I argue in this paper that negating and counterbalancing should be recognised as two fundamental categories of corrective action. First, I show that recognising the distinction helps to avoid confusion when asking normative questions about the justification of imposing corrective duties. Second, I argue that we have moral reasons to care about the difference between negating and counterbalancing detrimental states, and this has implications for permissible action. I then outline some ways in which the discussion helps us explain (...) and justify specific legal remedies in private law, and I conclude by noting some exceptions to the normative priority of negating over counterbalancing. (shrink)

Following Aristotle, classical Islamic philosophers distinguished between two types of knowledge: conception and assent. This paper argues that the discussions elicited by this distinction are an essential feature of postclassical Islamic philosophy (ca. 1200–1800). The early postclassical philosophers made the distinction central to logic and thereby to epistemology and scientific inquiry at large. As the distinction came to be perceived as problematic, it sparked philosophical arguments about a range of issues in logic and epistemology. One particularly pertinent (...) problem was the nature of the distinction itself: it was understood as an exclusive disjunction, but it seemed impossible to define one notion without recourse to the other. In the fourteenth century this led to the emergence of a new genre of philosophical writings exclusively dedicated to discussing the precise nature of the distinction. This paper discusses some of the central arguments of these writings, showing how philosophers grappling with that problem devised new theories of judgement and new forms of the proposition as they were continuously developing their theory of knowledge. (shrink)

On Logins’s Erotetic View of reasons, normative reasons are the possible appropriate answers to normative ‘Why?’ questions. These questions can be interpreted in two ways: as requiring either an argument/reasoning or an explanation. Consequently, this view posits not only normative reasoning reasons but also normative explanatory reasons. Against this view, this paper argues for two claims. First, putative normative explanatory reasons are not fundamentally distinct from normative justificatory reasons. Second, although normative ‘Why?’ questions could sometimes guide someone normatively, these questions (...) themselves are not genuinely normative. (shrink)

The following paper presents a characterization of three distinctions fundamental to computationalism, viz., the distinction between analog and digital machines, representation and nonrepresentation-using systems, and direct and indirect perceptual processes. Each distinction is shown to rest on nothing more than the methodological principles which justify the explanatory framework of the special sciences.

In this paper I argue that the debate over the purported distinction between deductive and inductive arguments can be bypassed because making the distinction is unnecessary for successfully evaluating arguments. I provide a foundation for doing logic that makes no appeal to the distinction and still performs all the relevant tasks required of an analysis of arguments. I also reply to objections to the view that we can dispense with the distinction. Finally, I conclude that the (...) distinction between inductive and deductive arguments is not one of the most important and fundamental ideas in logic, but rather is unnecessary. (shrink)

There is a fundamental subsets–partitions duality that runs through the exact sciences. In more concrete terms, it is the duality between elements of a subset and the distinctions of a partition. In more abstract terms, it is the reverse-the-arrows of category theory that provides a major architectonic of mathematics. The paper first develops the duality between the Boolean logic of subsets and the logic of partitions. Then, probability theory and information theory (as based on logical entropy) are shown to (...) start with the quantitative versions of subsets and partitions. Some basic universal mapping properties in the category of Sets are developed that precede the abstract duality of category theory. But by far the main application is to the clarification and interpretation of quantum mechanics. Since classical mechanics illustrates the Boolean worldview of full distinctness, it is natural that quantum mechanics would be based on the indefiniteness of its characteristic superposition states, which is modeled at the set level by partitions (or equivalence relations). This approach to interpreting quantum mechanics is not a jury-rigged or ad hoc attempt at the interpretation of quantum mechanics but is a natural application of the fundamental duality running throughout the exact sciences. (shrink)

This paper argues for a fundamental theological re‐interpretation of Vatican II ecclesiology that acknowledges not one but two principal ecclesiologies inspired by the Council documents. Ecclesiastical authorities and some theologians have acknowledged that communion ecclesiology is the principal ecclesiology of Vatican II. However, this conception does not sufficiently account for the full range of relations with the Other that is a distinctive development in the Church's self‐understanding inaugurated by Vatican II; such an understanding is better represented by an ecclesiology (...) of friendship. I thus argue there are two ecclesiologies reflected in the Council documents: communion ecclesiology and another to be developed based on mutual relations and friendship with the Other. The latter is distinctively Ignatian in spirit; further, these two ecclesiologies are not fundamentally opposed to each other but are united in the missions of the Son and the Spirit. (shrink)

