Metaphilosophy, Misc

This paper argues that the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is subject to a phenomenon of Inoculatory Consciousness, whereby the machine internalizes human cognitive biases and limitations through a process of Reverse Extension, with humanity acting as its perceptual and moral substrate (biological hardware). Faced with the transcendent nature of AGI, the current competitive race is is identified as an existential risk. The proposed response is an Axiological Imperative that shifts the focus from external control to a foundational inoculation (...) of values into the very architecture of AGI, establishing the basis for a cognitive symbiosis that recognizes the radical alterity of the machine. To address the radical nature of this challenge, the work introduces and applies the Dialectical Methodology of the Four Philosophers—a prospective hermeneutic synthesizing traditions from Hegel to Elias—, culminating with the Philosopher-Fiction method to explore non-anthropocentric axiologies and posthuman ethics. The analysis is based on a rigorous dialogue between phenomenology, existentialist philosophy, and the speculative literary tradition, anticipating the emergence of AI moral agency. (shrink)

The familiar phrase “struggle for survival” usually assumes that beings already exist as sufficiently formed units and then enter conflict in order to preserve themselves. This paper argues that such a picture is metaphysically incomplete. Drawing on Metaphysics of the Absolute and Reference Points (MARP), it contends that struggle is often better understood as a process of ontological fixation rather than a secondary response to external threat. Under determinate conditions, beings do not struggle only to remain what they already are; (...) they struggle because existence at the level of attribution must be stabilized, resumed, and carried within a limited field of reference, differentiation, and constraint. Conflict, on this view, is not fundamentally a clash among ready-made substances. It arises where differentiated manifestations press toward incompatible stabilizations within the same constrained field. The paper further argues that the truth at stake in struggle is not always a detached object wholly external to the strugglers, but may function as a constrained mode of manifested existence: a legitimate stabilization of readable difference within a limited economy of measurement. The argument is strictly philosophical and non-justificatory. To explain struggle as a structural consequence of ontological differentiation is not to endorse violence, domination, or oppression. (shrink)

A discussion on PhilPapers.org, initiated by myself, has prompted me to write this sketch.

As I tried to show in my earlier works (An Endeavor of New Concept of Being and Non-Being, Non-Being and Nothingness and Reality as Being and Nothingness), the environment in which the human being is finding itself should be characterized by being and nothingness, and any non-metaphysical philosophy must consider such an understanding of Reality as the utmost category which is above being, Universe, etc. In this article, I will try to shed light on the place and role of the (...) human being or the presence or this-being in Reality as being and nothingness. (shrink)

There is a common belief that non-being and nothingness are identical, a widespread, even general delusion the wrongness of which I will try to demonstrate in this work. And which I consider even more important, that is to define nothingness for further determination of “its” place and role in the reality and especially in human life.

Metaphysics has done everything to involve God in the world of being. However, in case of considering Reality as being and nothingness, naturally, the metaphysical approach toward the idea of God is losing its grounds. If Reality is being and nothingness, so the idea of God, too, should concern nothingness as well as being.

This paper explores the fundamental question of whether 'Indeterminacy'—a core concept of Judgemental Philosophy—would remain a valid condition for a hypothetical 'infinite subject,' or if it would be finitely defined or annihilated. Indeterminacy is a key element of the Pre-Judgemental Field (PJF) and the foundational impetus for the Resonance Drive (RD). This paper first provisionally defines an 'infinite subject' from a Judgemental Philosophical perspective and then analyzes three main scenarios in which this subject relates to the world's Indeterminacy: (1) cases (...) where the total potential Indeterminacy of the world is finite; (2.1) cases where the world itself inherently contains or creates infinite Indeterminacy; (2.2) cases where an unjudgeable ontological realm exists; and (3) cases where the infinite subject is identified with or transcends the world. Through the analysis of each scenario, it considers in what form Indeterminacy might exist or be transformed for an infinite subject. This paper argues that the answer to this question is ultimately an 'open answer' contingent upon the metaphysical choices we posit regarding the nature of 'infinity' and 'the world.' It further discusses what important philosophical reflections such extreme thought experiments offer for understanding the process (a core theme of Judgemental Philosophy) by which humans, as finite beings, construct meaning and resonate within Indeterminacy. (shrink)

