bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Probabilism, Assertion, and Higher-Order Vagueness
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

Hartry Field has recently suggested that a non-standard probability calculus better represents our beliefs about vague matters. His theory has two notable features: (i) that your attitude to P when you are certain that P is higher-order borderline ought to be the same as your attitude when you are certain that P is simply borderline, and (ii) that when you are certain that P is borderline you should have no credence in P and no credence in ~. This chapter rejects both elements of this view and advocates instead for the view that when you are in possession of all the possible evidence, and it is borderline whether P is borderline, it is borderline whether you should believe P. Secondly, it argues for probabilism: the view that your credences ought to conform to the probability calculus. To get a handle on these issues, the chapter looks at Dutch book arguments and comparative axiomatizations of probability theory.
Vagueness and Decision
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

If linguistic vagueness is more fundamental than propositional vagueness, it is natural to think that vague propositions won’t play a substantive role in decision theory. On a linguistic picture, what it is rational for an agent to do is completely determined by their attitudes towards precise propositions. This is vacuously true if all propositions are precise, but it also seems like a natural idea if, like the expressivist discussed in Chapter 8, a distinction is drawn between metaphysically ‘first-rate’ precise propositions and metaphysically ‘second-rate’ vague propositions. This chapter considers how to formulate decision theory in a setting where there are vague propositions, and discusses ways in which vague beliefs, desires, and actions can have concrete impacts on practical deliberation and action.
Vagueness and Precision
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

The proposition that Patrick Stewart is bald is vague, but not borderline. According to the orthodox view, a proposition is vague iff it is metaphysically possible that it is borderline, allowing us to define vagueness from borderlineness. This chapter argues that according to the orthodox view there are precise propositions that entail the exact locations of cutoff points for vague properties. It argues, moreover, that there are vague, but necessarily determinate propositions, such as the proposition that Patrick Stewart is actually bald. The chapter uses these sorts of considerations to motivate the view that vagueness should be taken as primitive, and that borderlineness should be defined in terms of it. Along the way, one surprising upshot of a conception of propositional vagueness is examined: that the propositions of physics are not precise.
Symmetry Semantics
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

The borderlineness operator can be given a relatively straightforward semantics in terms of the theory of precisifications. Without the assumption that vagueness can be analysed in terms of borderlineness, this machinery does not generalize particularly well to a semantics for vagueness. This chapter provides a novel semantics for vagueness in terms of symmetries: automorphisms on the set of propositions that preserve rational credences and values. It shows how the theory of propositional vagueness developed in Chapters 6, 8, and 10 can be unified under an analysis of vagueness in terms of symmetries. It then demonstrates that it is possible to define vagueness explicitly in terms of its role in thought.
Vague Objects
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

In this chapter the theory of propositional vagueness is generalized to vagueness at other types. Once propositional vagueness is supplemented with a primitive notion of objectual vagueness, it can be seen that property vagueness, adverbial vagueness, operator vagueness, and so on, may all be defined. The chapter examines some widely discussed accounts of objectual vagueness that understand objectual vagueness as standing in vague identity or mereological relations. A more general test for objectual vagueness is proposed, according to which an object is vague if it converts any precise property to a vague proposition.
Beyond Vagueness
Authors: Bacon Andrew
Published: May 2018

On the view of this book, sentential vagueness is a derivative notion: a sentence is vague iff it expresses a vague proposition. According to an alternative account, sentential vagueness consists in semantic indecision: the way in which a sentence is used does not determine which of several candidate propositions it expresses. However, even if ordinary vagueness does not consist in semantic indecision, it does not mean that the phenomenon of semantic indecision doesn’t exist. In this chapter, several putative examples of genuine semantic indecision are investigated. The chapter considers modal and epistemic ways of spelling out the sense in which semantic facts are ‘undecided’, but both are found to be inadequate. It is argued, instead, that semantic indecision can be explained within a theory of propositional vagueness: a sentence is semantically undecided when it is propositionally borderline which of several propositions the sentence expresses. Semantically, indefiniteness arises when some of those propositions are true and others false.
Broken Promises and the Rise of a Stereotype
Authors: Yamamoto Koji
Published: May 2018

Projects began to emerge during the sixteenth century en masse by promising to relieve the poor, improve the balance of trade, raise money for the Crown, and thereby push England’s imperial ambitions abroad. Yet such promises were often too good to be true. This chapter explores how the ‘reformation of abuses’—a fateful slogan associated with England’s break from Rome—came to be used widely in economic contexts, and undermined promised public service under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. The negative image of the projector soon emerged in response, reaching both upper and lower echelons of society. The chapter reconstructs the social circulation of distrust under Charles, and considers its repercussions. To do this it brings conceptual tools developed in social psychology and sociology to bear upon sources conventionally studied in literary and political history.
The Crusade Begins
Authors: Lower Michael
Published: May 2018