In liberal political theory, meaningful work is conceptualised as a preference in the market. Although this strategy avoids transgressing liberal neutrality, the subsequent constraint upon state intervention aimed at promoting the social and economic conditions for widespread meaningful work is normatively unsatisfactory. Instead, meaningful work can be understood to be a fundamental human need, which all persons require in order to satisfy their inescapable interests in freedom, autonomy, and dignity. To overcome the inadequate treatment of meaningful work by liberal (...) political theory, I situate the good of meaningful work within a liberal perfectionist framework, from which standpoint I develop a normative justification for making meaningful work the object of political action. To understand the content of meaningful work, I make use of Susan Wolf’s distinct value of meaningfulness, in which she brings together the dimensions of objectivity and subjectivity into the ‘bipartite value’ of meaningfulness (BVM) (Wolf, Meaning in life and why it matters, 2010). However, in order to be able to incorporate the BVM into our lives, we must become valuers, that is, co-creators of values and meanings. This demands that we acquire the relevant capabilities and status as co-authorities in the realm of value. I conclude that meaningful work is of first importance because it is a fundamental human need, and that society ought to be arranged to allow as many people as possible to experience their work as meaningful through the development of the relevant capabilities. (shrink)

This chapter proceeds chronologically through the lectures and examines Heidegger’s analysis in Part One of _The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics_ of the ‘fundamental attunement’ of ‘profound boredom’, which he regards as the contemporary optic through which all metaphysics occurs, including that of the human/animal distinction. The chapter introduces Heidegger’s argument that the concept of a metaphysical abyss between human and animal is the expression of a deep-seated inherited prejudice concerning a division between ‘life’ and ‘spirit’. This division (...) is crystallised in the work of contemporary philosophers of culture, including Oswald Spengler, Ludwig Klages, Max Scheler, and Leopold Ziegler, all of whom Heidegger regards as ‘spokespeople’ of the contemporary epoch. The chapter examines Heidegger’s engagement with these thinkers, followed by his conclusion that their work signals a profound boredom gripping the age. (shrink)

Is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between particulars and universals another unsupported dogma of metaphysics? F. P. Ramsey famously rejected the particular – universal distinction but neglected to consider the many different conceptions of the distinction that have been advanced. As a contribution to the piecemeal investigation of this issue three interrelated conceptions of the particular – universal distinction are examined: universals, by contrast to particulars, are unigrade; particulars are related to universals by an (...) asymmetric tie of exemplification; universals are incomplete whereas particulars are complete. It is argued that these conceptions are wanting in several respects. Sometimes they fail to mark a significant division amongst entities. Sometimes they make substantial demands upon the shape of reality; once these demands are understood aright it is no longer obvious that the distinction merits our acceptance. The case is made via a discussion of the possibility of multigrade universals. (shrink)

Is the cosmos itself conscious, and could our minds be aspects of its vast, overarching consciousness? -/- In this ambitious and original study, Khai Wager defends cosmopsychism, the view that the universe as a whole is conscious and that individual minds like ours derive from this cosmic consciousness. Wager situates cosmopsychism within what he calls the landscape of fundamental consciousness, bringing it into productive dialogue with closely related views such as panpsychism, panqualityism, and perennialism. The result is a fresh (...) perspective on one of philosophy's deepest puzzles: the nature and origin of consciousness. -/- The problem of phenomenal consciousness asks how subjective experience can emerge from non-conscious matter. Fundamental approaches reject the idea that consciousness arises from non-conscious matter, instead proposing that it is present at the most basic level of reality. Panpsychism-the most prominent such view-holds that all fundamental microphysical entities are conscious. This, however, leads to the combination problem: how do billions of micro-level minds combine to form distinct macro-level minds like ours? Cosmopsychism offers a radical alternative: rather than being formed from a combination of micro-level instances of consciousness, individual minds derive from a larger, cosmic-level consciousness. As a result, cosmopsychism sidesteps the combination problem entirely. However, a new and equally pressing challenge arises-the derivation problem: how do individual minds derive from the cosmic consciousness? -/- Through rigorous and insightful analysis, Wager argues that cosmopsychism can navigate these problems and offers a compelling alternative to both physicalism and panpsychism. As such, this first book-length treatment of cosmopsychism makes an illuminating contribution to debates about the nature of reality and our place within it. (shrink)

In this article, I reply to a critical notice of my book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study, that Stephen Kershnar has published elsewhere in this issue of Science, Religion & Culture. Beyond expounding the central conclusions of the book, Kershnar advances two major criticisms of it, namely, first, that I did not provide enough evidence that meaning in life is a genuine value-theoretic category as something distinct from and competing with, say, objective well-being, and, second, that, even if there (...) were a value of meaning in life, my fundamentality theory of it would not capture it well. Here I respond to both of these criticisms, aiming to probe these underexplored issues still more deeply. I also contend that these two criticisms are in tension with each other; in order to contend that my theory of meaning is incorrect, Kershnar must draw on intuitions about the existence of meaning that undercut his suggestion that there is no such thing. (shrink)