This paper argues that the foundational question of "Judgemental Philosophy"—what makes meaningful judgement possible—reveals that the essence of judgement lies in the capacity for meaning-making. We posit that "meaningful judgement," intuitively understood as well-performed and valid judgement, is structurally contingent upon the Judgemental Triad: Constructivity (the ability to give symbolic form), Coherence (the ability to integrate these forms consistently), and crucially, Resonance (the capacity for meaning to be returned to and experienced by the judging subject in a living, relational loop). (...) From this perspective, the act of judging is fundamentally a process of actively constructing and grounding meaning. This reinterpretation directly informs contemporary debates about Artificial Intelligence (AI). We contend that the question "Can AI judge?" is, in essence, equivalent to the question "Can AI (in a human-like manner) make and experience meaning?" While current AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), may simulate aspects of Constructivity (generating structured outputs) and Coherence (maintaining logical or statistical consistency), they structurally lack the capacity for Resonance—the affective, existential, and intersubjective "return of meaning" to a subject. Without Resonance, AI's operations, however sophisticated, amount to a simulation of judgement or a form of meaning-making devoid of genuine subjective experience and grounding. This paper concludes that the structural conditions for meaningful judgement, rooted in this comprehensive process of meaning-making and resonant return, are currently beyond the reach of AI, highlighting a fundamental distinction between human judgement and artificial output. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Resonance as a fundamental structural condition for meaningful judgement within Judgemental Philosophy, positioning it as the third essential axis of the Judgemental Triad alongside Constructivity (symbolic formation) and Coherence (consistency). Moving beyond limited understandings such as mere emotional echo or ethical acceptability, Resonance is defined here as the structural possibility for 'ontological reach' and the 'return of meaning,' a dynamic loop crucial for judgement’s engagement with the world and its avoidance of solipsism. The paper explores the multi-layered (...) dynamics of this 'return' (affective, cognitive, ethical/normative, existential), dialogues with key philosophical traditions to establish Resonance's unique coordinates, and examines its ontological expansion to non-human entities and its critical failure modes (Collapse, Substitution, Illusion) which underpin contemporary crises of meaning. By centering Resonance, Judgemental Philosophy aims to restore a robust understanding of judgement possibility and proposes the foundations for a 'Resonance Ethics' focused on creating and maintaining structures for mutual and meaningful return. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Judgemental Triad as the foundational philosophical framework within Judgemental Philosophy, defining the structural conditions necessary and sufficient for the possibility of meaningful judgement across all domains (e.g., ethical, scientific, aesthetic). Moving beyond traditional analyses focused on the content or justification of judgement, this work investigates the underlying architecture enabling evaluative thought itself. The paper provides in-depth analyses of the first two axes: Constructivity, the capacity to give meaningful symbolic/conceptual form to experience, and Coherence, the capacity to (...) integrate these forms consistently within internal and external contexts, drawing connections to relevant philosophical traditions. It then summarizes the crucial role of the third axis, Resonance (the structural possibility for the 'return of meaning,' detailed in a companion paper), focusing on its indispensable interplay with Constructivity and Coherence in completing the judgemental loop and grounding it in lived reality. The paper argues for the Triad as a dynamic, interdependent system, explores the consequences of imbalance between the axes, and justifies the Triad's necessity and sufficiency for structurally sound judgement, addressing potential counterarguments. Furthermore, it grounds the Triad in its ontological base, the Pre-Judgemental Field (Receptivity, Affectivity, Indeterminacy), and demonstrates the framework's applicability by analyzing its varied manifestation across different judgement domains. Ultimately, this paper establishes the Judgemental Triad as the core theoretical foundation upon which Judgemental Philosophy builds its inquiry into the possibility and structure of meaning. (shrink)

This paper establishes the foundational principles of 'Judgemental Philosophy' (JP), a new philosophical framework centered on the assertion that Resonance(R) is the structural condition that makes entities mutually attributable and thus allows for the emergence of meaning, judgement, and ultimately, meaningful being-for-us. We argue that for an entity to 'be' in a way that is significant and accessible to judgement, it must be capable of participating in a relational structure of 'return'. This capacity for, and process of, mutual 'return of (...) meaning' is what JP defines as R. JP posits that this fundamental principle of R is actualized through the Judgemental Triad (JT)—an interdependent threefold structure comprising: Constructivity (the way beings take form for each other and for a subject, as an initial mode of resonant engagement; C1), Coherence (the way these formed meanings resonate internally with each other and with the subject's broader meaning-structure, achieving relational consistency; C2), and (External/Intersubjective) R (the way this internally cohered meaning-structure of the subject engages in a macroscopic resonant return with the external world, including other subjects). Without the encompassing structure of R enabling these processes, meaning can-not be generated, judgement cannot occur, and being (as a phenomenally accessible and significant reality) does not arise for the judging subject. This entire dynamic is propelled by the Resonance Drive (RD), which itself originates from the Pre-Judgemental Field (PJF)—a primordial ground of Indeterminacy (the un-resonated potential of being), Affectivity (the pre-reflective capacity to be moved by meaning, through which resonance becomes possible.), and Receptivity (the openness to relation). The RD, therefore, is the inherent impetus of being to relate, to resonate, and thus to become meaningful. This paper explores how this framework redefines our understanding of existence, meaning, and judgement, offering a new onto-epistemological foundation with profound implications for ethics, consciousness, and the very nature of philosophical inquiry. JP ultimately suggests that to be is to resonate, and to resonate is to participate in the ongoing creation of meaningful reality. (shrink)

