Subjunctive Conditional Probability

There seem to be two ways of supposing a proposition: supposing “indicatively” that Shakespeare didn’t write Hamlet, it is likely that someone else did; supposing “subjunctively” that Shakespeare hadn’t written Hamlet, it is likely that nobody would have written the play. Let P(B//A) be the probability of B on the subjunctive supposition that A. Is P(B//A) equal to the probability of the corresponding counterfactual, A □→B? I review recent triviality arguments against this hypothesis and argue that they do not succeed. On the other hand, I argue that even if we can equate P(B//A) with P(A □→B), we still need an account of how subjunctive conditional probabilities are related to unconditional probabilities. The triviality arguments reveal that the connection is not as straightforward as one might have hoped.     

Intentionalism,defeasibility, and justification

According to intentionalism, perceptual experience is a mental state with representational content. When it comes to the epistemology of perception, it is only natural for the intentionalist to hold that the justificatory role of experience is at least in part a function of its content. In this paper, I argue that standard versions of intentionalism trying to hold on to this natural principle face what I call the “defeasibility problem”. This problem arises from the combination of standard intentionalism with further plausible principles governing the epistemology of perception: that experience provides defeasible justification for empirical belief, and that such justification is best construed as probabilification. After exploring some ways in which the standard intentionalist could deal with the defeasibility problem, I argue that the best option is to replace standard intentionalism by what I call “phenomenal intentionalism”. Where standard intentionalism construes experiences as of p as having the content p, phenomenal intentionalism construes (visual) experiences as of p as having “phenomenal” or “looks contents”: contents of the form Lp (it looks as if p).     

Moral principles as moral dispositions

What are moral principles? In particular, what are moral principles of the sort that (if they exist) ground moral obligations or—at the very least—particular moral truths? I argue that we can fruitfully conceive of such principles as real, irreducibly dispositional properties of individual persons (agents and patients) that are responsible for and thereby explain the moral properties of (e.g.) agents and actions. Such moral dispositions (or moral powers) are apt to be the metaphysical grounds of moral obligations and of particular truths about what is morally permissible, impermissible, etc. Moreover, they can do other things that moral principles are supposed to do: explain the phenomena “falling within their scope,” support counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary connections” between obligating reasons and obligations. And they are apt to be the truthmakers for moral laws, or “lawlike” moral generalizations.     

Understanding the Heart-Mind Within the Heart-Mind of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Nèiyè</Emphasis> (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Inward Training</Emphasis>)

The Nèiyè 內業 (Inward Training) talks of “a heart-mind (xīn 心) within a heart-mind” that is somehow connected to or prior to language. In the context of the overall advice on looking “inward” or “internally” as part of the meditation and mysticism practice that the Nèiyè introduces, this talk of a heart-mind within a heart-mind arguably invites comparisons with a Cartesian “inner theater” conception of mentality. In this paper, I examine the “inner” talk of the Nèiyè in order to tease out its identifiable commitments in philosophical psychology. I consider the ways in which the “inner” talk of the text might be read as marking out one or more of three different inner/outer distinctions, and I argue that we can consistently read the Nèiyè without seeing it as marking any inner/outer distinction that is related to what is often referred to in English as “inner experience.”     

Who Does the Sounding? The Metaphysics of the First-Person Pronoun in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zhuangzi</Emphasis>