King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they were two months late delivering the boats. Bored and drunk crusaders rioted in the streets of Aigues‐Mortes as they waited out the long delay. When the crusade did set sail, it made for Cagliari on Sardinia rather than the Near East. Shocked by their arrival, the Pisan garrison that controlled the city at first refused the crusaders entrance inside its walls. At a council of war held on the king’s warship Montjoie, the decision to divert the crusade to Tunis was announced to a stunned rank and file. A peaceful port city was about to move from the periphery to the center of the history of the crusades.
After the Storm
Authors: Lower Michael
Published: May 2018

The Tunis Crusade was a fierce war between Christians and Muslims. It brought devastation, disease, and death to many. It was also a negotiation: over money, certainly, but over identity and belonging, too. Out of this potent mix something unexpected emerged: not chaos, not disorder, but new contacts, new relationships, and new alliances, many of them built on a mutual recognition of difference. This chapter argues that the Tunis Crusade was not an unheralded irruption into a Mediterranean world of religious pluralism, many kinds of diversity, and flexible allegiances. It fitted comfortably into that diverse environment and actually helped to produce some of its characteristic cultural expressions. Religious conflict and cultural unity should not be seen as hallmarks of two irreconcilable visions of the medieval Mediterranean world. Both were present in the age of the last European crusader king, coexisting in a dynamic, historically contingent relationship.
Early Modern Roots of the Philosophical Concept of a Law of Nature
Authors: Hattab Helen
Published: May 2018

To understand the roots of the early modern ancestor to our concept of laws of nature, this chapter examines the conceptual problem space from which Descartes’s distinctive characterization of his laws of motion as laws of nature grew. Descartes’s three laws of motion are 1) universal, 2) causal, and 3) determinative of all regularities in nature without exception. Aristotelian predecessors lay the metaphysical groundwork for 1) and 2) by incorporating Neoplatonic/Stoic commitments to a prior universal nature that manifests itself as an underlying fate/causal order governing all natural chains of causation. And Sebastian Basso’s reification of the ‘universal nature’ as the World Soul/ether gives him a concrete causal agent which executes the proportions or laws of motion in the divine mind through one universal local motion by means of direct contact with the passive material atoms. Hence Basso’s concept of a law of nature, like Descartes’s, encompasses 1), 2), and 3).
Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature
Authors: Psillos Stathis
Published: May 2018

The aim of this chapter is to revisit the major arguments of the seventeenth-century debate concerning laws and powers in service of two main points. First, though the dominant conception of nature was such that there was no room for power in bodies, the very idea that laws govern the behaviour of (bits of) matter in motion brought with it the following issue, which came under sharp focus in the work of Leibniz: how can passive matter, devoid of power, obey laws? Though Leibniz’s answer was to reintroduce powers, two radically different conceptualizations of the relation between laws and powers became available after him. Hume denied powers altogether, whereas Newton thought that to introduce a power is to introduce a law. Second, though laws were meant to replace powers, the real dilemma ended up being not laws vs. powers, but rather necessity vs. non-necessity in nature.
Laws and Ideal Unity
Authors: Breitenbach Angela
Published: May 2018

This chapter explores Kant’s account of the empirical laws of nature and the systematic unity they generate. How, if at all, can the particular laws of nature be both necessary and known empirically? And what, if any, is the cognitive function of the regulative idea of systematic unity for our knowledge of the laws? It is argued that, on Kant’s account, empirical reflection on particular phenomena can give us access to the laws insofar as this reflection is guided by the a priori laws of nature and the regulative idea of systematic unity. Reflection of this kind cannot ground scientific knowledge in the strict sense of the term, but it can lead to a common form of our knowledge of the laws.
How the Explanations of Natural Laws Make Some Reducible Physical Properties Natural and Explanatorily Powerful
Authors: Lange Marc
Published: May 2018