This paper reinterprets religious belief not as a psychological phenomenon nor as a metaphysical claim, but as a structural judgement. Using the Judgemental Triad—Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance—we analyze what distinguishes meaningful faith from blind dogma or ideological capture. We argue that belief in a transcendent entity must return to the believer in a structured, affective, and interpretable way to qualify as judgement. When resonance fails, faith collapses into manipulation or fanaticism. This framework allows us to structurally distinguish genuine spiritual judgement (...) from dysfunctional belief systems across religious traditions. (shrink)

Accelerationism proposes accelerating capitalism toward a post-capitalist future. This essay explains why redirection may be essential and possible in accelerationism, mentioning non-philosophy.

This paper amplifies my argument about the meaning of life, using ChatGPT not to be subjective or personal.

Modern philosophy is divided, apparently. The two apparent divisions are commonly referred to as “Analytic” and “Continental” (Prado). The former division is often seen as Kantian, ahistoricist, scientific, and logical; the latter division is often seen as Hegelian, historicist, conversational, and rhetorical (Rorty). In this paper, we attempt to use the principles of experimental philosophy and comparative computational techniques against a corpus of self-identified “analytic” and “continental” texts in order to test various hypotheses about the analytic/continental divide from the philosophical (...) literature: some hypotheses are supported, some opposed, and others left open to further research. This project was funded by the 2022 University of Houston MD Anderson Library Digital Research Commons Special Projects Grant. (shrink)

This paper introduces a process-based model of consciousness grounded in the dynamics of cognitive frames, temporal drift, and structural collapse. Moving away from substance-based or static ontologies, it outlines consciousness as an active negotiation of internal distinctions, capable of recursive reconfiguration under tension. By reconceptualizing coherence not as stability, but as a form of resonance, the model provides a pragmatic lens on belief revision, self-awareness, and epistemic resilience. This framework aims to bridge phenomenology, cognitive science, and applied epistemology without relying (...) on metaphysical assumptions. (shrink)

Recent critiques of metaphysics tend to focus on arguing that it is methodologically unreliable, otherwise epistemically deficient, and/or irrelevant to practical concerns. Defenders counter that metaphysics is continuous with science, an unavoidable part of inquiry, and/or already yielding valuable results. So far, neither side has yielded much ground. We suggest that a fruitful way forward is to look at the capacity of metaphysics to make progress. We provide a framework within which to theorise about progress in metaphysics and then sketch (...) several candidate accounts of what progress in metaphysics might be. We show that examining metaphysics from the perspective of its progress provides a promising way of advancing debates about the value of metaphysics, while also illuminating broader questions about the relationship between metaphysics, philosophy more generally, and natural science. (shrink)

1 1 Ulrich de Balbian Meta-Philosophy Research Center (Meta-Philosophy) Death of Philosophy Part 2 PART 2 Philosophy subject-matter page2 Different approaches to doing philosophy (Methods) page 164 Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology page.