In classical Chinese wu 吾 is commonly employed as the first-person pronoun, similar to wo 我 that retains its use in modern Chinese. Although these two words are usually understood as stylistic variants of “I,” “me,” and “myself,” Chinese scholars of the Zhuangzi 莊子 have long been aware of the possible differences in their semantics, especially in the philosophical context of discussing the relation between the self and the person, as evinced by their occurrences in the much-discussed line “Now I have lost myself” (jin zhe wu sang wo 今者吾喪我) in the chapter “Discussion on Making All Things Equal” (“Qiwulun 齊物論”). In this essay, I first provide an exegesis of the proffered explanations of the semantical differences between wu and wo as an introduction to two ways of understanding them in the Zhuangzi literature, viz. the single-reference view and the double-reference view. Then I shall argue against these two views in favor of the no-reference view, meaning that both pronouns in “Now I have lost myself” do not function referentially, given the peculiarity of the verb “lose.” I believe the no-reference view has not been explicitly articulated and defended in the literature, although some scholars who want to read the no-self view into the Zhuangzi might have implied it. My argument is supported by a close reading of the targeted passage in the Zhuangzi, premised on the assumption that the part on the “piping of Heaven” (tian lai 天籟) immediately following the discussion of losing oneself is an indirect explanation rather than a digression. My explanation is framed within a similar discussion of “I” by the British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This comparative interpretation, I believe, not only provides the grounds for understanding Zhuangzi’s ideal of attaining the state where “the ten thousand things are one with me,” but also demonstrates how metaphysics and the philosophy of language are two interwoven threads in Zhuangzi’s reasoning.     

The Problem of Cross-world Predication

While standard first-order modal logic is quite powerful, it cannot express even very simple sentences like “I could have been taller than I actually am” or “Everyone could have been smarter than they actually are”. These are examples of cross-world predication, whereby objects in one world are related to (sometimes the same) objects in another world. Extending first-order modal logic to allow for cross-world predication in a motivated way has proven to be notoriously difficult. In this paper, I argue that the standard accounts of cross-world predication all leave something to be desired. I then propose an account of cross-world predication based on quantified hybrid logic and show how it overcomes the limitations of these previous accounts. I will conclude by discussing various philosophical consequences and applications of such an account.     

On Tacit Knowledge for Philosophy of Education

This article offers a detailed reading Gascoigne and Thornton’s book Tacit Knowledge (2013), which aims to account for the tacitness of tacit knowledge (TK) while preserving its status as knowledge proper. I take issue with their characterization and rejection of the existential-phenomenological Background—which they presuppose even as they dismiss—and their claim that TK can be articulated “from within”—which betrays a residual Cartesianism, the result of their elision of conceptuality and propositionality. Knowledgeable acts instantiate capacities which we might know we have and of which we can be aware, but which are not propositionally structured at their “core”. Nevertheless, propositionality is necessary to what Robert Brandom calls, in Making It Explicit (1994) and Articulating Reasons (2000), “explicitation”, which notion also presupposes a tacit dimension, which is, simply, the embodied person (the knower), without which no conception of knowledge can get any purchase. On my view, there is no knowledgeable act that can be understood as such separately from the notion of skilled corporeal performance. The account I offer cannot make sense of so-called “knowledge-based” education, as opposed to systems and styles which supposedly privilege “contentless” skills over and above “knowledge”, because on the phenomenological and inferentialist lines I endorse, neither the concepts “knowledge” nor “skill” has any purchase or meaning without the other.     

A Partial Defense of the Actual-Sequence Model of Freedom

Over the years, two models of freedom have emerged as competitors: the alternative-possibilities model (the “classical” approach to freedom, which understands freedom in terms of having access to alternative possibilities of action) and the actual-sequence model (the approach inspired by Harry G. Frankfurt’s rejection of the principle of alternative possibilities and the insights provided by the “Frankfurt-style” examples). This paper is a partial defense of the actual-sequence model. My defense relies on two strategies. The first strategy consists in de-emphasizing the role of examples in arguing for (or against) a model of freedom. Imagine that, as some people think, Frankfurt-style cases fail to undermine the alternative-possibilities model. What follows from this? Not much, I argue. In particular, I note that the counterparts of Frankfurt-style cases also fail to undermine the actual-sequence model (in fact, they do that in a more glaring and indisputable way). My second strategy of defense consists in revitalizing the original motivation for the actual-sequence model, by revamping it, isolating it from claims that do not fully capture the same idea, and arguing that it can be developed in a successful way.     