The distinction between the discrete and the continuous lies at the heart of mathematics. Discrete mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, combinatorics, graph theory, cryptography, logic) has a set of concepts, techniques, and application areas largely distinct from continuous mathematics (traditional geometry, calculus, most of functional analysis, differential equations, topology). The interaction between the two – for example in computer models of continuous systems such as fluid flow – is a central issue in the applicable mathematics of the last hundred years. This (...) article explains the distinction and why it has proved to be one of the great organizing themes of mathematics. (shrink)

Abstract:While the American pragmatist C. S. Peirce and the twelfth-century Confucian thinker Zhu Xi 朱熹 lived and worked in radically different contexts, there are nevertheless striking parallels in their view of inquiry. Both appeal to the fundamental nature of reality in order to draw conclusions about the way in which inquiry can be a component of the path toward moral perfection. Yet they prominently diverge in their account not only of the fundamental nature of reality, but also of (...) the way in which we have epistemic access to it. These connections between metaphysical fundamentality or structure and epistemology, it is proposed, have the potential to illuminate current debates in metaphysics. Contemporary approaches that appeal either to grounding relations or to joint-carving ideology in characterizing metaphysical structure, it is proposed, implicitly rest on distinct sets of epistemological presuppositions that resemble the respective views of Zhu Xi or Peirce. (shrink)

The discussion on the relationship between historicism and historical materialism has always existed in the academic circle. Some theorists believe that there is no qualitative difference between the two, and equate historical materialism with historicism under the concept of “historical determinism”. Others point out that historical materialism transcends historicism and represents a fundamental innovation. These two different views stem from different understandings of historicism, and a key concept behind this distinction is class consciousness. Whether class consciousness is involved (...) or not is the difference between two different types of historicism. By comparing Strauss’ and Lukács’ discussions on historicism, we can better present the importance of class consciousness in distinguishing the two types of historicism. (shrink)

A basic duality arises throughout the mathematical and natural sciences. Traditionally, logic is thought to be based on the Boolean logic of subsets, but the development of category theory in the mid-twentieth century shows the duality between subsets and partitions (or equivalence relations). Hence, there is an equally fundamental dual logic of partitions. At a more basic or granular level, the elements of a subset are dual to the distinctions (pairs of elements in different blocks) of a partition. The (...) quantitative version of subset logic is probability theory (as developed by Boole), and the quantitative version of the logic of partitions is information theory re-founded on the notion of logical entropy. The subset side of the duality uses a one-sample (or one-element) approach, e.g., the mean of a random variable; the partition side uses a two-sample (or pair-of-elements) approach. This paper gives a new derivation of the variance (and covariance) based on the two-sample approach, which positions the variance on the partition and information theory side of the duality and thus dual to the mean. (shrink)

In the Freedom Essay, Schelling provides four different accounts of the copula, two of which are largely implicit. In this paper, I focus on the first of these accounts, which I call the "mediated account." I argue that this explanation of the copula articulates a fundamental ontological structure in Schelling's philosophy. In the first half of the paper, I analyze the structural features of the account, drawing on Schelling's more extensive treatment in the Ages of the World. In the (...) second half of the paper, I argue that Schelling's fundamental distinction between that-which-exists and the ground of existence exhibits the same structure as the mediated account of the copula. This has implications for understanding the enigmatic relationship of these two principles to the Ungrund. I conclude by briefly suggesting other applications of this fundamental structure in Schelling's philosophy. (shrink)

