bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kant on the Spontaneity of Mind
Authors: Pippin Robert B.
Published: June 2016

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant refers often and with no apparent hesitation or sense of ambiguity to the mind (das Gemüt). He does so not only in his justly famous destruction of rationalist proofs of immaterialism, but throughout his own, positive, ‘transcendental’ account in the Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic. In the first edition of the Critique, he even proposed what he adventurously called a ‘transcendental psychology’ and, although this strange discipline seemed to disappear in the second edition, he left in that edition all his frequent references to forms ‘lying in the mind,’ and to the mind, or the self, or the subject of experience, or the ego, doing this or that. Curiously, though, despite an extensive secondary literature, there is in that literature relatively little discussion of what these expressions, in a proper, strictly Kantian sense, are supposed to refer to. There are two imaginative, extremely suggestive articles by Sellars, some hints at connections with eighteenth century psychology offered by Weldon, a tenebrous book by Heidemann, and some recent attention to the general issue of ‘Kant's theory of mind’ by Ameriks and Kitcher.
Deterrence and Criminal Attempts
Authors: Schmidtz David
Published: June 2016

It is widely held that the proper role of criminal punishment is to ensure in a cost-efficient manner that criminal laws will be obeyed. As James Buchanan puts it,

the reason we have courts is not that we want people to be convicted of crimes but that we want people not to commit them. The whole procedure of the law is one, essentially, of threatening people with unpleasant consequences if they do things which are regarded as objectionable.

According to the deterrence theory of punishment, which I will here accept without argument in order to tease out some of its implications, legislators must be aware of opportunities to maximize the threat value of criminal prohibitions. By maximizing deterrence, we minimize the cost of crime. On the other hand, creating these threats, and carrying them out, is also costly. So we also wish to minimize the cost of avoiding crime. An efficient deterrent, therefore, will be one which minimizes the sum of the costs of crime and crime avoidance, where ‘cost’ is to be broadly construed.
Hierarchical Approaches to Genome Evolution
Authors: Doolittle W. Ford
Published: June 2016

In fact, nearly every scientist who has written on the general subject of evolution has felt compelled to show how deftly he can skate toward the abyss of teleology without falling in.

J.H. Campbell (1985), 163

Molecular biology has as its primary objective the elucidation of the coupling between genotype and phenotype. This goal has so far been pursued within a neoDarwinian theoretical framework which is relatively limited. Within this framework we can indeed understand remarkably well the mechanisms of replication and expression of genes and the means by which replication and expression are regulated in cells; we know how genotype determines phenotype at the molecular level, in single cells. We are also close to an understanding of the relationship between genes and development in muticellular animals and plants.
Is the Theory of Natural Selection a Statistical Theory?
Authors: Rosenberg Alexander
Published: June 2016

In The Structure of Biological Science (Rosenberg [1985]) I argued that the theory of natural selection is a statistical theory for reasons much like those which makes thermodynamics a statistical theory. In particular, the theory claims that fitness differences are large enough and the life span of species long enough for increases in average fitness always to appear in the long run; and this claim, I held, is of the same form as the statistical version of the second law of thermodynamics.

For the latter law also makes a claim about the long run, and its statistical character is due to this claim: thermodynamic systems must in the long run approach an equilibrium level of organization that maximizes entropy. Over finite times, given local boundary conditions, an isolated mechanical system, like the molecules in a container of gas, may sometimes interact so as to move the entropy of the system further from, instead of closer to the equilbrium level. But given enough interacting bodies, and enough time, the system will always eventually move in the direction prescribed by the law. Thus, we can attach much higher probabilities to the prediction that non-equilibrium systems will reflect greater entropy in future periods than we can to predictions that they will move in the opposite direction. And as we increase the amount of time and the number of bodies interacting, the strength of the probability we can attach to the prediction becomes greater and greater.
The Moral Status of Pity
Authors: Callan Eamonn
Published: June 2016

Pity is an emotion which is intimately connected with virtue. If I were impervious to anger I could still be a paragon of rectitude. My emotional peculiarity might even be explained by moral saintliness. If I had a pitiless heart my entire life would surely be an abject moral failure. The imputation of an inability to pity strikes us as a damning moral criticism; it is one we are likely to make, for example, against those who commit acts of extreme cruelty. Yet pity is hardly ever welcomed by its recipients, and for that reason it differs in a puzzling way from other emotions which are closely associated with virtue, such as gratitude or compassion. The prospect of becoming an object of pity is alarming, and not merely because we fear the misfortune that would evoke pity in others; it is alarming in part because we suspect that being on the receiving end of that emotion could seriously aggravate our plight. We also regard an aversion to being pitied as commendable, perhaps even morally commendable. There is something shameful in wanting to be pitied, just as there is in the indulgence of self-pity. The aged and the physically disabled do not want our pity, as a rule, and we think better of them for not wanting it. Finally, we know that those who give pity are frequently guilty of serious wrongdoing. A pitiless heart may be a terrible thing, but a fondness for dispensing pity is scarcely any better.
Reply to de Sousa and Davis
Authors: Taylor Charles
Published: June 2016

The papers by Ronald de Sousa and Steve Davis raise very interesting issues. I think that they have the issue almost right between us, but I want to make some small amendments, which will make a big difference.