Some philosophers regard no reducible physical properties as perfectly natural. However, in scientific practice, some but not other reducible physical properties (such as the property of having a given center of mass) denote genuine, explanatorily potent respects in which various systems are alike. What distinguishes these natural reducible physical properties from arbitrary algebraic combinations of more fundamental properties? Some philosophers treat naturalness as a metaphysical primitive. However, this chapter I suggests that it is not—at least, not as far as the naturalness of reducible physical properties is concerned. Roughly speaking, it is argued here that a reducible physical property’s naturalness is grounded in its role in the explanation of laws.
Are Laws of Nature Consistent with Contingency?
Authors: Cartwright Nancy , Merlussi Pedro
Published: May 2018

Are the laws of nature consistent with contingency about what happens in the world? That depends on what the laws of nature actually are, but it also depends on what they are like. The latter is the concern of this chapter, which looks at three views that are widely endorsed: ‘Humean’ regularity accounts, laws as relations among universals, and disposition/powers accounts. Given an account of what laws are, what follows about how much contingency, and of what kinds, laws allow? In all three cases, the authors argue, the root idea of what laws are does not settle the issue of whether they allow contingency. Advocates of the different accounts may argue for one view or another on the issue, but this will be an add-on rather than a consequence of the basic view about what laws are.
Animal Selves and the Good
Authors: Korsgaard Christine M.
Published: May 2018

This chapter presents a theory of the good, based on Aristotle’s account of the good for living organisms. There is such a thing as the good only because there are creatures for whom things can be good or bad. Things can be good or bad for animals because animals function by having evaluative responses to conditions that affect their own good or bad functioning. Because the theory presented depends on Aristotle’s theory of natural purposes, it is defended against objections arising from the theory of evolution. The result is the claim that the kind of creature who has a good is properly speaking one with a self. We should reject the idea that animals lack selves because they lack self-consciousness or the continuity characteristic of personal identity, and instead accept that because these are matters of degree, the extent to which animals have selves is a matter of degree.
The Animal Antinomy, Part 2
Authors: Korsgaard Christine M.
Published: May 2018

The intractable problems of animal ethics arise from a fundamental mismatch between morality and nature: nature resists moral reorganization. This chapter argues that we should reject the principle that “ought implies can” and do the best that we can for animals. It asks what is involved in treating animals as ends in themselves and rejects apartheid—the abolitionist’s ban on interaction between people and animals. It then examines specific practical questions. It argues that we should not eat animals, even if they come from “humane” farms, that we should not experiment on them, that there are limits on what kinds of work we may make them do. Finally, it argues that human beings need the company of animals and holds out the hope that we might achieve conditions, very different from the ones we live in now, in which keeping animals as pets and companions would be permissible.
Confronting the Pathologies of International Law
Authors: Linarelli John , Salomon Margot E , Sornarajah Muthucumaraswamy
Published: May 2018

This chapter offers an argument on why the international law on trade, investment, and finance is subject to the demands of justice. It also looks at how those demands are greater than the basic minimums often suggested as applicable outside the state. International law is subject to the demands of justice because of its role as an institution essential to global cooperation, because it affects how people live their lives, because of its historic role in perpetuating and legitimizing moral wrongs, and because it can lead to domination and the deprivation of freedom. After elaborating these grounds, this chapter proceeds to a theory of justice for international law. International law must meet a standard of respect and ‘justification to’ each person, particularly those in weaker positions. International law cannot treat any person as only a passive recipient or supplicant to rules that benefit those in power or stronger positions.
Human Rights
Authors: Linarelli John , Salomon Margot E , Sornarajah Muthucumaraswamy
Published: May 2018

This chapter interrogates whether international human rights law has settled for preventing and mitigating deprivations without changing the terms under which that suffering is not only made possible but is reproduced, including by reinforcing the structural features that engender it. Human rights exist within an extreme capitalist global economy and their deployment needs to be considered against that backdrop, and not merely as a discrete, benevolent response to it. Taking the inquiry one step further, this chapter considers the ways in which human rights work against a transformative or radical agenda, to the detriment of their own aims and objectives. It explores how international human rights law is not limited to redistribution, but has not gone so far as to effecting ‘predistribution’, that is, making international law just, ex ante, in a structural sense. Moreover, its demands for redistribution in order to realize human rights can also serve to drive the possibility of predistribution further away.
In Lieu of a Conclusion
Authors: Linarelli John , Salomon Margot E , Sornarajah Muthucumaraswamy
Published: May 2018

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.
‘Me’, ‘us’, and ‘others’
Authors: Aikhenvald Alexandra Y.
Published: May 2018