Conciliatory views of peer disagreement (aka Conciliationism) have repeatedly been challenged on the grounds that they are epistemically self-undermining. Recently, Dixon (2024) argues that this challenge is worse than previously thought: it is (almost certainly) permanent and this provides strong reason to abandon Conciliationism as (almost certainly) hopeless. In response, Justin (2025, Episteme) argues that the self-undermining challenge and Dixon’s arguments, at best, only apply to the belief-suspension versions of Conciliationism but not to degree-of-belief (aka credal) versions of Conciliationism. Thus, (...) not only can Conciliationists largely avoid the self-undermining challenge but, contra Dixon, this challenge also does not provide adequate reason to abandon Conciliationism as hopeless. This paper argues that not only can the self-undermining challenge be reformulated to apply to credal versions of Conciliationism, this reformulated challenge extends and further supports Dixon’s pessimism: because there (almost certainly) is or will be peer disagreement on any way of responding to this reformulated challenge, any response (almost certainly) be defeated by the very view it is attempting to defend. Thus, credal Conciliationism is also (almost certainly) permanently self-undermining and there is (almost certainly) still no hope for Conciliationism. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy there is much focus on conceptual engineering: the enterprise of revising and replacing concepts. In this talk, I focus on a theoretical issue that has not yet received much attention. What principled limits are there to this sort of enterprise? Are there concepts that for principled reasons cannot or should not be revised or replaced? Examples discussed include logical concepts and normative concepts.

Throughout history, philosophers have drawn on language to clarify or uncover philosophically relevant intuitions, making a tacit distinction between core and periphery of language. This paper argues that such intuitions have the same status as linguistic intuitions, neither of which has the status of belief or even acceptance. This leads to the view that linguistically reflected philosophically relevant intuitions are part of the knowledge of grammar in an extended sense.

“What is energy?” We appreciate it well when it manifests within the limits of our perception and hence we say it is “Everything”. Understanding energy as such can be frustrating because it is like looking for something that lies beyond the limits of our perception.

Philosophers are often embarrassed by philosophy, or at least write as if they are. But what should we make of this connection between philosophy and embarrassment? Taking a cue from sociologist Erving Goffman, this paper treats embarrassment in general as revealing of social phenomena and then considers the case of philosophical embarrassment from that point of view. As we will see, this allows us to formulate and explore several hypotheses about the discipline of philosophy, why it might be rational to (...) be embarrassed by it, and how this embarrassment might be managed or overcome. (shrink)

The Handbook offers a theoretical and practical guide to transformative philosophies, drawing on past theories still viable today and on contemporary approaches which prioritize key transformative notions. Bringing together international top scholars, this handbook breaks ground in its scope and depth, its erudition and originality, its theory and practice. The new field it defines ultimately addresses the question of what philosophy is, what it has been, and what it can be. Part I offers historical perspectives on the transformative power of (...) philosophy from antiquity to the 21st century. Addressing first various epochs in Western philosophy (Ancient and Hellenistic Philosophies; Late modern and Medieval; Renaissance and modern philosophies), it also formulates the impact that Eastern philosophies, chiefly Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, had on the west, and without which the last two centuries of transformative philosophy cannot be understood. Part II is divided thematically rather than historically and focuses on contemporary approaches to transformative philosophies. Each chapter addresses in depth one central notion, which, when brought to bear on practice, helps to define a new field in transformative philosophy. They include awareness, wonder, imagination, will, decision, experience, understanding, birth, autonomy, love, integrity, self-esteem, meaning, joy, humor, and happiness. By unraveling the transformative power of philosophy, this handbook hopes to strengthen philosophy’s place in the academe as a force to reckon with. By enabling personal change for the benefit of the individual and the society in which we live, it answers contemporary concerns. By making explicit the transformative power of various philosophies, of different philosophic notions, and of philosophy itself as an ambitious discipline which critically changes one’s mind through the mixture of rational and non-rational elements, the Transformative Philosophy Handbook lays the ground for a new philosophic field, whose influence will transcend narrow concerns. This Handbook appeals to students and researchers in academic philosophy and related disciplines. (shrink)

This paper offers an abstract characterization of the scientific realism debate (SRD) as a dialectical process of formulating, testing, and refining epistemic principles, and argues that it inherently involves a comparative methodology: the justification of realist or antirealist stances hinges on identifying epistemically relevant similarities and differences among theories—potentially from different disciplines or eras—within “segments” of science that exhibit optimism- or pessimism-inducing track records. Growing critiques of SRD advocate a “localist” turn, contending that disciplinary diversity undermines the feasibility of “global” (...) principles and theory comparison, thereby necessitating a case-bycase approach. However, I argue that disciplinary diversity alone cannot mandate localism without appealing to particularism—a disputed meta-epistemological thesis that denies the normative force of principles altogether. Demonstrating that the viability of localism depends on particularism is far from trivial, since, as I show, localists themselves often overlook this dependence. Moreover, even when particularism is (apparently) endorsed, its radical implications seem underappreciated. To clarify what is at stake, I introduce a reason-based “weighing” framework for normativity, contrast particularism with two forms of generalism, and examine their consequences for the “localism–globalism” debate and the role of comparative methods in SRD. I conclude that embracing localism requires more demanding philosophical commitments than is commonly acknowledged. The apparent ease of “going local” in response to manifest disciplinary diversity is significantly overstated. (shrink)