Contradictory Information: Too Much of a Good Thing

Both I and Belnap, motivated the “Belnap-Dunn 4-valued Logic” by talk of the reasoner being simply “told true” (T), and simply “told false” (F), which leaves the options of being neither “told true” nor “told false” (N), and being both “told true” and “told false” (B). Belnap motivated these notions by consideration of unstructured databases that allow for negative information as well as positive information (even when they conflict). We now experience this on a daily basis with the Web. But the 4-valued logic is deductive in nature, and its matrix is discrete: there are just four values. In this paper I investigate embedding the 4-valued logic into a context of probability. Jøsang’s Subjective Logic introduced uncertainty to allow for degrees of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. We extend this so as to allow for two kinds of uncertainty—that in which the reasoner has too little information (ignorance) and that in which the reasoner has too much information (conflicted). Jøsang’s “Opinion Triangle” becomes an “Opinion Tetrahedron” and the 4-values can be seen as its vertices. I make/prove various observations concerning the relation of non-classical “probability” to non-classical logic.     

Hillel and Confucius: The prescriptive formulation of the golden rule in the Jewish and Chinese Confucian ethical traditions

A prospective convert asked Hillel to teach him the entire Torahwhile standing on one foot. Hillel replied, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That isthe whole of Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go and study it.” (Hillel:Shab. 31; emphasis added)Zigong: “Is there asingle word that can serve as a guide to conduct throughout one’s life?” Confucius said: “Perhaps the word ‘shu’, ‘reciprocity’: ‘Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you’.” (Analects: 15.24; see alsoAnalects. 12 andZhongyong. 13.3; emphasis added)¹     

From the Terrible Loneliness to the Wonderful Agreement of Human Beings

What would be the “terrible loneliness” and what would be the “wonderful agreement” in the present paper? The “terrible loneliness” is the only reality that a person perceives and/or thinks during the now going on. For the person, an enormous quantity of occurrences is in the present moment absent. A very small quantity of occurrences is present. The person is the only being in having this. And, this is only during a little moment. The person never thinks about his loneliness in this moment. On the contrary, he thinks he is plenty of people and full of occurrences. But, if he were thinking about reality, he would live in a terrible loneliness. How does he escape himself from this loneliness? He thinks that the probable occurrences are real occurrences. He may be right in a plenty of times. Going through what I call opening hypotheses—basic hypotheses and non-basic but important hypotheses—and going through what I call simply hypotheses he is able to sanction a wonderful agreement of human beings about the known parts of the Universe. However, they are hypotheses, not absolute realities.     

What’s philosophically interesting about engineering ethics?

What makes a subject philosophically interesting is hard-to-resolve confusion about fundamental concepts. Engineering ethics suffers from at least three such fundamental confusions. First, there is confusion about what the “ethics” in engineering ethics is (ordinary morality, philosophical ethics, special standards, or something else?) Second, there is confusion about what the profession of engineering is (a function, discipline, occupation, kind of organization, or something else?) Third, there is confusion about what the discipline of engineering is. These fundamental confusions in engineering ethics connect with philosophically interesting work in moral theory, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. Work in these areas may help with the philosophical problems of engineering ethics. But, equally important, work in engineering ethics may help with the philosophical problems in these others fields.     

The Carnival’s Edge: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Charlie Hebdo</Emphasis> and Theories of Comedy

This article reexamines the satire of Charlie Hebdo through the lens of comedy theory and cultural studies. Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “the carnivalesque” and Linda Hutcheon’s concept of “irony’s edge,” it considers the wide variety of potential meanings that are encoded within Hebdo’s highly controversial comedy and religious representations. Introducing the notion of the “ambigramic carnival,” I argue that competing notions of hegemony in French culture encourage radically different understandings of the ethical and political implications of Hebdo’s content. Ultimately, I contend that while Hebdo’s approach to satire is in no way responsible for the terroristic violence visited upon the magazine, the publication nonetheless crafted a style intended to evoke a range of responses, including profound anger. As an empirical companion to this theoretical approach, the article then turns to coverage of the Hebdo massacre in the Jewish press, arguing that in the United States the Forward used the Hebdo story to represent Jewish empowerment and disempowerment simultaneously.     