First, de Sousa: with all the talk about the ‘significance feature,’ I’m not trying to make an in principle argument against the reduction of purpose/action to physical movement/change. Perhaps such an argument is possible, perhaps not. For the moment, all we have is the a posteriori. But that involves our making the most dear-headed possible judgments about our actual intellectual predicament, using this term as a shorthand for a whole set of issues to do with the nature of the phenomena we face, and how they relate or don't relate to the theories on offer. Philosophy can help in this, not because philosophers wheel in bright, shiny a priori (im)possibility arguments, but rather by clarifying what is at stake, and what is going on.
Descartes on Life and Sense
Authors: Mackenzie Ann Wilbur
Published: June 2016

My aim … is to show that the celestial machine is likened not to a kind of divine living being but rather to a clockwork. (Kepler, 1605)

I consider the human body to be a machine … (Descartes, 1641)

Although it may exaggerate to say that Descartes fathered the mechanization of biology, it is true (without qualification) that his Treatise of Man provided the first systematic development of the idea that a complete understanding of all the phenomena of life, including all abilities and behaviour of (non-human) animals, can be achieved by viewing living things as machines. To make this out, Decartes had to learn to think about living things in a new way. My first aim here is to identify the fundamental conceptual innovations at work in Descartes’ attempt to extend the new mechanics to include biology. My second aim is to locate the point at which Descartes’ mechanical imagination runs out. This requires study of Descartes’ scientific work on sense.
Psychological Doubt and the Cartesian Circle
Authors: Lipson Morris
Published: June 2016

Suppose that in the Meditations Descartes thinks he needs to prove that his clear and distinct perceptions are true. There can be little doubt that if he does think he needs to do this, he thinks that the way to do it is to prove that ‘a non-deceiving God exists’ is true. Now suppose that Descartes does come up with such a proof. Presumably he clearly and distinctly perceives both the premisses and that ‘a non-deceiving God exists’ follows from them. But that will not suffice to prove that ‘a non-deceiving God exists’ is true. For, if there is a problem about whether clear and distinct perceptions are true, then in advance of settling it, there is a problem about whether what is proved merely on the basis of clear and distinct perceptions is true.
Truthmongering: Less Is True
Authors: Fine Arthur
Published: June 2016

In defending NOA against some contemporary antirealisms I distinguish two antirealist camps: the epistemology inflaters, who come to their antirealism by filling up inquiry and belief formation with various warrants and principles of justification, and the semantic inflaters, or truthmongers, who come to their antirealism by exchanging truth for some epistemic notion, like ideal rational acceptablility. In parity with arguments against the correspondence theory of truth, which I see at the heart of various realisms, I argue against antirealist truthmongering in two ways. One is inductive and hortative. I point to the history of failures of all past attempts at theories of truth, and try to suggest better things for philosophy to do instead. The other way is deconstructive. I examine the attempted explications of truth in the terms set by their own discourses, and try to show that they cannot actually stand on their own there. Lily Knezevich looks at this deconstructive work in her ‘Truthmongering‘ and finds it flawed by what I will call ‘Knezevich’s fallacy.’ (Generously, she refers to it as my fallacy. But surely the rule in these things is to let the name, and therefore the honor, attach to the discoverer, not the alleged perpetrator.)
On the Exploitation of Cotton, Corn and Labor
Authors: Schweickart David
Published: June 2016

There is no more intriguing or provocative argument in the Marxian corpus; it is the theoretical and rhetorical heart of Capital; not surprisingly, it is the locus of endless controversy: capitalist profit is possible, Marx argues, only because the capitalist is able to find on the market a unique commodity that possesses ‘the specific use-value ... of being a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself.’ This commodity is labor power, the capacity to work, which, Marx insists, must be sharply distinguished from the activity of laboring, since it is precisely this distinction that lays bare capitalism’s essence, revealing it to be —exploitation.
Marxism, Materialism and Historical Progress
Authors: Satz Debra
Published: June 2016