The Arawak language family is the largest in South America in terms of its geographical spread, with over forty extant languages. Arawak languages are spoken in at least ten locations north of the Amazon, and in at least ten south of it, and are structurally diverse. Across the family, the expression of first person is relatively consistent. This chapter starts with an overview of its marking and its meanings, with special focus on the emergence of inclusive/exclusive forms through language-internal resources and contact-induced change, followed by a case study of the means involved in the expression of first person, or ‘self’, and ‘other’ in Tariana, a well-documented Arawak language from the multilingual Vaupés River Basin linguistic area in northwest Amazonia. These involve person markers, exponents of future, and evidentiality (or grammatical expression of information source). Special narrative techniques and expression reveal the role of 'self' in Tariana verbal art.
Expressing the self in Japanese
Authors: Christofaki Rodanthi
Published: May 2018

Christofaki’s chapter provides an analysis of terms used for first-person reference in Japanese, addressing the question of how de se thought is expressed in a language with a multitude of expressions for self-reference, and in particular what aspects of the self such expressions map to. The analysis shows that in addition to the direct reference account, predicated of first-person pronouns in languages such as English, these terms also convey rich conceptual and expressive content and as such defy the standard Kaplanian (1989) classification. The chapter next moves to a critical assessment of the plausibility of a linguistic relativity account of the self which has been based on these data, and supports a universalist view instead, on which, on the one hand, different aspects (or facets) of the self are distinguished, but on the other they sum up to a cross-culturally comparable self.
Charting the speaker-relatedness of impersonal pronouns
Authors: Huang Minyao , Srioutai Jiranthara , Gréaux Mélanie
Published: May 2018

Impersonal pronouns have been claimed to express generic reference that possesses a special connection to the speaker in unembedded contexts. Drawing on cross-linguistic data and new experimental findings, the authors propose a novel typology to capture the range of speaker-related interpretations associated with impersonal pronouns, and put forward a contextualist semantics that explicates the proposed typology. Contrastive evidence from English, French, and Thai will testify that the uses of comparable impersonal forms in these languages allow two dimensions of variation, pertaining to speaker/non-speaker reference and generalization/non-generalization. These variations are further construed as two dimensions of contextual development—at the levels of content and force—of an unspecified, merely generic meaning of the impersonal pronoun.
Hades in the Iliad
Authors: Gazis George Alexander
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses the way in which Hades is presented in the Iliad. Although the Underworld remains remote and unreachable for the most part, its presence is always felt on the battlefield through the deaths of heroes. Hades also features in the poem in other ways, as, for example, in Iliad, 5 where the cap of Hades is used to provide absolute invisibility for Athena. The overall argument of the chapter is that Homer presents Hades in the Iliad as the realm of absolute invisibility which cannot be reached or transcended even by the gods. In doing so he sets a challenge for his poetic sight, which he takes on in Iliad 23 by temporarily transferring Hades to earth.
The ‘Catalogue of Heroes’
Authors: Gazis George Alexander
Published: May 2018

This chapter focuses on the second and final part of Odyssey 11, in which Odysseus meets his ex-companions from Troy. The effect of the ‘Intermezzo’ and the success of Odysseus’ supplication are visible: the hero is now equipped with the confidence that he faces an audience that is firmly under his influence. The chapter deals with every meeting in turn—Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax—and demonstrates that the ‘poetics of Hades’, namely the individualized, subjective, and emotional take on the past already observed in the book, applies also, or perhaps more markedly, to the great heroic personas of the epic past. The chapter concludes with an epilogue.
Subsequent Practice as a Means of Treaty Modification
Authors: Buga Irina
Published: May 2018

This chapter surveys the degree of recognition of the process of treaty modification by subsequent practice in the case law and doctrine. The analysis begins with the original ILC provision on treaty modification by subsequent practice ultimately excluded from the Vienna Convention. The focus then turns to analysing the validity, nature, and scope of the process of modification by subsequent practice, also in relation to formal amendment and a treaty’s object and purpose. Next, the chapter considers the difficult exercise of identifying modification by subsequent practice as distinguished from interpretation. Finally, the chapter explores how crucial factors such as the type of treaty regime and provision can impact the modifying process, and how alternative adaptation mechanisms can reduce the scope or need for recourse to modification. It is shown that subsequent practice can—under carefully defined conditions—alter, supplement, and terminate treaty provisions or even entire treaty frameworks.
Conclusion
Authors: Buga Irina
Published: May 2018

