Phenomenal Explanationism vs Conservatism

This chapter situates PE within the context of the broader debate between Epistemic Liberalism (which holds, roughly, that it is reasonable to grant that things are the way they appear to be unless there is reason for doubting it) and Epistemic Conservatism (the view that, roughly, it is not reasonable to grant that things are the way they appear to be unless there is independent reason to think that the appearances are reliable). PE is squarely within the Liberal camp. Therefore, after explaining some of the primary elements of Liberal/Conservative debate in epistemology, two of the primary challenges faced by Liberal views like PE are examined. The first is, again, the problem of bootstrapping, which any theory that allows for immediate justification seems to run into. The second is White’s Bayesian objection to PC (introduced in Chapter 1), according to which Liberalism, and so PE, is flawed because it is incompatible with probabilistic reasoning. It is shown that PE is not troubled by these challenges. The upshot of the chapter is that Liberalism, when exemplified in PE, is victorious over Conservatism.

Against the Shiftiness Dilemma

This chapter argues that the Shiftiness Dilemma is a false dilemma: KNA is perfectly compatible with Classical Invariantism. Furthermore, it offers independent reason to believe that if KNA and Classical Invariantism are true, variation in proper assertability is exactly what we may expect. More precisely, the chapter advances the debate in two important ways: (1) it identifies a widely held assumption concerning epistemic norm individuation (Content Individuation), which gets the Shiftiness Dilemma off the ground; (2) it argues that Content Individuation is false, and that therefore the norm at stake in the debate need not be epistemic.

Leading a Double Life: Statues and Pieces of Clay

Some philosophers think that two distinct things can occupy exactly the same region of space, as with a statue and a piece of clay. Others think that the statue and the piece of clay are identical, but not necessarily so. I argue that Alan Gibbard’s well-known story of Goliath and Lumpl does not support either of these claims. Not the first, as there is independent reason to think that it cannot be true. Not the second, because there is no need to invoke the dubiously intelligible notion of contingent identity to account for the facts of the story.

The Ashari Theological School and the Authority of Human Reason in Ethics

This article endeavours to show the compatibility of significant trends in the largest Islamic theological school, namely the Ashari, with the authority of reason in ethics. On the one hand, this authority requires reason to understand moral values while, on the other, proving that this authority does not conflict with the creation of actions by God. Asharism has accepted the ability of reason to understand moral values, while also accepting practical reason. Moral values and their antithesis are examples of good and evil and can be understood by rational reasoning. Nevertheless, Asharism also regards acts as the creation of God, yet without negating the ability of reason to understand good and evil. This article explains the differences between the Asharites and Mutazilites regarding the authority of independent reason in ethics. The negation of the ability of reason to discern God's acts and commands, thereby accepting the need for religion, has made the Asharite theological school unique. Accordingly, religion and reason are the two references in ethics within this school. This article concludes that the authority of reason is compatible with Asharism if we base our reading on the view of many prominent Ashari scholars. Furthermore, this foundation could be used to study the compatibility of Islam with modern ethical theories.

Neutralism, Naturalism and Emergence: A Critical Examination of Cumpa’s Theory of Instantiation

In his “Are Properties, Particular, Universal, or Neither?” Javier Cumpa argues that science not metaphysics explains how properties are instantiated. I accept this conclusion provided physics can be stated using rather few primitive predicates. In addition, he uses his scientific theory of instantiation to argue for Neutralism, his thesis that the “tie” between properties and their instances implies neither that properties are particular nor that they are universals. Neutralism, I claim, is a thesis that realist about universals have independent reason to accept and their opponents have reason to reject. So, neutralism is not neutral on the topic of whether properties are universals. Nor is Cumpa’s Theory of Instantiation as naturalistic as he claims. I argue that although compatible with Ontological Naturalism, his theory provides a precedent for the non-naturalistic emergence of mental properties. Finally, I argue that because his theory requires a simple physics it presupposes a more rationalist epistemology than that of Methodological Naturalism.