The theory of historical materialism is the core commitment of Marx’s social theory. More than his views on markets, philosophical methods, the state and social institutions, it is this theory which sets Marx’s views apart from alternative traditions in political philosophy. Marx believes that there is a tendency for societies to make moral and material progress. The point of Marx’s theory of historical materialism is to offer a theory of the mechanisms which produce this tendency. However, in Marx’s own formulation, the precise nature of these mechanisms remains obscure. In The German Ideology, Marx emphasizes the growth of human productive powers as the fundamental cause of historical change and progress: social forms (e.g., feudalism, capitalism) change in order to adapt to the requirements of further productive development. By contrast, in The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse, Marx emphasizes the desires and interests of classes as fundamental to explaining social change. Here, it is class struggles (aimed at ending specific conditions of oppression) which determine not only when an old social form will be replaced by a new one, but also the nature of the new social form itself. Marx never specifies the connection between these two explanations of historical change, between the development of human productive powers and class struggles. In particular, Marx is not explicit as to whether there are two distinct mechanisms at work in the production of historical progress, or only one.
Ruling Ideas
Authors: Shaw William H.
Published: June 2016

In a volume entitled Analytical Marxism, John Roemer portrays analytical Marxists as ‘largely inspired by Marxian questions, which they pursue with contemporary tools of logic, mathematics, and model building.’ Eschewing dogmatism, analytical Marxists raise foundational questions that conventional Marxism often overlooks and are committed to the necessity for abstraction in seeking answers to them. One such foundational question is raised by Jon Elster in a companion volume, Making Sense of Marx. His question is the subject of this essay.
Afterword: Remarks on the Roots of Progress
Authors: Nielsen Kai
Published: June 2016

Analytical Marxists stress that Marx did not just want to provide a plausible historical narrative but sought ‘to provide a theory,’ as Debra Satz well put it, ‘which explains the real causal structure of history.’ But it is also the case, as Richard Norman stresses, that ‘Marxism claims to be a systematic theory, whose various elements hang together in an organized way.’ It claims to be able to trace the connection between different aspects of social existence where these aspects are not viewed as merely conventional or ideological connections but ‘real, objective connections... to be established by an examination of historical facts...’ For Marxists, analytical or otherwise, historical materialism is central in such an account. It is for Marxists the theory which seeks to explain in a systematic scientific way epochal social change. Keeping this firmly in mind, I want to start from a series of issues emerging principally from a consideration of three essays in this volume which both significantly complement and conflict with each other. Seeing how this works out points to a way Marxian social theory can be developed. I then want to set such an account against more discouraging conclusions for Marxist social theory pointed to in Allen Buchanan’s careful survey article on analytical Marxism as well as some remarks with a similar overall thrust by Jon Elster.2 The three articles in question are Sean Sayers’s ‘Analytical Marxism and Morality,’ Richard Norman’s ‘What is Living and What is Dead in Marxism?’ and Debra Satz’s ‘Marxism, Materialism and Historical Progress.’
Parfit's Moral Arithmetic and the Obligation to Obey the Law
Authors: Klosko George
Published: June 2016

Though consequentialist theories of political obligation have been widely criticized in recent years, a series of arguments presented by Derek Parfit, in Reasons and Persons, are now believed to have given this position new life.
Plato and Davidson: Parts of the Soul and Weakness of Will
Authors: Penner Terrence M.
Published: June 2016

One natural way of explaining the phenomenon ofakrasia, or weakness of will, would be this: to describe a conflict between a desire that is more or less rational (that represents, or corresponds to, a considered judgment on what is to be done), and a desire that is rather less rational, where the less rational desire wins out ‘against one’s better judgment.’ To explain what makes two such desiresconflictingdesires (as opposed to being just twodifferentdesires), it is then natural to suggest that they originate in distinct ‘parts of the soul’ (or in distinct ‘partitions of the mind’).
Doxology and the History of Philosophy
Authors: Normore Calvin G.
Published: June 2016

Philosophy is not history, not even intellectual history. The history of philosophy is history, a branch of intellectual history. Yet it is widely believed, by philosophers and historians of philosophy alike, that the study of the history of philosophy is an important part of the study of philosophy.
Kant’s Account of Intuition
Authors: Falkenstein Lorne
Published: June 2016

Kant supposed that we possess two distinct cognitive capacities, which he referred to as ‘intuition’ (Anschauung) and ‘understanding’ or ‘intellect’ (Verstand). This ‘two-faculty account of cognition’ lies at the foundation of his theoretical philosophy, and almost everything he has to say in the Critique of Pure Reason presupposes it. But it is also problematic. At the outset of the Critique Kant simply assumes the validity of the distinction, without in any way attempting to justify it. And one looks in vain through the Kantian corpus for any explanation that might legitimate it. To make matters worse, Kant does not always draw the distinction in the same way. Most notoriously, he presents two quite different accounts of intuition, defining it in some places as ‘singular representation’ (A713=B741; Logic §6), in others as ‘immediate cognition’ (A19=B33).
Respect And Care: Toward Moral Integration1
Authors: Dillon Robin S.
Published: June 2016