This concluding chapter gives an overview of the book’s main conclusions, painting a larger picture of the workings of the process of treaty modification by subsequent practice and customary law. It describes how the process may be considered and identified, in particular by dispute settlement bodies, in order to inject a degree of certainty, rather than to advocate formalism, and to explain how the possibility of treaty modification can be dealt with more consistently, with a greater sensitivity to context and circumstance. Finally, the chapter assesses the feasibility of codification of a rule on modification of treaties by subsequent practice, as attempted in the past, and reflects once more on the complexity, dynamism, and necessity of the process under international law.
The developmental role of experience-based metacognition for cultural diversity in executive function, motivation, and mindreading
Authors: Chasiotis Athanasios
Published: May 2018

How children obtain an understanding of mental states in others—“mindreading” or “theory of mind” (ToM)—during their cognitive development is a major concern in developmental psychology. There is also much debate about and empirical research on the developmental relationship between ToM and the set of processes that monitor and control thoughts and actions, i.e., executive functioning (EF). Until recently, little was known about the cross-cultural variation of both concepts. This chapter presents empirical findings on these concepts and takes a metacognitive perspective to clarify their relationship. A series of cross-cultural studies have been undertaken to specify the relationship between EF and ToM by verifying assumptions about the quality of conflict inhibition necessary for the development of ToM’s key aspect, false-belief understanding. The main argument is that an experience-based view of the metacognitive mechanisms involved might give a more parsimonious explanation of their relationship and their cultural variations.
The relation between language and mental state reasoning
Authors: Ünal Ercenur , Papafragou Anna
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses how children’s conceptual representations of the mind make contact with language. It focuses on two domains: the understanding of the conditions that lead to knowledge, and the ability to attribute knowledge to oneself and others. Specifically, it asks whether language provides the representational resources necessary for representing mental states and whether cross-linguistic differences in encoding of mental states influence sensitivity to the features that distinguish the conditions that allow people to gain knowledge. Empirical findings in these domains strongly suggest that language scaffolds the development of these cognitive abilities without altering the underlying conceptual representations of mental states.
Respectable uncertainty and pathetic truth in Amazonian Quichua-speaking culture
Authors: Nuckolls Janis , Swanson Tod
Published: May 2018

It is argued in this chapter, on the basis of evidence from grammar, discourse, and verbal art, that for Amazonian Quichua speakers, there is a cultural preference for expressing uncertainty, which is linked with animistic perspectivism. Animistic perspectivism endows nonhumans with subjectivity and implies that there is an infinite multiplicity of perspectives, thereby making a single, totalizing truth impossible. Respectable uncertainty is also apparent in the system of evidentiality, in speech reports, echo questions, and verbal art, all of which emphasize perspective over certainty. A type of certainty that Runa do value, however, and which would not be valid within a rational framework of inquiry, is that of emotional truth, involving feelings of empathy for others, including nonhumans. Emotional truth, then, provides an exception to the preference for uncertainty, and may lead people to confidently reason about ethical matters.​
Explanatory pluralism across cultures and development
Authors: Legare Cristine H , Shtulman Andrew
Published: May 2018

Humans use natural and supernatural explanations for phenomena such as illness, death, and human origins. These explanations are available not just to different individuals within a society, but to the same individual, coexisting within a single mind. This chapter proposes that understanding the coexistence of qualitatively different explanations is fundamentally a cognitive–developmental endeavor, speaking to general questions of knowledge acquisition, socialization, and the interaction of cognition and culture. The chapter first reviews research demonstrating that coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations is not a short-lived, transitional phenomenon that wanes in the course of development, but is instead evident (and widespread) among adults. It then speculates on the psychological origins of coexistence and discusses implications for metacognition. Finally, directions are proposed for future research to inform understanding of how individuals incorporate natural and supernatural explanations across content domains, development, and cultures.
Ground form verb patterns
Authors: Glanville Peter John
Published: May 2018

Chapter 3 considers the semantics of the three variants of Arabic ground form verb, distinguished by the quality of their second vowel, termed the theme vowel, in the perfective. The chapter illustrates that the theme vowel indicates the semantic role assigned to the subject of the verb. It relies on the notion of prototypical transitivity that encompasses an agent and a patient, expanding this to cover other related types of prototypical participant order. It argues that one ground form variant consists of verbs whose subject serves an initiator-type semantic role, a second variant is comprised of verbs with subjects assigned an endpoint role, and the third variant simply construes an entity in a state. The conclusion notes that in some cases all three variants containing the same consonantal root are attested, and considers the implications of this for a possible direction of derivation.
Symmetry
Authors: Glanville Peter John
Published: May 2018