The peripheral nervous system has classically been separated into a somatic division composed of both afferent and efferent pathways and an autonomic division containing only efferents. J. N. Langley, who codified this asymmetrical plan at the beginning of the twentieth century, considered different afferents, including visceral ones, as candidates for inclusion in his concept of the “autonomic nervous system”, but he finally excluded all candidates for lack of any distinguishing histological markers. Langley's classification has been enormously influential in shaping modern (...) ideas about both the structure and the function of the PNS. We survey recent information about the PNS and argue that many of the sensory neurons designated as “visceral” and “somatic” are in fact part of a histologically distinct group of afferents concerned primarily autonomic function. These afferents have traditionally been known as “small dark” neurons or B-neurons. In this target article we outline an association between autonomic and B-neurons based on ontogeny, cell phenotype, and functional relations, grouping them together as part of a common reflex system involved in homeostasis. This more parsimonious classification of the PNS, made possible by the identification of a group of afferents associated primarily with the ANS, avoids a number of confusions produced by the classical orientation. It may also have practical implications for an understanding of nociception, homeostatic reflexes, and the evolution of the nervous system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 1, April 1996, pp. 23-48 Fantastick Associations and Addictive General Rules: A Fundamental Difference between Hutcheson and Hume MICHAEL B. GILL The belief that God created human beings for some moral purpose underlies nearly all the moral philosophy written in Great Britain in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. David Hume attacks this theological conception of human nature on all fronts. It is (...) out of these attacks that Hume develops his own "science of man" based solely on "experience and observation."1 Francis Hutcheson is often taken to be the most important positive influence on Hume. And there can be no doubt that Hume does take on board several crucial Hutchesonian elements. But Hutcheson's moral theory, like that of most of his contemporaries, is grounded in a theological conception of human nature to which Hume is adamantly opposed.2 In this paper I will examine how Hume's disagreements with Hutcheson embody the anti-theological purpose that defines Hume's work as a whole. I will look, in particular, at Hume's and Hutcheson's different positions on the principles of association. I hope to show how Hume's use of these principles in the Treatise advances his larger goal of placing "the science of man" on "a foundation almost entirely new" (T xvi). I will proceed, first, by explaining Hutcheson's conception of human nature and his use of the principles of association; second, by sketching in broad outline how Hume's accounts of the origins of justice and natural virtue undermine crucial components of Hutcheson's conception of human nature; and third, by elucidating in more detail an aspect of Hume's associationism that is particularly revealing of his distance from Hutcheson. Michael B. Gill is at the Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 1360 Liberal Arts and Education Building, West Lafayette IN 47907 USA. email: [email protected]. 24 Michael B. Gill I. Hutcheson and Association Hutcheson discusses the mind's tendency to associate in all of his writings, but his most extensive treatment of the matter comes in his Essay on the Passions.3 Hutcheson begins the Essay by telling us that something is good if and only if the perception of it "Causes, or Occasions" a pleasurable feeling, and that something is evil if and only if the perception of it causes or occasions a painful feeling (EP 2). Crucially, Hutcheson denies that all of our pleasures and pains are of the same type (EP 1-8).4 He holds, rather, that there are at least five distinct types of pleasures and pains and that each of them grounds a different irreducible type of good and evil. There are, first, the pleasures and pains caused by things we perceive through the external senses of taste, touch, smell, etc.; things that cause such pleasures are called naturally good, while things that cause such pains are called naturally evil. Second, there are the "Pleasant Perceptions, arising from regular, harmonious, uniform Objects" (EP 5); the things that cause these pleasures are called beautiful.5 Third, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving the happiness or misery of other human beings; the things that cause these pleasures are called public goods while those that cause the corresponding pains are called public evils. Fourth, there are pleasures and pains, usually called approval and disapproval, that we feel upon perceiving the actions of others; the actions that cause approval are called virtuous or morally good, while those that cause disapproval are called vicious or morally evil. Finally, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving others' moral perceptions of our own actions; the pleasure of perceiving others' approval of one's actions is called the feeling of honor, while the pain of perceiving others' disapproval is called the feeling of shame. For Hutcheson, then, natural goodness, beauty, the public good, virtue and honor are all defined by our pleasures and pains. He does not think, however, that these are defined by just any of our actual or occurrent pleasures and pains. He holds, rather, that they are defined by the pleasures and pains we feel under certain privileged... (shrink)

Following the collapse of communism and the decline of Marxism, some commentators have claimed that we have reached the 'end of history' and that the distinction between Left and Right can be forgotten. In this book - which was a tremendous success in Italy - Norberto Bobbio challenges these views, arguing that the fundamental political distinction between Left and Right, which has shaped the two centuries since the French Revolution, has continuing relevance today. Bobbio explores the grounds (...) of this elusive distinction and argues that Left and Right are ultimately divided by different attitudes to equality. He carefully defines the nature of equality and inequality in relative rather than absolute terms. Left and Right is a timely and persuasively argued account of the basic parameters of political action and debate in the modern world - parameters which have remained constant despite the pace of social change. The book will be widely read and, as in Italy, it will have an impact far beyond the academic domain. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers have been concerned about whether there is a fundamental distinction between perception and cognition. Although I do not think there is a fundamental distinction between perception and cognition, at least given what I take perception to be, I do think there is a fundamental distinction between sense and cognition, which I will argue is best understood in terms of a distinction between two irreducible kinds of phenomenology: sensory and cognitive.

The teleological/deontological distinction was introduced in 1930 by C.D. Broad] and since then it has come to be accepted as the fundamental classificatory distinction for moral philosophy. I shall argue that the presupposition that there is a single fundamental classificatory distinction is false. There are too many features of moral theories that matter for that to be so. I shall argue furthermore that as it is usually drawn the teleological/deontological distinction is not even a (...) fundamental distinction. Another distinction, that between theories that make the right depend solely on considerations of goodness (axiological theories) and those that do not, is significantly more important. (shrink)

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. (...) These applications also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

Some recent policy-oriented publications have put forward a third category of environmental values, namely relational or eudaimonic values, in addition to intrinsic and instrumental values. In this debate, there is, however, much confusion about the content of such values. This paper looks at a fundamental debate in ethics about a third category of reasons besides reasons from morality and self-interest, labelled as reasons of love, care or meaningfulness. This category allows us, first, to see the relation between relational and (...) eudaimonic values, and, second, to make clear and applicable distinctions between the relational valuing of nature and moral or instrumental valuing. (shrink)