In her provocative discussion of the challenge posed to the traditional impartialist, justice-focused conception of morality by the new-wave care perspective in ethics, Annette Baier calls for ‘a “marriage” of the old male and newly articulated female ... moral wisdom,’ to produce a new ‘cooperative’ moral theory that ‘harmonize[s] justice and care.’ I want in this paper to play matchmaker, proposing one possible conjugal bonding: a union of two apparently dissimilar modes of what Nel Noddings calls ‘meeting the other morally,’ a wedding of respect and care.
The Doubtful A Priori
Authors: Bigelow John
Published: June 2016

Mathematics has become so sophisticated that it is easy to lose touch with the mathematical realities out of which it arises. Many nowadays think of mathematics as complicated games with forests of symbols. Yet this is an image which could not have got a grip on the ancient mathematicians, like those of the Pythagorean brotherhood, who stood nearer to the roots of those forests. Now we are lost in the higher branches of mathematics, and we sometimes forget that all these
growing branches are nourished ultimately by roots far below in down-to-earth reality.

The early Pythagoreans discovered things which are thus and so, and which could not have been otherwise. Yet although these things could not have been otherwise, the Pythagoreans who discovered them could have done otherwise. Hence the truths which the Pythagoreans discovered are things which would still have been so even if no one had ever discovered them.
EPR As A Priori Science
Authors: Brown James Robert
Published: June 2016

Contemporary empiricism is closely allied with naturalism. Not only do empiricists hold that all our knowledge is based upon sensory experience, but they also tend to offer some sort of causal account of how this experience comes about. The causal ingredient in knowledge seems very plausible — after all, my knowing that there is a tea cup on my desk is based on sense impressions which are caused by the cup itself. Photons come from the cup to my eye; a signal is then sent down the optic nerve into the visual part of the brain, and so on. And without that causal process, I likely wouldn't have the knowledge that I do have.
Is Reflective Equilibrium a Coherentist Model?
Authors: Ebertz Roger P.
Published: June 2016

Over the last twenty years, John Rawls has developed an approach to political philosophy which appeals to the notion of reflective equilibrium. This notion has proven suggestive to those attracted to coherence approaches to justification, in ethics and in other domains as well. In this paper, I explore the question whether Rawls’s approach provides a model for a coherentist account of justification, concluding that although the discussion of reflective equilibrium has provided helpful insights it has not produced a coherentist model of justification.
A Defense of Derangement
Authors: Pietroski Paul M.
Published: June 2016

In a recent paper, Bar-On and Risjord (henceforth, ‘B&R’) contend that Davidson provides no good argument for his (in)famous claim that ‘there is no such thing as a language.’ And according to B&R, if Davidson had established his ‘no language’ thesis, he would thereby have provided a decisive reason for abandoning the project he has long advocated — viz., that of trying to provide theories of meaning for natural languages by providing recursive theories of truth for such languages. For he would have shown that there are no languages to provide truth (or meaning) theories of. Davidson thus seems to be in the odd position of arguing badly for a claim that would undermine his own work.
Marxism, ‘Ideology,’ and Moral Objectivism1
Authors: Mills Charles W.
Published: June 2016

For most of this century, it has been taken for granted that the theoretical commitments of Marxism are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with any kind of objectivism in ethics, whether realist or constructivist. Commentators in the analytic tradition who have argued for this antiobjectivist interpretation have categorized Marx variously as a noncognitivist (moral judgments are not actually propositional, and so are neither true nor false) a sort of 'error theorist' (moral judgments are all false), or an ethical relativist (moral judgments are true/false relative to class or the mode of production). Other commentators, less charitable in their assessment, have found Marx to be irredeemably confused and inconsistent in his moral pronouncements, espousing not a consistent anti-objectivism, but rather simultaneously proclaiming the class-relativity and the objectivity of morality.
Evolutionary Biology and Cultural Values: Is It Irremediably Corrupt?
Authors: Ruse Michael
Published: June 2016

In recent years, philosophers have come to realize that the relationship between science and values raises questions which are both important and not readily answered. It is true that the major figures in that tradition known as ‘logical empiricism’ appreciated that science always exceeds its empirical grasp and that it is necessary for scientists to be guided and constrained by so-called ‘epistemic values,’ these being values (in the words of one supporter) ‘presumed to promote the truth-like character of science, its character as the most secure knowledge available to us of the world we seek to understand.’ However, these values — such things as internal and external consistency, simplicity, predictive accuracy and fertility, unificatory power (consilience) — were considered special. Inasmuch as they could not be reduced to basic principles of logic — and there were attempts to do this — they were still thought of, in some sense, as beyond the vagaries of human emotion. Their importance was not a function of the individual’s personal inclinations, nor of those of the group, whether this group be understood as a closely knit band of researchers or even up to a complete society.
Individualism and Local Control
Authors: de Sousa Ronald
Published: June 2016