Chapter 5 determines the semantic typology of patterns III and VI, sometimes termed the vowel-lengthening patterns. It asserts that verbs formed in these patterns are symmetrical predicates, denoting relations consisting of two complementary forces. It shows that the difference between the two patterns results from the interplay between an underlying symmetric relation and a figure–ground orientation in which one of the participant roles involved is made more prominent than the other. The chapter divides verbs formed in pattern III into verbs of resistance, risk, competition, interaction, and co-action, and those formed in pattern VI into reciprocal verbs, feigning verbs, chaining verbs, and verbs of progressive change. It argues that an account based on a common symmetric structure is able to unite this diverse range of verbs within one analysis, and it offers data from other languages to support this claim.
Repetition
Authors: Glanville Peter John
Published: May 2018

Chapter 7 is an analysis of Arabic verb patterns characterized by reduplication. It argues that the repetition of phonological material in a given verb is symbolic of repeated action in the event that the verb describes. The chapter examines verbs marked by gemination of the second root consonant, itself a type of reduplication, and verbs marked by identity of the first and second consonants. It considers the role of sound symbolism in accounting for the difference between these two verb patterns, and discusses the extent to which the notion of a biconsonantal etymon and the idea of a phonestheme are useful in establishing the origins of certain verbs and their derivational relationship to other verbs containing the same two consonants. The chapter concludes with an account of the shifting semantic function of these patterns over time.
The rise of gender in Nalca (Mek, Tanah Papua)
Authors: Wälchli Bernhard
Published: May 2018

This chapter reconstructs how Nalca, a Mek language of the Trans-New Guinea phylum, has acquired gender markers and describes the non-canonical properties of this highly unusual gender system. Gender in Nalca is mainly assigned by two different defaults, phonological assignment is holistic, there is a gender switch depending on the syntax of the noun phrase, controller and target are adjacent, and gender has the function of case marker hosts. Gender in Nalca is only weakly entrenched in the lexicon and predominantly phrasal. It is argued that canonical gender is an attractor (a complex, diachronically stable structure with heterogeneous origins). A model of the gender attractor based on the notion of information transfer chain is developed. The rise of Nalca gender is an instance of system emergence where several diachronic processes, such as grammaticalization, reanalysis, and analogy, interact. Chains of rapid diachronic change are triggered by anomalies that entail other anomalies.
Non-canonical gender in African languages
Authors: Garbo Francesca Di , Agbetsoamedo Yvonne
Published: May 2018

This chapter investigates interactions between gender and number, and between gender and evaluative morphology in eighty-four African languages. It argues that interactions of gender with other grammatical domains (e.g. number) and/or with domains of derivational morphology (e.g. diminutive/augmentative) represent instances of non-canonical gender. This is based on two assumptions: (1) canonical morphosyntactic features should be maximally independent from each other, and (2) canonical gender should be an inherent lexical property of nouns, not manipulable for semantic or pragmatic purposes. The gender systems of the sampled languages appear to be frequently non-canonical because they are prone to interact with the morphosyntactic encoding of number distinctions and with the formation of diminutive and augmentative nouns. The chapter further outlines some suggestions as to how interactions between gender and other domains of nominal morphology may contribute to assess asymmetries between gender and other functional domains, as well as the complexity of gender systems.
Theorizing the Relationship between Different Bodies of Law
Authors: Gragl Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter discusses and critically analyses legal monism and its main theoretical competitors (legal dualism and legal pluralism) from a philosophical, historical, and legal viewpoint. Legal monism will only be described in rather broad strokes and brushes here, since the remainder of this book is dedicated to its defence anyway. This rough overview will only serve to give an outline of the different versions of monism, which will then help make the case for the epistemological-normative version of monism as envisaged by the pure theory of law. Furthermore dualism, its main characteristics, and a critical appraisal, and legal pluralism and its most prominent varieties will be scrutinized and critiqued. A conclusion on the theoretical approaches discussed here eventually paves the way for the subsequent main parts of this book.
The Epistemological Necessity of Legal Monism
Authors: Gragl Paul
Published: May 2018

This chapter depicts and defends monism in its positivist-epistemological manifestation (as envisaged by the Vienna School of Jurisprudence’s pure theory of law) as the most viable concept to theorize the relationship between different bodies of law. After a short introduction to the (neo-)Kantian sources of Kelsen’s theory, the concept of the Grundnorm and the hierarchy of norms will be discussed in detail. Subsequently, it will be argued why legal monism under the primacy of international law is the only avenue through which the law can be meaningfully cognized and the concept of legal validity be taken seriously. The last part of the chapter is dedicated to a defence of legal monism against two of its staunchest critics, namely H.L.A. Hart and Joseph Raz.
The Political Economy of Italy's Decline
Authors: Capussela Andrea Lorenzo
Published: May 2018

