An argument against global no miracles arguments

Synthese - Howson famously argues that the no-miracles argument, stating that the success of science indicates the approximate truth of scientific theories, is a base rate fallacy: it neglects the...     

Correction to: An argument against global no miracles arguments

Synthese - An argument against global no miracles     

Hume as a trope nominalist

In this paper, I argue that Hume's solution to a problem that contemporary metaphysicians call “the problem of universals” would be rather trope-theoretical than some other type of nominalism. The basic idea in different trope theories is that particular properties, i.e., tropes are postulated to account for the fact that there are particular beings resembling each other. I show that Hume's simple sensible perceptions are tropes: simple qualities. Accordingly, their similarities are explained by these tropes themselves and their resemblance. Reading Hume as a trope nominalist sheds light on his account of general ideas, perceptions, relations and nominalism.     

Causation as a Philosophical Relation in Hume

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume's radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume's perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume's radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume's naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume's two "definitions" of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation—Norman Kemp Smith's and Annette Baier's, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin's, on the other—that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume.     

Moral responsibility and manipulation: on a novel argument against historicism

Philosophical Studies - Taylor Cyr offers a novel argument against, as he puts it, “all versions of historicism” about direct moral responsibility (Philos Stud....     

Explaining in conversation: Towards an argument model

We examine the proposition that, in ordinary conversation, people are concerned to argue — to justify their claims and to counter potential and actual counter claims. We test out the proposition by analysing explanations in one particular conversation. We attend to the validity claims of what the speakers say, and to the authority with which they say it. Viewed in that light, we find that the majority of what might look like causal attributions turn out to look like argumentative claim-backings. We then go on to flesh out the quasi-pragmatic rules which might help to decide formally whether any given utterance is be er understood as an argument or a causal explanation. These rules revolve around the speaker's apparent intention and the projected relationship between the clauses in what she or he says. All of this takes us a fair way from attribution theory's model of explanation as the reporting of a cause, and we end up with an argumentative model of ordinary explanation.     

Question-begging under a non-foundational model of argument

I find (as others have found) that question-begging is formally valid but rationally unpersuasive. More precisely, itought to be unpersuasive, although it can often persuade. Despite its formal validity, question-begging fails to establish its conclusion; in this sense it fails under a classical or foundationalist model of argument. But it does link its conclusion to its premises by means of acceptable rules of inference; in this sense it succeeds under a non-classical, non-foundationalist model of argument which is spelled out in the essay. However, even for the latter model question-begging fails to link the conclusion to premises that the unconvinced would find more acceptable than the conclusion. The essay includes reflections on the conditions under which the circularity of mutually supporting claims can avoid question-begging and legitimately be persuasive.     

Explanatory priority and independence: On an argument against middle knowledge

Conclusion A Molinist should not embrace the independence thesis. He also can defend the thesis that counterfactuals of freedom depend on a counterfactual act. Although such a move may seem illicit in the sense thatexplanandum andexplanans presuppose each other, I defend the view that counterfactuals of freedom are very deeply embedded in our metaphysics and we cannot therefore satisfactorily explain them with the help of other devices.     

Belief and feeling: evidence for an accessibility model of emotional self-report

This review organizes a variety of phenomena related to emotional self-report. In doing so, the authors offer an accessibility model that specifies the types of factors that contribute to emotional self-reports under different reporting conditions. One important distinction is between emotion, which is episodic, experiential, and contextual, and beliefs about emotion, which are semantic, conceptual, and decontextualized. This distinction is important in understanding the discrepancies that often occur when people are asked to report on feelings they are currently experiencing versus those that they are not currently experiencing. The accessibility model provides an organizing framework for understanding self-reports of emotion and suggests some new directions for research.     

Paraconsistent vagueness: a positive argument

Paraconsistent approaches have received little attention in the literature on vagueness (at least compared to other proposals). The reason seems to be that many philosophers have found the idea that a contradiction might be true (or that a sentence and its negation might both be true) hard to swallow. Even advocates of paraconsistency on vagueness do not look very convinced when they consider this fact; since they seem to have spent more time arguing that paraconsistent theories are at least as good as their paracomplete counterparts, than giving positive reasons to believe on a particular paraconsistent proposal. But it sometimes happens that the weakness of a theory turns out to be its mayor ally, and this is what (I claim) happens in a particular paraconsistent proposal known as subvaluationism. In order to make room for truth-value gluts subvaluationism needs to endorse a notion of logical consequence that is, in some sense, weaker than standard notions of consequence. But this weakness allows the subvaluationist theory to accommodate higher-order vagueness in a way that it is not available to other theories of vagueness (such as, for example, its paracomplete counterpart, supervaluationism).     

The extended argument dependency model: a neurocognitive approach to sentence comprehension across languages

Real-time language comprehension is a principal cognitive ability and thereby relates to central properties of the human cognitive architecture. Yet how do the presumably universal cognitive and neural substrates of language processing relate to the astounding diversity of human languages (over 5,000)? The authors present a neurocognitive model of online comprehension, the extended argument dependency model (eADM), that accounts for cross-linguistic unity and diversity in the processing of core constituents (verbs and arguments). The eADM postulates that core constituent processing proceeds in three hierarchically organized phases: (1) constituent structure building without relational interpretation, (2) argument role assignment via a restricted set of cross-linguistically motivated information types (e.g., case, animacy), and (3) completion of argument interpretation using information from further domains (e.g., discourse context, plausibility). This basic architecture is assumed to be universal, with cross-linguistic variation deriving primarily from the information types applied in Phase 2 of comprehension. This conception can derive the appearance of similar neurophysiological and neuroanatomical processing correlates in seemingly disparate structures in different languages and, conversely, of cross-linguistic differences in the processing of similar sentence structures.     

The luck argument against event-causal libertarianism: It is here to stay

The luck argument raises a serious challenge for libertarianism about free will. In broad outline, if an action is undetermined, then it appears to be a matter of luck whether or not one performs it. And if it is a matter of luck whether or not one performs an action, then it seems that the action is not performed with free will. This argument is most effective against event-causal accounts of libertarianism. Recently, Franklin (Philosophical Studies 156:199–230, 2011) has defended event-causal libertarianism against four formulations of the luck argument. I will argue that three of Franklin’s responses are unsuccessful and that there are important versions of the luck challenge that his defense has left unaddressed.