In both biology and psychology, the notion of an individual is indispensable yet puzzling. It has played a variety of roles in diverse contexts, ranging from philosophical problems of personal identity to scientific questions about the immunological mechanisms for telling ‘self’ from ‘non-self.’ There are notorious cases in which the question of individuality is difficult to settle — ant hill, slime mold, or beehive, for instance. Yet the notion of an individual organism, both dependent on and independent of other individuals in specific ways, is crucial to our conception of life itself. It is also crucial to our notion of mentality, and hence to other concepts — moral and social — which must be explicated in terms of individual mentality. (Think, for example, of the importance of the quality and nature of individual consciousness to debates about abortion and euthanasia.)
Can One Justify Morality To Fooles?
Authors: DeBruin Debra A.
Published: June 2016

A note ofurgencycan sometimes be heard, even in otherwise unhurried writers, when they ask for a justification of morality. Unless the ethical life, or (more narrowly) morality, can be justified by philosophy, we shall be open to relativism, amoralism, and disorder. As they often put it: when an amoralist calls ethical considerations in doubt, and suggests that there is no reason to follow the requirements of morality,what can we say to him?

Why should one be moral? This question is nearly as old as the discipline of moral philosophy itself; it has been troubling ethicists ever since Glaucon challenged Socrates to disprove that “the life of the unjust man is much better than that of the just.” To find an answer to the question of why one should be moral has been taken to be one of the most fundamental tasks of moral philosophy. And even a casual survey of the history of ethics will reveal that there are many ways of trying to answer the question.
Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?
Authors: Murray Robert
Published: June 2016

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.
Interpreting Davidson's Omniscient Interpreter
Authors: Manning Richard N.
Published: June 2016

Donald Davidson infamously claims that belief is in its nature veridical, and that skepticism is for this reason fundamentally incoherent. To those who take the issue of external world skepticism seriously, Davidson's arguments may seem to involve a conjuring trick. In particular, his invocation of an ‘omniscient interpreter’, whose intelligibility supposedly ensures that our beliefs must be largely true, has the air of incense and lantern-rubbing about it. Davidson's claim has received considerable critical response in the literature, almost all of it negative. In my view, some commentators have indeed lit on a critical and controversial lemma in Davidson's argument, but this basic result has been obscured by being presented amidst an array of other criticisms that simply make no sense from a Davidsonian point of view. The aim of this paper is to clear away some of the confusion that stands in the way of a more productive evaluation of Davidson's important claim.
Aristotle on ‘Signifying One’ atMetaphysicsΓ 4
Authors: Ross Michael L.
Published: June 2016

I Introduction

AtMetaphysicsΓ 3, Aristotle argues that it belongs to a single discipline, which he callsfirst philosophy,to investigate both substance (οὐσία) and a special class of claims which includes among its members the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). At Γ 4, after insisting that the PNC is, strictly speaking, indemonstrable, he sets forth a series of sketches of refutative arguments intended to show how it can, nonetheless, be substantiated. Traditionally, his main refutative argument has been taken to be embedded in the passage which runs from 1006a31 tob34. In that passage, he tries to show that anyone who denies the PNC and who can then be led, by means of an artfully arranged series of questions, to agree (whether willingly or grudgingly) to a few seemingly modest theses about the signification of expressions of a certain type — which Aristotle illustrates with the general term ‘man’ (ἄνθρωπος) — is thereby logically committed to the following modal claim: ‘It is necessary, then, if it is true to say that something is a man, that it be a bipedal animal' (1006b28-30).
Painted Mules and the Cartesian Circle
Authors: Heller Mark
Published: June 2016

René Descartes, one of the dominant figures in the history of philosophy, has been accused of one of the most obvious mistakes in the history of philosophy — the so-called cartesian circle. It is my goal in this paper to arrive at an understanding of Descartes's work that attributes to him a theory that

(a) should be of philosophical interest to contemporary epistemologists,

(b) is consistent with, and suggested by, the actual text, and

(c) avoids the circle.

I begin with a brief explanation of the supposed circle. In his search for absolute certainty Descartes requires that in order for a proposition to be an instance of knowledge it must be indubitable for the knower, and in order for it to be indubitable for the knower she must be able to eliminate any possibility of the belief's being false. It is to provide a means to satisfy this requirement that Descartes proposes the principle

(CD) whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived cannot be false.