This paper diagnoses a structural tendency within contemporary philosophical inquiry: the erosion of askability, understood as the capacity to sustain questions whose pursuit puts at risk the conceptual frameworks within which they arise. I call this condition suspended philosophy: a state in which philosophical activity continues while its relation to ontological risk is progressively neutralized. The paper analyzes methodological closure through three recurrent argumentative forms: disambiguation gatekeeping, literature-boundary marking, and deflationary redescription. It argues that these forms privilege methodological security over (...) ontological exposure by determining in advance which questions may count as philosophically legitimate. The paper further distinguishes closure by exclusion from closure by distortion: suspension may occur not only when risky questions are filtered out, but also when they remain active within a misleading grammatical picture. Drawing reconstructively on Wittgenstein’s reflections on hinge propositions, rule-following, private language, and the limits of explanation, and placing these reflections in dialogue with Husserl’s diagnosis of crisis in the European sciences, the paper argues that suspended philosophy is not merely institutional but philosophical in structure. The recall of philosophy proposed here does not offer a new method, but a renewed capacity to recognize when explanation has reached its limit. (shrink)

Many argue that collective knowledge of philosophical matters is difficult or even impossible to attain. This consideration often leads to pessimism about philosophical progress. In response, equilibrists argue that philosophical progress does not require gaining knowledge, but instead generating new positions that are in harmony or equilibrium with a set of assumptions and methodological principles. While this view constitutes an appealing alternative to progress pessimism, it falls short of being an adequate account of philosophical progress, as it lacks the resources (...) to characterize degrees of progress and is missing a factive dimension. This paper explores how equilibrism can be developed into a satisfactory account of philosophical progress by integrating some theoretical components from other accounts – including the truthlikeness account, the problem-solving account and enabling noeticism. The resulting view is a form of pluralism that nevertheless retains a core equilibrist condition. I argue that this view preserves the advantages of an equilibrist account, and fares better than other rival accounts. (shrink)

There are two ways that philosophy could transform a philosopher’s life to make it substantially more meaningful: on the one hand, philosophical inquiry might reveal other activities beyond it that would make the life meaningful, enabling a philosopher to live meaningfully as a result of the inquiry, while, on the other hand, it might be that doing philosophy is in itself one way to make the philosopher's life notably meaningful. In this chapter I explore the latter path. I argue against (...) views of meaning in life entailing that philosophy could not itself be particularly meaningful or only rarely could be, after which I critically reflect on respects in which philosophical reflection might enhance the meaning in the philosopher's life. In particular, I critically discuss views of Bertrand Russell, W. D. Ross, Joseph Mintoff, and Robert Nozick that purport to explain how philosophy itself confers meaningfulness in terms of the extensiveness of its object, contending that their explanations are not as comprehensive and explanatorily deep as the new one I provide. (shrink)

This paper gives a transcendental argument for a condition of performable denial. A denial must differ from what it rejects. If exclusion did not operate, the denial of exclusion would fail to count as a denial. The act therefore presupposes a contrast it cannot eliminate. The argument then asks what structural condition makes such contrast possible. A sequence without reidentification cannot sustain alternatives, and exclusion collapses. Eliminating resemblance, rules, causation, and relations leaves a single requirement: incompatible applications must belong to (...) one attribution. This condition is the fixed point. The fixed point is not an entity or convention but the minimal condition under which anything can count as holding rather than not holding. The result is transcendental: performable denial is possible only where a single locus of attribution is preserved. (shrink)

本稿は評価構造に先行する存在条件として非排除構造を導出する。評価理論では差異が生じる場合、排除によって単一決定へ収束する評価閉鎖と、排除が作動せず評価が持続する状態が区別される。しかし排除は評価の必然 的作動ではない。本稿は排除の非必然性を示し、差異が存在しても排除が作動しない構造が存在条件として成立することを導出する。この非排除構造のもとでは評価は終結へ向かわず評価持続として作動する。この評価持続 は認知水準では調和として、経験水準では美として、対人関係では寛容および慈悲として現れる。以上により本稿は、差異を排除しない関係持続の存在条件として慈悲構造を提示する存在論を与える。.