This book offers an interpretation of Italy’s decline, which began two decades before the Great Recession. It argues that its deeper roots lie in the political economy of growth. This interpretation is illustrated through a discussion of Italy’s political and economic history since its unification, in 1861. The emphasis is placed on the country’s convergence to the productivity frontier and TFP performance, and on the evolution of its social order and institutions. The lens through which its history is reviewed, to illuminate the origins and evolution of the current constraints to growth, is drawn from institutional economics and Schumpeterian growth theory. It is exemplified by analysing two alternative reactions to the insufficient provision of public goods: an opportunistic one—employing tax evasion, corruption, or clientelism as means to appropriate private goods—and one based on enforcing political accountability. From the perspective of ordinary citizens and firms such social dilemmas can typically be modelled as coordination games, which have multiple equilibria. Self-interested rationality can thus lead to a spiral, in which several mutually reinforcing vicious circles lead society onto an inefficient equilibrium characterized by low political accountability and weak rule of law. The book follows the gradual setting in of this spiral, despite an ambitious attempt at institutional reform, in 1962–4, and its resumption after a severe endogenous shock, in 1992–4. It concludes that innovative ideas can overcome the constraints posed by that spiral, and ease the country’s shift onto a fairer and more efficient equilibrium.
Introduction
Authors: Henning Tim
Published: May 2018

Imagine you are standing in a hotel room and you are in panic. You believe that there is a fire in the hotel, and that in fact the corridor outside your door is in flames already. Looking out of the window, you realize that it might be possible to jump out and land safely in the canal beneath....
Human Fallibility and Fallibilism about Knowledge
Authors: Brown Jessica
Published: May 2018

This chapter distinguishes between fallibilism and infallibilism by appeal to entailment: infallibilists hold that knowledge that p requires evidence which entails that p; fallibilists deny that. It outlines some of the recent motivations for infallibilism, including the infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions, the threshold problem, closure, and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. Further, we see how contemporary infallibilists attempt to avoid scepticism by appeal either to a generous conception of evidence or a shifty view of knowledge, such as contextualism. The chapter explains the book’s focus on non-shifty versions of infallibilism which defend a generous conception of evidence. It ends by defending the entailment definition of infallibilism over other potential definitions, and outlining the chapters to come.
Infallibilism and Evidential Support
Authors: Brown Jessica
Published: May 2018

This chapter examines and criticizes the infallibilist’s commitment to the Sufficiency of Knowledge for Self-Support: if one knows that p then p is part of one’s evidence for p. This claim about evidential support faces the important challenge of explaining why it is generally infelicitous to cite a known proposition as evidence for itself. For instance, even if one knows, say, that Arctic sea ice is retreating, it’s infelicitous to reply to a request for evidence that Arctic sea ice is retreating by simply saying, ‘Arctic sea ice is retreating’. Intuitively, this reply constitutes a refusal to provide evidence that Arctic sea ice is retreating. The infallibilist might attempt to appeal to pragmatics or an error theory to explain away the infelicity. But I argue that these strategies fail.
Knowledge, Chance, and Practical Reasoning
Authors: Brown Jessica
Published: May 2018

This chapter considers well-known objections to fallibilism from practical reasoning and the infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions. In reply, it argues that, in fact, fallibilism and infallibilism face similar puzzles and have the same broad options of response. Since the fallibilist and the infallibilist each take their views to allow that most of our ordinary claims to knowledge are correct, they both face the puzzle that, as stakes rise, one no longer seems to be in a good enough epistemic position to rely on what one knows in one’s practical reasoning. Further, it argues that they both have the same broad options of reply to this puzzle, depending on what notion of probability they hold is relevant to practical reasoning. Relatedly, they have the same broad options for explaining the infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know that p, but it might be that not-p’.
Introduction
Authors: Sainsbury Mark
Published: May 2018

In the blink of an eye, I can redirect my thought from London to Austin, from apples to unicorns, from former President Obama to the mythical flying horse, Pegasus. How is this possible? How can we think about things that do not exist, given that they are not there to be thought about?...
“Something”
Authors: Sainsbury Mark
Published: May 2018

