Is the Humean defeated by induction?

Many necessitarians about cause and law (Armstrong, What is a law of nature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; Mumford, Laws in nature. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Routledge, Abingdon, 2004; Bird, Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) have argued that Humeans are unable to justify their inductive inferences, as Humean laws are nothing but the sum of their instances. In this paper I argue against these necessitarian claims. I show that Armstrong is committed to the explanatory value of Humean laws (in the form of universally quantified statements), and that contra Armstrong, brute regularities often do have genuine explanatory value. I finish with a Humean attempt at a probabilistic justification of induction, but this fails due to its assumption that the proportionality syllogism is justified. Although this attempt fails, I nonetheless show that the Humean is at least as justified in reasoning inductively as Armstrong.     

Is Explanatoriness a Guide to Confirmation? A Reply to Climenhaga

We (2013, 2014) argued that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant in the following sense: Let H be a hypothesis, O an observation, and E the proposition that H would explain O if H and O were true. Then our claim is that Pr(H | O & E) = Pr(H | O). We defended this screening-off thesis (SOT) by discussing an example concerning smoking and cancer. Climenhaga (Philos Sci, forthcoming) argues that SOT is mistaken because it delivers the wrong verdict about a slightly different smoking-and-cancer case. He also considers a variant of SOT, called “SOT*”, and contends that it too gives the wrong result. We here reply to Climenhaga’s arguments and suggest that SOT provides a criticism of the widely held theory of inference called “inference to the best explanation”.     

Is Moral Responsibility Essentially Interpersonal? A Reply to Zimmerman

According to Michael Zimmerman, no interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal captures a significant truth. He raises several worries about the Strawsonian view that moral responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes and claims that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. He outlines three problems. First, the existence of self-reactive attitudes may be incompatible with the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility. Secondly, Zimmerman questions the significance of the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility, according to the Strawsonian view. Thirdly, he argues that that view may be taken to suggest the wrong kind of priority relation between ‘P is morally responsible’ and ‘it is appropriate to adopt some reactive attitude toward P’. I discuss each of these problems in turn and conclude that Strawsonians can respond to all three problems raised by Zimmerman. The Strawsonian view supports a significant interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal.     

Is Induction Epistemologically Prior to Deduction?

Most philosophers hold that the use of our deductive powers confers an especially strong warrant on some of our mathematical and logical beliefs. By contrast, many of the same philosophers hold that it is a matter of serious debate whether any inductive inferences are cogent. That is, they hold that we might well have no warrant for inductively licensed beliefs, such as generalizations. I argue that we cannot know that we know logical and mathematical truths unless we use induction. Our confidence in our logical and mathematical powers is not justified if we are inductive sceptics. This means that inductive scepticism leads to a deductive scepticism. I conclude that we should either be philosophical sceptics about our knowledge of deduction and induction, or accept that some of our inductive inferences are cogent.     

Is Every Truth Knowable? Reply to Williamson

This paper addresses an objection raised by Timothy Williamson to the 'restriction strategy' that I proposed, in The Taming of The True , in order to deal with the Fitch paradox. Williamson provides a newversion of a Fitch-style argument that purports to show that even the restricted principle of knowability suffers the same fate as the unrestricted one. I show here that the new argument is fallacious. The source of the fallacy is a misunderstanding of the condition used in stating the restricted knowability principle. I also rebut WilliamsonÕs criticism of my argument for the claim that any proposition of the form 'it is known thatφ' is decidable if φ is decidable     

Personal Autonomy or the Deconstructed Subject? A Reply to Hekman

A response to Susan Hekman's article “Reconstituting the Subject: Feminism, Modernism, and Postmodernism” and to her review of Diana T. Meyers’ book Self, Society, and Personal Choice both of which appeared in Hypatia 6(2).     

Is There a Natural Sexual Inequality of Intellect? A Reply to Kimura

The noted psychologist, Doreen Kimura, has argued that we should not expect to find equal numbers of men and women in various professions because there is a natural sexual inequality of intellect. In rebuttal I argue that each of these mutually supporting theses is insufficiently supported by the evidence to be accepted. The social and ethical dimensions of Kimura's work, and of the scientific study of the nature-nurture controversy in general, are briefly discussed.     

Judgment by Outcomes: Why Is It Interesting? A Reply to Hershey and Baron: "Judgment by Outcomes: When Is It Justified?"

Hershey and Baron (1992) have criticized the validity of research on judgment by outcomes, which fail to establish that this judgment constitutes a bias. This reply argues that Hershey and Baron′s criticism is based on a probabilistic version of affirming the consequent and that judgment by outcomes can be studied independently of the issue of bias.     

Is the Meaning of Life Also the Meaning of Death? A Terror Management Perspective Reply

The human quality of self-awareness makes individuals aware of their inventible death. How does this knowledge influence meaning in life and is influenced by it? Four studies examined the association between meaning in life and awareness of death, through a Terror Management Theory perspective. Study 1 assessed the effects of a mortality reminder on self-reports of meaning in life, while exploring the moderating role of self-esteem. The findings indicate a trend in which after a mortality salience induction, high self-esteem individuals tend to view their lives as more meaningful. Studies 2 and 3 examined the effect of thinking about the meaning of life on death-thought accessibility, and found it to be higher in both the mortality and meaning salience conditions, as compared to a control condition. Study 4 sought to discover whether reminders of one’s meaning in life would yield cultural worldview validation, and indeed revealed a more severe perception of social transgressions following both mortality and meaning salience. Findings highlight the understanding that meaning in life is a basic existential concept closely related to awareness of death’s inevitability.     

Do Parental Influences Matter? A Reply to Halverson

ABSTRACT Halverson (1988) raises many objections to the retrospective method, but only some of them are applicable to our study (McCrae & Costa, 1988), further, Halverson fails to distinguish between random error and bias in retrospective data We argue that retrospective accounts can provide one useful source of evidence when the probable effects of biases are taken into account The small associations between recalled parent-child relations and adult personality that we reported were probably exaggerated rather than masked by retrospective bias, we took this into account in reaching our conclusions Rather than dismiss the method, psychologists should question the entrenched belief that child-rearing is a major determinant of adult personality
Tram up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it—Proverbs 22 6     

Reply to “Expanding the Frame” by Anthony Bass and to Commentaries

In this reply I offer a short answer to the question about the theme “What do we learn from experience?” I can say that certainly the power of that particular experience with that patient made me more sensitive and careful toward similar moments with other patients. I then offer some comment on the contributions in this issue of the journal. I emphasize the interweaving of structure and process and the process of building meaning as an intersubjective achievement. I also intervene on the theme “how to transmit psychoanalytic wisdom.”