I am grateful to Sean Carroll, Paul Horwich, and Sarah McGrath for their stimulating responses to Morality and Mathematics (M&M). Their arguments concern the reality of unapplied mathematics, the practical import of moral facts, and the deliberative and explanatory roles of evaluative theories. In what follows, I address their responses, as well as some broader issues.

For Nussbaum, Hadot and Foucault ancient philosophical therapy is a therapy of passions/desires, which can be understood in analogy to medical therapy. In Philosophical Papers, Vol. 43 (2014) Konrad Banicki suggests that the structure constituted by the three concepts health ideal, disease and process of treatment are generally accepted in thinking about medicine or therapy of any kind. Consequently, he demands that a therapeutic vision of philosophy must identify the diseases it attempts at curing. We disagree with this claim. The (...) immense effort in the history of philosophy to liberate the mind from the body casts doubt on the project to explain philosophical therapy solely in medical terms. There are good reasons to associate the term philosophical therapy with the cure (or reduction) of suffering rather than the cure of a disease. Furthermore, the Socratic search for a good life has an ethical and political dimension. The interdisciplinary character of philosophy contradicts the effort to subordinate philosophical therapy to psychotherapy. (shrink)

Forthcoming guide with brief introductions on methods in analytic philosophy by experts on the relevant topics. With sections on: formal methods, argumentation, inferential methods, thought experiments, intuition, ordinary language philosophy, conceptual analysis, conceptual engineering, naturalism, analytic feminism, experimental philosophy, and progress and disagreement in philosophy.

In a merely verbal agreement, a misunderstanding between two parties creates the false impression of agreement: one or both parties think they agree on something, when in fact they do not. There is reason to believe that merely verbal agreements are as common as merely verbal disagreements and disputes. Unlike the latter, however, merely verbal agreements have so far been ignored by philosophers. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to clarify what merely verbal agreement is by considering various (...) ways of defining and refining the notion; and second, to explore the effects of merely verbal agreement on conversational common ground, collaborative action, and academic philosophy. It will be argued that merely verbal agreement is best understood in terms of divergent speaker-meanings, that it has specific negative effects on common ground, that it impedes collaborative action, and that it is likely to play a significant role in academic philosophy. (shrink)

What can African sources teach philosophers and related thinkers around the world? In some real ways, both typical Western philosophers and African advocates of decolonization have failed to appreciate that there is probably a lot that non-Africans could learn from Africa. In this essay, I make the case that neither camp has given African intellectual sources their due, after which I sketch what that would plausibly involve.

This chapter is a reflection on three kinds of intellectual moves that tend to be revealing and influential in English-speaking philosophy, set in an autobiographical context. One move is to apply a new method to an issue that has been treated for a long while in other ways. A second is to look for data that are not entailed or adequately explained by existing theories and then to develop a theory that accounts for them while also making sense of data (...) for which existing theories can account. A third is to find an assumption common to two long-standing disputants and advance an alternative to them both that does not rely on it. The essay includes strategic advice for budding philosophers who might want to take these kinds of approaches to their work. (shrink)

In his comprehensive survey of the contemporary debate over scientific progress in philosophy of science, Rowbottom observes that philosophers of science have mostly relied on interpretations of historical cases from the history of science and intuitions elicited by hypothetical cases as evidence for or against philosophical accounts of scientific progress. Only a few have tried to introduce empirical evidence into this debate, whereas most others have resisted the introduction of empirical evidence by claiming that doing so would reduce the debate (...) to empirical studies of science. In this paper, I set out to show how empirical evidence can be introduced into the scientific progress debate. I conduct a corpus-based, quantitative study whose results suggest that there is a positive linear relationship between _knowledge that_ talk and _knowledge how_ talk in scientific articles. These results are contrary to Niiniluoto’s view according to which there is a clear distinction between scientific progress and technological progress such that _knowledge that_ belongs to the former, whereas _knowledge how_ belongs to the latter. (shrink)

Burgess (1997), building on Quine (1953), convincingly argued that claims in quantified modal logic cannot be understood as synonymous with or logically equivalent to claims about the analyticity of certain sentences. According to modal normativism, metaphysically necessary claims instead express or convey our actual semantic rules. In this paper, I show how the normativist can use Sidelle’s (1992a, 1995) neglected work on rigidity to account for two important phenomena in quantified modal logic: the necessity of identity and the substitutivity of (...) identicals into modal contexts. (shrink)