And it seems that Descartes's defense of CD traps him in the circle.
Desert and Responsibility
Authors: Cupit Geoffrey
Published: June 2016

It is often supposed that there is a relationship between desert and responsibility: that to be deserving we must be responsible for that which makes us deserving. Indeed, there seems little doubt that a supposed relationship between desert and responsibility, combined with a growing tendency to view less and less as the responsibility of the individual, contributed to the reluctance to appeal to desert which has been a feature of much recent moral and political philosophy. Certainly, if to be deserving we need to be responsible for that which makes us deserving ‘all the way down,’ it is not easy to see how anyone could ever be deserving of anything.

I will argue that the claim that we can deserve only on the basis of that for which we are responsible — the desert-responsibility thesis — is false. There is no conceptual connection between desert and responsibility. Nevertheless, it is true that many claims to deserve are undermined if there is a lack of responsibility.
Who Are We?
Authors: Vallée Richard
Published: June 2016

Personal and demonstrative pronouns ('I,’ ‘you,’ ‘s/he,’ ‘we,’ the plural 'you,’ ‘they,’ ‘this’ and ‘these’) are notorious for challenging any theory of natural language. Singular pronouns have received much attention from linguists and philosophers alike during the last three decades. Plural pronouns, on the other hand, have been neglected, especially by philosophers. I want to fill this gap and suggest accounts of ‘we,’ the plural ‘you,’ and ‘they.'

Intuitively, singular and plural personal pronouns are ‘counterparts.' Any account of personal pronouns should make sense of this intuition. However, the latter is not very sophisticated and, as we move along, it will be reexamined and relativized. As we shall see, plural pronouns are much more than mere counterparts of the familiar singular ones. It is well known that third person singular pronouns have puzzling behaviors, acting as co-referential terms, bound variables, or unbound anaphora. But co-reference, binding, and unbound anaphora are not confined to the usual examples and extend, in a way, to plural pronouns. My discussion of the latter is partly motivated by this particular behavior.
Must Conceptually Informed Perceptual Experience Involve Non-Conceptual Content?
Authors: Sedivy Sonia
Published: June 2016

The idea of nonconceptual contents proposes that there are mental contents at the level of the experiencing person that are individuated independently of ‘anything to do with the mind.’ Such contents are posited to meet a variety of theoretical and explanatory needs concerning concepts and conceptual mental contents which are individuated in terms having to do with the mind. So to examine the idea of nonconceptual content we need to examine whether we really need to posit such content and whether there is a coherent, viable way of doing so. I will examine the idea of nonconceptual contents by considering Christopher Peacocke's attempt, in his Study of Concepts, to posit such contents.

Three principal kinds of considerations motivate positing non-conceptual content: epistemological, phenomenological, and explanatory-psychological. A theory of knowledge might posit nonconceptual content in order to show that our experience contains the justificatory base for empirical thought as its own proper part. Non-conceptual content might also be posited in order to account for the finely detailed or determinate phenomenological character of perceptual experience.
A Taxonomy of Functions
Authors: Walsh Denis M. , Ariew André
Published: June 2016

There are two general approaches to characterising biological functions. One originates with Cummins. According to this approach, the function of a part of a system is just its causal contribution to some specified activity of the system. Call this the ‘C-function’ (or ‘Cummins function’) concept. The other approach ties the function of a trait to some aspect of its evolutionary significance. Call this the ‘E-function’ (or ‘evolutionary function’) concept. According to the latter view, a trait's function is determined by the forces of natural selection. The C-function and E-function concepts are clearly quite different, but there is an important relation between them which heretofore has gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to outline that relation.

This is not the first paper to discuss the relation of C-function and E-function. Previous attempts all follow either one of two strategies. The first proposes that the two concepts are ‘unified.’ The other proposes that they are radically distinct and apply to wholly different fields within biology.
Representation from Bottom and Top
Authors: Shapiro Lawrence A.
Published: June 2016

I would like to nominate one more principle for initial inclusion in the science of teleonomy. This principle is that the nature of the stimuli that initiate and regulate a response may be no indication of the function of the response.

George Williams could not have anticipated the special relevance his principle has for contemporary analyses of representational content. In particular, his principle provides both a concise statement of where a currently popular strategy for naturalizing representational content has gone wrong and a positive suggestion for how we should right this wrong. I characterize the kind of naturalistic analysis of representation I have in mind asbottom-upbecause it seeks to build representation up from a non-intentional, and hence naturalistically unimpeachable, correlation relation. Many authors have suggested such an approach to naturalizing intentionality, but for clarity and completeness perhaps Fred Dretske'sExplaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causesought to be construed as the exemplary source.
Quinus ab Omni Nævo Vindicatus1
Authors: Burgess John P.
Published: June 2016

Today there appears to be a widespread impression that W. V. Quine's notorious critique of modal logic, based on certain ideas about reference, has been successfully answered. As one writer put it some years ago: “His objections have been dead for a while, even though they have not yet been completely buried.” What is supposed to have killed off the critique? Some would cite the development of a new ‘possible-worlds’ model theory for modal logics in the 1960s; others, the development of new ‘direct’ theories of reference for names in the 1970s.