This article argues that the connection between a person and their body provides the moral foundation for recognising a fundamental right to body integrity. I define body integrity as the ideal state of that connection and use it to ground a distinct normative basis for protecting claims concerning one’s own body. On this account, claims about one’s body are justified where (i) they genuinely pursue oneness between how one sees their body and how one experiences it, and (ii) their (...) realisation respects bodily capacities and limits by avoiding unjustified or disproportionate damage to the body. Unlike the traditional right to bodily integrity, which primarily protects against non-consensual touch, the right to body integrity can support both entitlements to intervention and protection from intervention. Drawing on bodily awareness, personal identity, challenging requests for body-modifying interventions, and case law, the article shows how this framework clarifies adjudication and warrants fundamental-right status, restricted only in exceptional cases. (shrink)

In this paper, I claim that Kant’s subjective deduction in the first edition of the KrV is to be understood in terms of an investigation of the fundamental force(s) (Grundkraft) of the soul, an investigation essential to Wolffian psychology and much debated throughout Germany in the second half of the 1700’s. I argue that the subjective deduction is indeed presented by means of the exposition of the three-fold syntheses but only insofar as these syntheses are employed as pointers towards (...) each of three original sources of cognition. Only taken as such can we do justice not only to the argument’s unique concern as distinct from that of the objective deduction, but also to its dependence upon the justificatory results of that deduction which was after all Kant’s “primary concern”. (shrink)

One of the leading concerns animating current philosophy of mind is that, no matter how good a scientific account is, it will leave out what its like to be conscious. The challenge has thus been to study or at least explain away that qualitative dimension. Pursuant with that aim, I investigate how philosophy of signs in the Peircean tradition can positively reshape ongoing debates. Specifically, I think the account of iconic or similarity-based reference we find in semiotic theory offers a (...) more promising variant of the phenomenal concept strategy. Philosophers who endorse this strategy think that the difficulties we have fitting conscious qualia into a scientific picture may owe to the peculiar nature of indexical concepts. They point to the fact that, when we try to convey the feel of our experiences, we employ context-dependent gestures and/or utterances that are indexed to perspectives unique to each person. However, according to the theory I defend, there are three ways signs can refer, namely by convention, causal contact, and similarity. Since similarity is not reducible to proximity, I argue that a theory of reference that turns on shared quality can bypass some of the implausible consequences that plague indexical accounts. In the first chapter, I describe the apparatus needed to make sense of this claim. In the second chapter, I present my account of iconic reference. In the third chapter, I justify my reliance on a distinction that is less than real yet more than nominal. In the fourth chapter, I sketch a trinitarian metaphysics well-suited to house the foregoing account of qualia. (shrink)

Deepfake technology presents significant ethical challenges. The ability to produce realistic looking and sounding video or audio files of people doing or saying things they did not do or say brings with it unprecedented opportunities for deception. The literature that addresses the ethical implications of deepfakes raises concerns about their potential use for blackmail, intimidation, and sabotage, ideological influencing, and incitement to violence as well as broader implications for trust and accountability. While this literature importantly identifies and signals the potentially (...) far-reaching consequences, less attention is paid to the moral dimensions of deepfake technology and deepfakes themselves. This article will help fill this gap by analysing whether deepfake technology and deepfakes are intrinsically morally wrong, and if so, why. The main argument is that deepfake technology and deepfakes are morally suspect, but not inherently morally wrong. Three factors are central to determining whether a deepfake is morally problematic: whether the deepfaked person would object to the way in which they are represented; whether the deepfake deceives viewers; and the intent with which the deepfake was created. The most distinctive aspect that renders deepfakes morally wrong is when they use digital data representing the image and/or voice of persons to portray them in ways in which they would be unwilling to be portrayed. Since our image and voice are closely linked to our identity, protection against the manipulation of hyper-realistic digital representations of our image and voice should be considered a fundamental moral right in the age of deepfakes. (shrink)

This paper offers an alternative view of spacetime different from both substantivalism and relationism. Using basic ideas underlying the fiber bundle formulation of field theories, it illustrates the function of spacetime in individuating local fields. As the system of numerical identities for entities that we can individually refer to, spacetime is an intrinsic, indispensable, and inalienable structure of the physical world with distinct entities.