Coefficient alpha and the reliability of composite measurements

Following a general approach due to Guttman, coefficientα is rederived as a lower bound on the reliability of a test. A necessary and sufficient condition under which equality is attained in this inequality and hence thatα is equal to the reliability of the test is derived and shown to be closely related to the recent redefinition of the concept of parallel measurements due to Novick. This condition is then also shown to be closely related to the unit rank assumption originally adopted by Kuder and Richardson in the derivation of their formula 20. The assumption later adopted by Jackson and Ferguson and the one adopted by Gulliksen are shown to be related to the necessary and sufficient condition derived here. It is then pointed out that the statement that “coefficientα is equal to the mean of the split-half reliabilities” is true only under the restricted condition assumed by Cronbach in the body of his derivation of this result. Finally some limitations on the uses of any function ofα as a measure of internal consistency are noted.     

Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World: An Existential-Phenomenological Reading of Max Weber’s ‘Class,Status, Party’

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber’s “Class, Status, Party” that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be (Seinkönnen), There-being-with-others (Mitdasein), and potentiality (Möglichkeit). I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence (There-being, Dasein) and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning accomplishment in a stratified World and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being (Gleichheit des Seins) among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity.     

The metaphysics of goodness in the ethics of Aristotle

Kraut (Against absolute goodness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011) and other neo-Aristotelians have argued that there is no such thing as absolute goodness. They admit only good in a kind, e.g. a good sculptor, and good for something, e.g. good for fish. What is the view of Aristotle? Mostly limiting myself to the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), I argue that Aristotle is committed to things being absolutely good and also to a metaphysics of absolute goodness where there is a maximally best good that is the cause of the goodness of all other things in virtue of being their end. I begin (in Sect. 2) by suggesting that the notion of good as an end, which is present in the first lines of the NE, is not obviously accounted for by good in a kind or good for something. I then give evidence that good in a kind (in Sect. 3) and good for something (in Sect. 4) can explain neither certain distinctions drawn between virtues nor the determinacy ascribed to what is good “in itself.” I argue (in Sect. 5) contra Gotthelf (2012) that because several important arguments in the Nicomachean Ethics rely on comparative judgments of absolute value—e.g. “Man is the best of all animals”—Aristotle is committed to the existence of both absolute goodness and an absolutely best being. I focus (in Sect. 6) on one passage, Aristotle’s division of goods in NE I 12, which presupposes this metaphysical picture.     

Framing,Reciprocity and the Grounds of Egalitarian Justice

John Rawls famously claims that ‘justice is the first virtue of social institutions’. On one of its readings, this remark seems to suggest that social institutions are essential for obligations of justice to arise. The spirit of this interpretation has recently sparked a new debate about the grounds of justice. What are the conditions that generate principles of distributive justice? I am interested in a specific version of this question. What conditions generate egalitarian principles of distributive justice and give rise to equality as a demand of justice? My paper focuses on relationalist answers to this question. Advocates of relationalism assume that ‘principles of distributive justice have a relational basis’, in the sense that ‘practice mediated relations in which individuals stand condition the content, scope and justification of those principles’. To say that principles of justice are ‘based’ on and ‘conditioned’ by practice mediated relations is ambiguous. I will here be concerned with advocates of what I call the relationalist requirement, viz. positions which assume that ‘practice mediated relations’ constitute a necessary existence condition for principles of egalitarian distributive justice. Relationalists who endorse this view come in different varieties. My focus is on relationalists that view social and political institutions as the relevant ‘practice mediated relation’. The question at stake, then, is this: Are institutionally mediated relations a necessary condition for equality to arise as a demand of justice? Strong relationalists of the institutionalist cast, call them advocates of the institutionalist requirement, differ in important respects. They argue about what set of institutions is foundationally significant, and they disagree on why only that institutional relation gives rise to egalitarian obligations of justice. My paper engages two ways of arguing for the institutionalist requirement: Julius’s framing argument and Andrea Sangiovanni’s reciprocity argument. The issue at stake are the grounds of egalitarian justice and I will argue that the institutionalist requirement is mistaken. It is not the case that egalitarian obligations of distributive justice arise only between and solely in virtue of individuals sharing a common institution.     