These developments do suggest that Quine's unfriendliness towards any formal logics but the classical and indifference towards theories of reference for any singular terms but variables were unfortunate.
Theoretical Difficulties in the Study of Nationalism
Authors: Tamir Yael
Published: June 2016

Philosophical questions are not like empirical problems, which can be answered by observation or experiment or entitlements from them. Nor are they like mathematical problems which can be settled by deductive methods, like problems in chess or any other rule-governed game or procedure. But questions about the ends of life, about good and evil, about freedom and necessity, about objectivity and relativity, cannot be decided by looking into even the most sophisticated dictionary or the use of empirical or mathematical reasoning. Not to know where to look for the answer is the surest symptom of a philosophical problem.

Isaiah Berlin

Critics of recent philosophical analyses of nationalism suggest that nationalism is a unique social phenomenon that cannot, and need not, be theorized. Are there, indeed, some special features constitutive of nationalism that might defy theorization? Those answering this question in the affirmative point to the plurality and specificity of national experiences, as well as to the emotional and eclectic nature of nationalist discourse.
Against Nationalism
Authors: Brighouse Harry
Published: June 2016

A recent resurgence of interest within analytical political philosophy in the status of ethnic and national minorities coincides with the re-emergence of national identity as a primary organizing principle of political conflict, and with an increasing attentiveness to identity and recognition as organizing principles of political struggle. The recent theoretical literature within political philosophy has focused very much on recognizing the importance of national identity, and allowing attention to national sentiment to inform the design of social institutions.

In this paper I shall state the case for a version of the position which Will Kymlicka has dubbed ‘benign neglect’ toward cultural identities. Benign neglect is the position that the state should, as far as possible, be neutral among the cultural (and hence national) sentiments of its citizens. The position is, I think, implicit in the theoretical work of many contemporary liberals, and also in much socialist theory and some socialist practice. But it is rarely defended explicitly. Liberal theory is generally developed on the unrealistic assumptions that the society to be regulated is closed and coincides with the membership of a single nation.
Dennett on Qualia and Consciousness: A Critique
Authors: Johnsen Bredo
Published: June 2016

Introduction

It is at least a bit embarrassing, perhaps even scandalous, that debate should still rage over the sheer existence of qualia, but they continue to find able defenders after decades of being attacked as relics of ghostly substances, epiphenomenal non-entities, nomological danglers and the like; the intensity of the current confrontation is captured vividly by Daniel Dennett:

What are qualia,exactly?This obstreperous query is dismissed by one author (“only half in jest”) by invoking Louis Armstrong's legendary reply when asked what jazz was: “If you gotta ask, you ain't never gonna get to know.” … If I succeed in my task, this move … will look as quaint and insupportable as a jocular appeal to the ludicrousness of a living thing-a living thing, mind you! -doubting the existence ofelan vital.
Kant on Intuition in Geometry
Authors: Carson Emily
Published: June 2016

It's well-known that Kant believed that intuition was central to an account of mathematical knowledge. What that role is and how Kant argues for it are, however, still open to debate. There are, broadly speaking, two tendencies in interpreting Kant's account of intuition in mathematics, each emphasizing different aspects of Kant's general doctrine of intuition. On one view, most recently put forward by Michael Friedman, this central role for intuition is a direct result of the limitations of the syllogistic logic available to Kant. On this view, Kant's reasons for introducing intuition are taken to be logical or mathematical, rather than philosophical. The other tendency, which I shall try to develop here, emphasizes an epistemological or phenomenological role for intuition in mathematics arising out of what may loosely be called Kant's ‘antiformalism.’

This paper, which focuses specifically on the case of geometry, falls into two parts. First, I consider Kant's discussion of intuition in the Metaphysical Exposition of the concept of space.
Families, Friends, and Special Obligations
Authors: Jeske Diane
Published: June 2016

Most of us accept that we have special obligations to our family members: to, e.g., our parents, our siblings, and our grandparents. But it is extremely difficult to offer a plausible grounding for such obligations, given the apparent fact that (at least most) familial relationships are not voluntarily entered. I did not choose to be my mother's daughter or my brother's sister, so why suppose that such facts about me are morally significant? Why suppose that I owe more to my mother or to my brother than natural duty requires that I do for all and any persons? Special obligations appear more problematic the less the relationships that supposedly generate them are akin to the relationship between promiser and promisee, a voluntarily assumed relationship. Thus, for example, special obligations to friends might appear less problematic than do those to family members, because it seems that we voluntarily choose our friends, and, thus, voluntarily choose to bear more for them than natural duty requires.
Une Solution pour l'Argument de l'Apocalypse
Authors: Franceschi Paul
Published: June 2016

