eschew such conspiratorial narratives. I then move on to address an objection suggesting that toxic conspiracy theories are so overwhelmingly unlikely to render the central argument a mere academic exercise. In response I draw on various 'particularist' arguments to the contrary and further argue that the unlikelihood of toxic conspiracy theories cannot be determined without engagement with some foundational questions regarding the nature and integrity of our democratic institutions.
Fictional characters may raise serious troubles about their identity even within one and the same story. Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, for instance, depicts a world pretty much like ours, in which there seems to be no indeterminate identity, yet leaves it open whether the Shade character is the same as the Kinbote character. On the contrary, in Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, there seems to be two characters, Kumiko and the Woman in the hotel room, that are indeterminately identical. Worse still, there are also cases of inconsistent identity: in Allais' short story Un drame bien parisien, it is both the case that Raoul is the same as the Templar and that Raoul and the Templar are distinct. In this paper, such problematic cases, along with the classical story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, shall be analyzed from a minority metaphysical perspective, according to which fictional characters are nothing but pluralities of fictional depiction tokens.
This paper explores the structural parallels between Gettier's challenge to the justified true belief account of knowledge and Chisholm's problem of wayward causal chains in action theory. Despite their distinct domains, both issues highlight the necessity of an adequate connection between explanation, justification, and outcome. Based on this analysis, this paper argues that the distinction between theoretical and practical rationality is less rigid than traditionally assumed. The paper further contends that, while a solution to the issue of wayward causal chains can at least be hypothesized, previous analyses have primarily focused on a causal model where causality does not ensure intentionality when a desire and a belief fail to produce an action in the right way. However, when considering an alternative theory of intention, wayward causal chains no longer appear to pose a fundamental challenge to the causal theory. Therefore, Bratman's Planning Theory is proposed as a potential solution, offering an alternative account of intention.
The ability to socialize in early life depends on developing commonalities with others. But what exactly constitutes the "sense of us" or the "we-perspective"? The interaction theory (IT) offers an attractive alternative to mindreading theories, such as theory-theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST), by presenting a further development of enactivism. During embodied interactions, individuals "directly" and "smartly" perceive the mental states of others. Despite the intuitive appeal of direct acquaintance with others' mental states, IT relies on crude metaphors. We aim to retain IT's core intuition-the embodied, embedded, enactive, and affective interaction-within a new framework. First, we introduce Piccinini's key notion of situated neural representations, which fills the gaps that IT leaves behind. Second, we adopt Nicolelis's concept of "brainets". When one animal observes another's behavior, their brains synchronize by simulating the same means to achieve similar goals. We then interpret brainets as situated neural representations: embodied, embedded, enactive, and affective.
McGee notably provided a putative counterexample to Modus Ponens. McGee's puzzle is based on a scenario involving three candidates running for president in the 1980 United States elections. We will present a slightly modified version of McGee's election scenario, in which the probability of one of the candidates (i.e., Ronald Reagan) winning is reduced to a conveniently low value. As we will see, two ways out of the puzzle, suggested by Fulda and Paoli respectively, do not survive this minor change in the scenario. In addition, we will point to the fact that our modified election scenario also gives rise to a lottery-style paradox.
Wittgenstein famously asked: What is left when we subtract the fact that my arm rises from the fact that I raise it? Any adequate theory of action must clarify the difference between actions of this kind and mere bodily movements. Plausible answers since the 1950s have been broadly causal. The readiest answer-that causation by an intention is the missing element-is oversimple. Intentionality, however, may be crucial even if intentions alone cannot provide an answer. Elizabeth Anscombe apparently favored reasons for acting; but reasons in the abstract, say as true propositions, are not events and can rationalize actions without explaining them. Cognitive-motivational accounts of action apparently can answer Wittgenstein's question. These appeal to beliefs as paradigms of the cognitive and desires as paradigms of the conative. Beliefs, desires, and intentions, however, are dispositional elements and explain actions only with the presupposition of related events that play a triggering role in eliciting manifestations of those dispositions. Must these triggers be volitions? Can triggers be cues, or might they be other kinds of ordinary events that action theory should countenance? This paper pursues these questions and outlines the role of both intentional attitudes and related events in explaining intentional actions.