“Upbuilding Examples” for Adults Close to Children

Both in formal situations (as school teachers, football trainers, etc.) and in many, often unpredictable informal situations (both inside and outside institutions)—adults come close to children. Whether we intend it or not, we continually give them examples of what it is to live as a human being, and thereby we have a pedagogical responsibility. I sketch what it could mean to let ourselves “be built up”, in a Kierkegaardian sense, on the foundation of unconditional love, presupposing that this love is possible for all human beings. Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding discourses invite each reader to engage in a dialogue with the possibilities in the text. Thereby the reader may become aware of his or her present situation in life and see possible alternatives. These discourses or “talks” (taler in Danish) exemplify a manner of indirect communication which perhaps may be transferred to encounters with works of art in general: How could I let examples in literature, pictures, films and music invite and challenge me—to ask myself who I am right now and who I ought to be? My aim is to present an alternative to the instrumental advices that adults are given today. I attempt to clarify the leading concept “upbuilding examples”, sketch the difference between upbuilding, education and Bildung, refer to works of art that seem to have upbuilding possibilities, and consider why upbuilding examples should be studied and how they could be studied in small self-governed groups of adults.     

Expansion of Parents’ Undetermined Experience in Socioeducational Programs: Extending the Dialogical Self Theory

The Dialogic Self Theory (DST—Hermans et al. Integrative Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 51(4), 1-31, 2017) is extended here in its dynamic aspects through focusing on the notions of indeterminacy, emptiness and movement. Linking with Husserl, I propose moving the dialogical self (DS) from a clear position in the “repertory of the Self” to an undetermined horizon. This makes it possible to introduce “holes” (emptiness) into the schematic representation of the “repertory of the Self”. Yet Husserl’s concept of horizon seems to focus too much on making the indeterminable determinate. To overcome this limit, I incorporate Bergson’s concept of empty form into the DST. This enables conceptualising the extension and emergence of horizon. Extending Bergson’s concept of organisation, it is possible to see how the expansion of the horizon in a movement of globalisation does not necessarily entail the disorganisation of the DS but rather to its further organisation. Extending the system of DS by Hermans et al. Integrative Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 51(4), 1-31, (2017), I open by suggesting that movements are both horizontal (between people) and vertical (between the person, the institutions and the norms) connectors. My conceptual propositions are illustrated by parents’ and educators’ discourses in two Canadian socio-educational programs.     

Rank on Emotional Intelligence,Unlearning and Self-Leadership

Propelled from the inner circle after publishing The Trauma of Birth (1924), Otto Rank jettisoned Freud's science of knowing because it denied the intelligence of the emotions. Transforming therapy from knowing to being-in-relationship, Rank invented modern object-relations theory, which advocates continual learning, unlearning and relearning: that is, cutting the chains that bind us to the past. Separating, no matter how anxiety-provoking, from outworn phases of life, including previously taken-for-granted ideologies and internalized others, is essential for self-leadership. In 1926, Rank coined the terms “here-and-now” and “pre-Oedipal.” By 1926, Rank had formulated a model of “creative willing”—self-leadership infused with the intelligence of the emotions—as the optimal way of being-in-relationship with others.