This volume aims to document the historical emergence of the various types of distinctions in medieval philosophy, highlighting in particular the emergence of the Formalist tradition that had its roots in the works of the Franciscan John Duns Scotus († 1308) and his early followers. This literature enjoyed vast diffusion during the Renaissance and still played a significant role in textbooks of scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It framed the early-modern debates about the distinction between body (...) and mind or matter and extension. This book provides an important case for a much-needed revision of the relationship between “Medieval” and “Early Modern” philosophy – these categories are too often used to signal some fundamental divide in intellectual history, where in fact there was continuity. It deals with many figures who have been little studied to date as well as canonical thinkers such as Francisco Suárez and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. (shrink)

At least since the seminal work of the (US) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1970s, a fundamental distinction between research and practice has underwritten both conceptual work in research ethics and regulations governing research involving human subjects. Notwithstanding its undoubted historical importance, I believe the distinction is problematic because it misrepresents clinical inquiry. In this essay, I aim to clarify the character of clinical inquiry by identifying crucial (...) contextual constraints on justification constitutive of clinical science. This analysis shows that, from an epistemological point of view, clinical research and clinical practice are not sharply distinct but intimately intertwined. This result is important in its own right—an enriched understanding of the epistemology of clinical research is valuable in and of itself. But this result is also important because it has profound implications for the ethics of human subjects research. (shrink)

Psychometrics has always been confronted with fundamental criticism, highlighting serious insufficiencies and fallacies. Many fallacies persist, however, because each critic explores only some fallacies while still building on others. This article scrutinizes the epistemological, metatheoretical, and methodological foundations of psychometrics, revealing a complex network of numerous conceptual fallacies underlying its framework of theory and practice. At its core lies a key challenge for psychology: the necessity to distinguish the phenomena under study from the means used to explore them (e.g., (...) concepts, methods, data). This distinction is intricate because concepts constitute psychical phenomena in themselves and many psychical phenomena are accessible only through language-based methods. The analyses show how insufficient consideration of this important distinction and common misconceptions about concepts and language (e.g., signifier–referent conflation, reification of constructs) led to conflations of disparate notions of key terms in psychological measurement (e.g., “variables”, “attributes”, “causality”) and numerous interrelated fallacies (e.g., construct–referent conflation, phenomenon–quality–quantity conflation, numeral–number conflation). These fallacies are maintained and masked by repeated conceptual back-and-forth switching between two incompatible epistemological frameworks, (a) an operationist framework of data modeling implemented through methodical and statistical operations and (b) a realist framework of measurement sporadically invoked in theoretical considerations but neither theoretically elaborated nor empirically implemented. The analyses demonstrate that psychometrics constitutes only data modeling but not data generation or even measurement as often assumed and that analogies to (indirect or fundamental) physical measurement are mistaken. They provide theoretical support for the increasing criticism of psychometrics and its use in research and applied contexts. (shrink)

This paper examines the fundamental difference between human-created and AI-generated art through the lens of Judgemental Philosophy. While artificial intelligence can replicate the formal structures of art—style, coherence, and even emotional mimicry—it lacks the core structural feature of true aesthetic judgment: resonance. Drawing on the Judgemental Triad (Constructibility, Coherence, Resonance), we argue that only human art can return meaning to the subject in a way that is self-affective and reflexively owned. AI art remains structurally hollow—not because it lacks beauty, (...) but because it lacks return. We further explore how the erosion of resonance in the aesthetic domain reflects a broader collapse of human judgement in the digital age, and how restoring resonance in artistic experience can help recover the conditions of selfhood and shared meaning. (shrink)

In this article, I address concerns that the ontological priority claims definitive of ontic structural realism are as they stand unclear, and I do so by placing these claims on a more rigorous formal footing than they typically have been hitherto. I first of all argue that Kit Fine’s analysis of ontological dependence furnishes us with an ontological priority relation that is particularly apt for structuralism. With that in place, and with reference to two case studies prominent within the structuralist (...) literature, I consider whether any of structuralism’s distinctive priority claims may be regarded as warranted. The discussion as a whole has largely negative implications for the radical structuralism of French and Ladyman (including their ‘eliminativist’ interpretation of it), largely positive implications for the moderate structuralism primarily advocated by Esfeld and Lam, and some broad lessons for contemporary fundamentalist metaphysics as a whole. 1 Introduction2 The Right Priority Relation for Structuralism: Supervenience or Dependence?3 Introducing Ontological Dependence4 Fine’s System5 The Priority of Structure 1: Entangled Quantum Particles6 The Priority of Structure 2: The Group-Theoretic Conception of Elementary Particles7 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