Attribué à Brandon Carter, l'argument de l'Apocalypse (Doomsday Argument, soit DA, dans ce qui suit) a été décrit par John Leslie. On peut formuler ainsi cet argument. So it A l'événement: l'Apocalypse se produira avant l'an 2150; et B l'événement: l'Apocalypse ne se produira pas avant 2150. Soit également Z l'événement: j'ai connu les années 1990. On peut par ailleurs estimer à 40 milliards le nombre d'humains ayant existé depuis la naissance de l'humanité, jusqu'à notre époque: soit H1996 un tel nombre. On peut ainsi admettre, de manière raisonnable, qu'un humain sur dix, dans le cas de l'événement A, aura connu les années 1990; on admettra de même qu'un humain sur 1000 aura connu les années 1990, dans le cas de l'événement B. Si l'on considère maintenant, que la probabilité de A est de 0,01 alors que la probabilité de l'événement B est de 0,99, on peut poser la question: qu'est-ce qui rend plus probable que je sois ici en 1996?
The Best of Intentions: Ignorance, Idiosyncrasy, and Belief Reporting
Authors: Saul Jennifer
Published: June 2016

Context plays a crucial role in our propositional attitude reporting practices. A belief-reporting sentence (containing no obvious indexical elements) which seems true in one context may seem false in another, as Kripke showed us in ‘A Puzzle About Belief.’ To put it a bit sloppily, (1) may seem true when we are discussing Peter's beliefs regarding Paderewski-the-pianist and false when we are discussing his beliefs regarding Paderewski-the-statesman.

(1) Peter believes that Paderewski is a fine musician.

A number of recent theorists have taken this contextual variation very seriously, and attempted to provide accounts which accommodate it in one way or another. Salmon and Soames accommodate the variation in pragmatics, arguing that our intuitions about attitude reporting often result from mistaking pragmatic implicatures for semantic content. Other theorists have offered semantic accounts which yield contextually varying truth conditions for belief reporting sentences. I have a great deal of sympathy for the project: I think the contextually varying intuitions do exist, and that they need to be accommodated, in one way or another. I am not so sure, however, that this can be done.
The Indeterminacy of Translation and the Inscrutability of Reference
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: June 2016

W.V.O. Quine's doctrines of the indeterminacy of translation and the inscrutability of reference are among the most famous and influential theses in philosophy in the past fifty years. Although by no means universally accepted, the arguments for them have been widely regarded as powerful challenges to our most fundamental beliefs about meaning and reference — including the belief that many of our words have meaning and reference in the sense in which we ordinarily understand those notions, as well as beliefs about the particular things meant and referred to in specific cases, such as my belief that in the past my son Brian often referred with affection to his pet rabbit Bigwig. If Quine's doctrines, and the arguments for them, are correct, then beliefs such as these cannot be accepted as true.

One might expect that with consequences like these Quine's theses would widely be regarded as obviously incorrect.
In Defense of the Concept of Intrinsic Value
Authors: Zimmerman Michael J.
Published: June 2016

The concept of intrinsic value has enjoyed a long, rich history. From the time of the ancient Greeks to the present day, philosophers have placed it at the foundation of much of their theorizing. This is especially true of G.E. Moore, who made it the cornerstone of his Principia Ethica. Yet this venerable concept has recently come under serious, sustained attack. My aim in this paper is to show that this attack has been unsuccessful.

When Principia Ethica appeared, its impact on the philosophical community was immediate and profound. Of course, much of what Moore had to say was, and continues to be, strongly disputed. The view that goodness is a simple nonnatural property has been criticized by many people and in many ways. Some have argued that goodness is an analyzable property. Others have argued that it is a natural property (or relation). Still others have argued, more radically, that goodness is not a property (or relation) at all. But none of these critics has rejected the very idea of goodness. None of them, that is, has contended that to say of something that it is good (in Moore's sense) is to speak nonsense.
A Change in Manner: Hume's Scepticism in the Treatise and the first Enquiry
Authors: McCormick Miriam
Published: June 2016

The year before his death, Hume asked his publisher to affix an advertisement to all existing and future editions of his works. In this advertisement, Hume disavows the Treatise and directs all criticism to his later work. Hume himself is relatively clear as to why he preferred this later work. In his autobiography, when discussing the poor public reception given his Treatise, Hume says, ‘I had always entertained a Notion, that my want of Success in publishing the Treatise of human nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter; and that I had been guilty of a very usual Indiscretion, in going to the Press too early.’ In a letter to Gilbert Elliot, written in 1751, Hume says that ‘The philosophical Principles are the same in both’ the Treatise and the first Enquiry.