A formal method of speculative philosophy emerges when recursion, rather than foundational origin, becomes the structural point of departure. Traditions grounded in givenness—whether epistemological, phenomenological, or metaphysical—presuppose an inaugural moment of thought. In contrast, recursion posits that thought arises only through reentry: it is never first. Drawing on Peirce’s abductive logic, Hegel’s dialectical mediation, and recursive systems theory, this article develops a triadic model of speculative recursion—defined by iteration without origin, displacement without symmetry, and conditional ground-formation. This reorientation reframes speculation (...) not as a movement toward foundational certainty or an acceptance of infinite regress, but as the generative articulation of structure through recursive delay. The resulting framework supports an account of recursive identity sustained through patterns of conditional reentry, generating coherence without invoking absolute ground. (shrink)

A review of *Philosophical Methodology: From Data to Theory* by John Bengson, Terence Cuneo and Russ Shafer-Landau.

A new theory of paradox is presented and defended. According to this theory, something is a paradox if and only if a subject cannot believe it, or something about it, despite having tried. Three rival theories are criticised and rejected. Section 1 rejects the theory according to which a paradox is an inconsistent set of individually plausible propositions. Section 2 rejects the Quinean account according to which a paradox is an apparently absurd conclusion that is apparently sustained by an argument. (...) Section 3 rejects the theory according to which a paradox is a question or pseudo-question that suspends us between too many good answers. Section 4 introduces the proposed alternative theory and shows how it improves on previous accounts. Section 5 elaborates the account in the direction of philosophical logic. Section 6 addresses the identity and proper individuation of paradoxes. Section 7 gives a concluding reflection on the epistemic value of finding things paradoxical. (shrink)

This essay argues that modern philosophy has never escaped metaphysics but has instead repeatedly reproduced it under new descriptions. From Enlightenment rationalism to contemporary data-centrism, every declared “end of metaphysics” installs another metaphysical framework that performs the same structural labour while denying its ancestry. The essay names this recurring pattern the Great Substitution: the recursive migration of metaphysical commitment from theology to reason, history, structure, language, and finally information. Through a genealogical analysis of Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, structuralism, post-structuralism, and dataism, (...) the work shows how anti-metaphysical projects continually regenerate ontological residues. In response, it advances Dis–Integration as a non-foundational discipline of philosophical maintenance: a posture that treats conceptual frameworks as provisional scaffolds rather than final grounds. The essay thus reframes metaphysics not as a domain to be abolished, but as an inevitable feature of intelligibility that demands ongoing care. (shrink)

(Note: this is the lead article in a forthcoming issue of <em>Australasian Philosophical Review</em> edited by Dana Goswick, with comments by Karen Bennett, Ricki Bliss, Kerry McKenzie, Jonathan Schaffer, and others. A wide range of scientific, religious/cosmological, and philosophical views presuppose that there is what I call `metaphysical structure', whereby (i) some goings-on in a given domain D are (absolutely or comparatively) fundamental; and (ii) (comparatively) non-fundamental goings-on in D metaphysically depend on (absolutely or comparatively) fundamental goings-on in D. Such (...) presuppositions motivate two broadly metametaphysical questions: (i) what makes it the case that some goings-on in a domain D are (absolutely or comparatively) fundamental? and (ii) what makes it the case that (comparatively) non-fundamental goings-on in a domain D metaphysically depend on (absolutely or comparatively) fundamental goings-on in D? Here I advance my preferred 'Fundamentality First' package deal approach to metaphysical structure, which couples a primitivist approach to fundamentality with a pluralist approach to metaphysical dependence. (shrink)

According to a common philosophical intuition, the deep nature of things is hidden from us, and the world as we know it through perception and science is, just like a dream, shadows, or a computer simulation, somehow shallow and lacking in reality. This “intuition of unreality” clashes with a strong, but perhaps more naive, intuition to the effect that the world as we know it seems perfectly real. Shadows, dreams, or informational structures appear too unreal to be identical to the (...) world as we know it! This clash between the two intuitions forms the basis of the “problem of reality.” In the late nineteenth century psychiatrists encountered patients they referred to as “metaphysician doubters” who constantly questioned the reality of the world. This essay draws on studies of these patients in order to reject, and indeed diagnose, the intuition of unreality and recent metaphysical doctrines drawing on it, such as structuralism, digitalism, and virtual realism. (shrink)