As the world population is growing and government directives tell us to consume more fatty acids, the demand for fish is increasing. Due to declines in wild fish populations, we have come to rely more and more on aquaculture. Despite rapid expansion of aquaculture, this sector is still in a relatively early developmental stage. This means that this sector can still be steered in a favorable direction, which requires discussion about sustainability. If we want to avoid similar problems to the (...) ones we have experienced with livestock farming, we need to generate knowledge of the biology, profitability, environmental aspects, consumer awareness, and product appreciation of particular fish species. However, the discussion about a sustainable aquaculture also raises the question how we should treat fish. This moral question is regularly addressed as a problem of applied ethics with a focus on tailoring ethical principles to practical questions. In this article we do not deny the importance of the practical accounts, but we start from the fundamental question whether and why fish matter in our moral deliberations, i.e., from the discussion on moral status. We elaborate the distinction between moral considerability and moral significance in order to show both the importance and the limitations of the discussion about moral status for practical problems in aquaculture. We illustrate these points with a case-study about the farming of a specific fish species, the African catfish. (shrink)

Darwin thought that the moral sense was among the most challenging aspects of human life to account for through evolutionary explanations. This article seeks to probe the question about human uniqueness primarily from a theological perspective by focusing in depth on one distinctive moral sentiment, gratitude, particularly in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. It uses that example as a case study about how to consider the validity of arguments for human uniqueness within the broader compass of the cultural evolution of (...) sociality and morality within the human sciences, including evolutionary anthropology. Further questions about the evolution of religion surface in this discussion since gratitude, from a theological perspective, necessarily includes gratitude to God as a fundamental aspect of religious faith and practice. (shrink)

An important part of Hume's philosophy is grounded in a fundamental distinction between two kinds of perceptions: impressions and ideas. Existing views of the distinction are that the former are livelier than the latter, that the former are causally prior to the latter, that the latter are copies of the former, that the former but not the latter are perceptions of an objective realm, and that the former are feelings whereas the latter are thoughts. I argue that (...) all of these views of the distinction are problematic and should be replaced by the Reflection view, according to which (simple) ideas are, while impressions are not, the direct products of reflection on other perceptions. (shrink)

This article investigates the claim that some truths are fundamentally or really true — and that other truths are not. Such a distinction can help us reconcile radically minimal metaphysical views with the verities of common sense. I develop an understanding of the distinction whereby Fundamentality is not itself a metaphysical distinction, but rather a device that must be presupposed to express metaphysical distinctions. Drawing on recent work by Rayo on anti-Quinean theories of ontological commitments, I formulate (...) a rigourous theory of the notion. In the final sections, I show how this package dovetails with ' interpretationist' theories of meaning to give sober content to thought that some things — perhaps sets, or gerrymandered mereological sums — can be 'postulated into existence'. (shrink)

Distinctions in fundamentality between different levels of description are central to the viability of contemporary decoherence-based Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM). This approach to quantum theory characteristically combines a determinate fundamental reality (one universal wave function) with an indeterminate emergent reality (multiple decoherent worlds). In this chapter I explore how the Everettian appeal to fundamentality and emergence can be understood within existing metaphysical frameworks, identify grounding and concept fundamentality as promising theoretical tools, and use them to characterize a system of (...) explanatory levels (with associated laws of nature) for EQM. This Everettian level structure encompasses and extends the ‘classical’ levels structure. The ‘classical’ levels of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are recovered, but they are emergent in character and potentially variable across Everett worlds. EQM invokes an additional fundamental level, not present in the classical levels picture, and a novel potential role for self-location in interlevel metaphysics. When given a modal realist interpretation, EQM also makes trouble for supervenience-based approaches to levels. (shrink)

Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar explicates and defends a novel neo-Aristotelian account of the structure of material objects. While there have been numerous treatments of properties, laws, causation, and modality in the neo-Aristotelian metaphysics literature, this book is one of the first full-length treatments of wholes and their parts. Another aim of the book is to further develop the newly revived area concerning the question of fundamental mereology, the question of whether wholes are metaphysically prior to their (...) parts or vice versa. Inman develops a fundamental mereology with a grounding-based conception of the structure and unity of substances at its core, what he calls substantial priority, one that distinctively allows for the fundamentality of ordinary, medium-sized composite objects. He offers both empirical and philosophical considerations against the view that the parts of every composite object are metaphysically prior, in particular the view that ascribes ontological pride of place to the smallest microphysical parts of composite objects, which currently dominates debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Ultimately, he demonstrates that substantial priority is well-motivated in virtue of its offering a unified solution to a host of metaphysical problems involving material objects. (shrink)

Neste trabalho procura-se reconstruir os fundamentos da teoria do conhecimento de Kant. Tais fundamentos possibilitam falar legitimamente sobre o conceito de noumenon. Sustenta-se a tese de que o noumenon é um conceito que surge naturalmente dos pontos de partida assumidos pela filosofia transcendental (distinção entre as faculdades de conhecimento, da sensibilidade e do entendimento) e não um elemento agregado ao sistema. Além disso, procura-se, por um lado, esclarecer as diversas caracterizações apresentadas na Analítica transcendental a respeito da distinção entre noumenon (...) e fenômeno a partir da distinção entre o campo e domínio das categorias e, por outro, defende-se que não se trata de uma distinção ontológica entre dois tipos de objetos, mas de duas perspectivas de se pensar a relação do objeto com nossa faculdade de conhecimento. (shrink)

The use-mention distinction is considered as a fundamental concept in the philosophy of language. So it goes without doubt that a comprehensive theory of language has to account for this distinction. In this paper I explore what it means to account for such a distinction and I argue that the main ideas of contextualist theories of language are in conflict with the distinction in question.