“Something” does not work in English the way “∃” works in a first-order language: it cannot always be associated with a domain of objects, and it can quantify into some positions that cannot be occupied by names or nominative phrases (as in “You are something that I am not—kind”). The best positive account of how it works, detailed and defended in this chapter, is substitutional. Since not all substitutes introduce objects, not all uses of “something” are ontologically committing. One merit of the view is that it explains the consistency of believing that there are things that don’t exist while not believing that there are nonexistent things.
Concern, Respect, and Cooperation
Authors: Cullity Garrett
Published: May 2018

Three things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality—or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as three independently important foundations of morality. It sets out a plural-foundation moral theory with affinities to that of W. D. Ross. There are major differences: the account of the foundations of morality differs from Ross’s, and there is a more elaborate explanation of how the rest of morality derives from them. However, the overall aim is similar. This is to illuminate the structure of morality by showing how its complex content is generated from a relatively simple set of underlying elements—the complexity results from the various ways in which one part of morality can derive from another, and the various ways in which the derived parts of morality can interact. Plural-foundation moral theories are sometimes criticized for having nothing helpful to say about cases in which their fundamental norms conflict. Responding to this, the book concludes with three detailed applications of the theory: to the questions surrounding paternalism, the use of others as means, and our moral responsibilities as consumers.
Norms, Reasons, and Fit
Authors: Cullity Garrett
Published: May 2018

What kind of elements provide the foundations of morality? The answer defended in this chapter is ‘norms of presumptive fitness’. This is explained and defended by contrasting it with Ross’s more familiar answer: ‘prima facie duties’. ‘Fitness’ is a name for the relation that desire bears to the desirable and praise to the praiseworthy. Presumptive fitness is the relation of being fit-unless-undermined. The case for grounding morality on norms of this kind is that it offers to rectify the ways in which Ross’s view is too self-contained, too narrow, too shallow, too unqualified, and too simple. In the course of explaining this, the chapter provides an account of the relationship between wrongness, reasons, value, and importance.
A Morality of Relationships
Authors: Cullity Garrett
Published: May 2018

This chapter surveys the pluralist theory of morality set out in Parts I and II. It explains why the theory should be thought of as neither consequentialist nor deontological, how it makes morality into something worth caring about, and how it offers to meet the challenges set out at the start of the book. The main emphasis is on explaining how, by interacting with others in the three ways that are basic to morality, we participate in three valuable kinds of interpersonal relationship. By appealing to these relationships, we can justify claims about the foundations of morality, without attempting to derive them from a deeper foundation. We can also shed light on morality’s importance, its unity, and its complexity.
Scene Setting
Authors: Thomas Emily
Published: May 2018

Absolute Time studies roughly a century of British metaphysics, starting from the 1640s. This chapter contextualizes this period of history, both philosophically and more widely. It opens with a speedy and extremely selective Cook’s tour of the history of philosophy of time leading up to seventeenth-century philosophy, emphasizing the work of Aristotle and Plotinus. It continues by describing the metaphysics of time found in a variety of early seventeenth-century British philosophers. The final part of this chapter enters into the wider history of the period, discussing non-philosophical reasons that may have played a role in increasing early modern interest in time: horology, chronology, and apocalypse studies.
A Continental Interlude
Authors: Thomas Emily
Published: May 2018

This chapter describes the absolutisms of two Continental Europeans: Jan Baptist van Helmont and Pierre Gassendi. These figures are important to us in part because it has been argued that later British writers pick up on their ideas. On Van Helmont’s absolutism, time emanates from God. On Gassendi’s absolutism, space and time are incorporeal, dimensional beings that can be occupied by bodies; it is unclear how they relate to God. The final part of this chapter explores the absolutism of English philosopher Walter Charleton, which draws on Gassendi’s absolutism. Although there are deep similarities between the views of Gassendi and Charleton on space and time, this chapter argues there are differences too.
European Disunion? Social and Economic Divergence in Europe, and their Political Consequences
Authors: Palier Bruno , Rovny Allison E. , Rovny Jan
Published: May 2018

This chapter demonstrates the economic and political dualization of Europe, and a growing divergence between two groups of countries as a result of the economic crisis. The first group of countries in the north of Europe, concentrated around Germany, Austria, and the Nordic countries, along with certain eastern European countries having close economic ties to Germany, has steadily emerged from the crisis and resumed a positive economic and social path. The second group, however, comprised mainly of the southern and eastern periphery, remains stuck in negative economic and social situations following the crisis. The chapter shows that despite the seemingly uniform rise of populist anti-EU challengers across Europe, these challengers differ significantly in the grievances they raise. Radical right parties are dominant in the center of Europe, while radical left parties outperform the radical right in the periphery, a dynamic that constitutes a second, political, dualization of Europe.