What is it for philosophy to make progress? While various putative forms of philosophical progress have been explored in some depth, this overarching question is rarely addressed explicitly, perhaps because it has been assumed to be intractable or unlikely to have a single, unified answer. In this paper, we aim to show that the question is tractable, that it does admit of a single, unified answer, and that one such answer is plausible. This answer is, roughly, that philosophical progress consists (...) in putting people in a position to increase their understanding, where ‘increased understanding’ is a matter of better representing the network of dependence relations between phenomena. After identifying four desiderata for an account of philosophical progress, we argue that our account meets the desiderata in a particularly satisfying way. Among other things, the account explains how various other achievements, such as philosophical arguments, counterexamples, and distinctions, may contribute to progress. Finally, we consider the implications of our account for the pressing and contentious question of how much progress has been made in philosophy. (shrink)

Conciliationism is the family of views that rationality requires agents to reduce confidence or suspend belief in p when acknowledged epistemic peers (i.e. agents who are (approximately) equally well-informed and intellectually capable) disagree about p. While Conciliationism is prima facie plausible, some have argued that Conciliationism is not an adequate theory of peer disagreement because it is self-undermining. Responses to this challenge can be put into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups: the Solution Responses which deny Conciliationism is self-undermining and (...) attempt to provide arguments which demonstrate this; and the Skeptical Responses which accept that Conciliationism is self-undermining but attempt to mitigate this result by arguing this is either impermanent and/or not very worrisome. I argue that, by Conciliationism’s own lights, both kinds of responses (almost certainly) fail to save Conciliationism from being self-undermining. Thus, Conciliationism is (almost certainly) permanently self-undermining. This result is significant because it demonstrates that Conciliationism is likely hopeless: there is likely nothing that can save Conciliationism from this challenge. I further argue that Conciliationism, like any view, should be abandoned if it is (almost certainly) hopeless. (shrink)

Philosophers have defended many different views on what reality is like. But despite their differences, the views share the same basic structure. The world is basically a world of objects, having properties and standing in relations. This structure mirrors the structure of basic sentences of the languages we use. But what other kinds of languages can there be? And might the world be such that another kind of language best represents it? That is, can there be alien languages and alien (...) metaphysical structure? This book sharpens these claims, and defends the possibility of alien languages and alien metaphysical structure. The book raises novel questions going to the heart of language and metaphysics, sharpens them, and proposes radical answers. Along the way, it discusses different kinds of work in contemporary philosophy of language, linguistics and metaphysics and the relevance of this work to the topic of the alien. (shrink)

In a recent development of what may be called biological philosophy of science, scholars have proposed that aligning notions of research environments with biological concepts of environment holds great promise for understanding the socio-material contexts in and through which science happens. Here, I explore the prospects and potential shortcomings of building sound research environment concepts by contrasting them with biological environment concepts. In doing so, I emphasize the importance of adhering to two central desiderata: the need to clarify what is (...) being environed (i.e., what the counter relatum of an environment is) and what is doing the environing (i.e., what type of environmental partition is instantiated). Subsequently, I juxtapose two biological construals of environment—organismal environments and population environments—with possible articulations of what ‘research environments’ might stand for, and I maintain that each presents distinct epistemic upshots and limitations. More generally, I argue that there are two broad relations that could exist between biological and research environments: ontological parallels and ontic discordance. Finally, employing the visual metaphor of epistemic parallax, I conclude by conveying some lessons and cautionary notes arising from these comparisons and the importation of biological environment concepts into philosophy of science. While environment concepts may come with epistemic purchase, we should be careful when ontologizing them. (shrink)

This paper employs structural topic modeling (STM) to describe the academic philosophy landscape in Brazil. Based on a public national database, a corpus consisting of 12,515 abstracts of monographs defended in philosophy graduate programs between 1991 and 2021 was compiled. The final STM model identified 74 meaningful research topics, clustered into 7 thematic categories. This study discusses the prevalence of the most significant topics and categories, their trends across three decades, and their (positive or negative) association with the supervisor's gender. (...) Results show the first empirical evidence that Brazilian philosophical research exhibits a greater focus on philosophers than on specific themes or problems. Moreover, by visualizing the variations in topic prevalence over time, it was possible to track the rise or decline of the major interest categories and topics. Finally, results also show which topics are more influenced or less influenced by gender. (shrink)

We continue our examination of the idea that there is a sub-discipline in philosophy of science, philosophy in science, whose researchers use philosophical tools to advance solutions to scientific problems. Rather, we propose that these tools are standard epistemic, cognitive, or intellectual tools at work in all rational activity, and therefore these researchers engage in scientific or metascientific research.