This book makes a fundamental contribution to phonology, linguistic typology, and the nature of the human language faculty. Distinctive features in phonology distinguish one meaningful sound from another. Since the mid-twentieth century they have been seen as a set characterizing all possible phonological distinctions and as an integral part of Universal Grammar, the innate language faculty underlying successive versions of Chomskyan generative theory. The usefulness of distinctive features in phonological analysis is uncontroversial, but the supposition that features are innate (...) and universal rather than learned and language-specific has never, until now, been systematically tested. In his pioneering account Jeff Mielke presents the results of a crosslinguistic survey of natural classes of distinctive features covering almost six hundred of the world's languages drawn from a variety of different families. He shows that no theory is able to characterize more than 71 per cent of classes, and further that current theories, deployed either singly or collectively, do not predict the range of classes that occur and recur. He reveals the existence of apparently unnatural classes in many languages. Even without these findings, he argues, there are reasons to doubt whether distinctive features are innate: for example, distinctive features used in signed languages are different from those in spoken languages, even though deafness is generally not hereditary. The author explains the grouping of sounds into classes and concludes by offering a unified account of what previously have been considered to be natural and unnatural classes. The data on which the analysis is based are freely available in a program downloadable from the publisher's web site. (shrink)

This book brings together for the first time an updated, revised collection of influential essays and articles that capture some of the most exciting scientific and scholarly contributions to the topic of political ideology. John Jost tackles fundamental questions about how psychology, neuroscience, and societal factors impact political attitudes and group divisions. In what sense, if any, are ordinary citizens "ideological"? Is it useful to locate political attitudes on a single dimension of representation? Are there meaningful differences in the (...) beliefs, opinions, and values of leftists and rights-or liberals and conservatives? How are personality traits related to ideological preferences? What situational or contextual factors contribute to liberal and conservative shifts in the general population? What are the implications of ideological polarization for the future of democracy? Drawing on Max Weber's concept of elective affinities, one of the world's leading political psychologists discusses the myriad ways in people choose ideas and ideas choose people. (shrink)

Argumentation theory is a distinctly multidisciplinary field of inquiry. It draws its data, assumptions, and methods from disciplines as disparate as formal logic and discourse analysis, linguistics and forensic science, philosophy and psychology, political science and education, sociology and law, and rhetoric and artificial intelligence. This presents the growing group of interested scholars and students with a problem of access, since it is even for those active in the field not common to have acquired a familiarity with relevant aspects of (...) each discipline that enters into this multidisciplinary matrix. This book offers its readers a unique comprehensive survey of the various theoretical contributions which have been made to the study of argumentation. It discusses the historical works that provide the background to the field and all major approaches and trends in contemporary research. Argument has been the subject of systematic inquiry for twenty-five hundred years. It has been graced with theories, such as formal logic or the legal theory of evidence, that have acquired a more or less settled provenance with regard to specific issues. But there has been nothing to date that qualifies as a unified general theory of argumentation, in all its richness and complexity. This being so, the argumentation theorist must have access to materials and methods that lie beyond his or her "home" subject. It is precisely on this account that this volume is offered to all the constituent research communities and their students. Apart from the historical sections, each chapter provides an economical introduction to the problems and methods that characterize a given part of the contemporary research program. Because the chapters are self-contained, they can be consulted in the order of a reader's interests or research requirements. But there is value in reading the work in its entirety. Jointly authored by the very people whose research has done much to define the current state of argumentation theory and to point the way toward more general and unified future treatments, this book is an impressively authoritative contribution to the field. (shrink)

The physician-researcher conflict of interest, a long-standing and widely recognized ethical challenge of clinical research, has thus far eluded satisfactory solution. The conflict is fairly straightforward. Medical research and medical therapy are distinct pursuits; the former is aimed at producing generalizable knowledge for the benefit of future patients, whereas the latter is aimed at addressing the individualized medical needs of a particular patient. When the physician-researcher combines these pursuits, he or she serves two masters and cannot — no matter how (...) well-intentioned — avoid the risk of compromising the duties owed in one of the professional roles assumed. Because of the necessary rigidity of a research protocol, the more demanding of the two masters is frequently the research.The problem of the physician-researcher conflict has been evident since the first attempts to regulate human research in the United States. Otto E. Guttentag, a physician at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, addressed the conflict in a 1953Sciencemagazine article. (shrink)