Imprecise Quantification

Following David Lewis (1986), Ted Sider (2001) has famously argued that unrestricted first-order quantification cannot be vague. His argument was intended as a type of reductio: its strategy was to show that the mere hypothesis of unrestricted quantifier vagueness collapses into the claim that unrestricted quantification is precise. However, this short article considers two natural reconstructions of the argument, and shows that each can be resisted. The theme will be that each reconstruction of the argument involves assumptions which advocates of vague quantification have independent reason to reject.

Pedophilia — to Treat or to Punish?

A strong public reaction to sex offences against minors under 14 results in a stricter criminal law policy towards offenders. One of the key changes to Russian criminal legislation has been breaking all subjects of such crimes into two groups. The first group is comprised of people over 18 who have committed sex offences against minors and suffer from pedophilia without diminished responsibility. The second group includes other persons who have committed sex offences against minors. The paper examines specific features of sex offences committed by persons with pedophilia without diminished responsibility. It is noted that not all persons who commit sex offences against minors under 14 are pedophiles. The author discusses the inaccuracy made by lawmakers in determining the criteria of sexual preference disorder of pedophilia and connected with the ages of the victim and the offender. Pedophilia as a sexual preference disorder is diagnosed in people over 16 who have been suffering for at least six months from systemic (constant) urges, attraction and fantasies involving underage children (13 and under), with at least a five-year difference with the victim. Such persons are ruled sane but subject to compulsory medical treatment if they commit sexual offences against minors. As sexual preference disorders cannot be reduced to pedophilia, the author proves that the phrase «sexual preference disorder (pedophilia)» is used inappropriately in Russian legislation. The author also argues that it should be eliminated from the criminal legislation as an independent reason for using compulsory medical treatment for persons who, being over 18, have committed a sex offence against minors under 14 and suffer from pedophilia without diminished responsibility.

The Mismatch Problem for Tracking Theories

One prominent theory of intentionality is the tracking theory, on which original intentionality arises from tracking, where tracking is detecting, carrying information about or having the function of carrying information about, or otherwise appropriately corresponding to items in the environment. This chapter argues that tracking theories cannot accommodate certain paradigm cases of intentionality; in these mismatch cases, the contents ascribed by the tracking theory fail to match the contents that we have theory-independent reason to ascribe. This chapter focuses on one of the most obvious mismatch cases, that of perceptual representations of color: Tracking theories predict that perceptual color representations represent surface reflectance profiles or the like, while theory-independent considerations suggest that they represent primitive colors, which, it happens, are probably uninstantiated.

CONCILIATIONISM AND MORAL SPINELESSNESS

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a challenge to conciliationist views of disagreement. I argue that conciliationists cannot satisfactorily explain why we need not revise our beliefs in response to certain moral disagreements. Conciliationists can attempt to meet this challenge in one of two ways. First, they can individuate disputes narrowly. This allows them to argue that we have dispute-independent reason to distrust our opponents’ moral judgment. This approach threatens to license objectionable dogmatism. It also inappropriately gives deep epistemic significance to superficial questions about how to think about the subject matter of a dispute. Second, conciliationists can individuate disputes widely. This allows them to argue that we lack dispute-independent reason to trust our opponents’ moral judgment. But such arguments fail; our background of generally shared moral beliefs gives us good reason to trust the moral judgment of our opponents, even after we set quite a bit of our reasoning aside. On either approach, then, conciliationists should acknowledge that we have dispute-independent reason to trust the judgment of those who reject our moral beliefs. Given a conciliationist view of disagreement's epistemic role, this has the unattractive result that we are epistemically required to revise some of our most intuitively secure moral beliefs.

SENSITIVITY AND CLOSURE

John Hawthorne has two forceful arguments in favour of:Single-Premise Closure (SPC) Necessarily, if S knows p, competently deduces q from p, and thereby comes to believe q, while retaining knowledge of p throughout, then S knows q.Each of Hawthorne's arguments rests on an intuitively appealing principle which Hawthorne calls the Equivalence Principle. I show, however, that the opponents of SPC with whom he's engaging - namely Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick - have independent reason to reject this principle, and resultantly conclude that Hawthorne's arguments in favour of SPC are not knock-down.