Responses to critics

In response to points raised by our critics in this book symposium, we offer some clarifications about how to understand the role of science in assessing the multiple realization thesis. We also consider the connection between functionalism and multiple realization in the contexts of both psychological and biological sciences.     

Nomological dualism: Reply to four critics

Three theses about the mind, when conjoined with a certain understanding of lawlike connection, escape the objection that they constitute an epiphenomenalism and so conflict with our conviction of the efficacy of the mental. Certain alternatives to the given picture of the mind, one of them an Identity Theory, are in various respects less defensible. The given picture can be defended against considerations deriving from a contextual conception of the mental, and from an elaborated objection having to do with the holism of the mental. The Identity Theory mentioned above appears to be inconsistent, and a further picture of the mind, with very different presuppositions, has the disability among others that it does not provide for mental efficacy. Also, the presuppositions raise great problems.     

Reply to critics

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.     

Reply to critics

ABSTRACT

In this reply to critics, I reply to Stephanie Leary’s, Kris McDaniel’s, Tristram McPherson’s and David Plunkett’s articles on my book Choosing Normative Concepts. One central theme in the replies concerns what is the best strategy for the so-called ardent realist when it comes to responding to the challenge I present in the book. Another central theme concerns the criticisms of my characterizations of what normative concepts and normative properties are.     

Reply to critics

Philosophical Studies - I reply to commentaries by Justin Bruner, Robert Sugden and Gerald Gaus. My response to Bruner focuses on conventions of bargaining problems and arguments for characterizing...     

Relies to our critics

We respond to the central concerns raised by our commentators to our book, The Epistemological Spectrum. Casullo believes that our account of what we term “low-grade a priori” justification provides important clarification of a kind of philosophical reflection. However he objects to calling such reflection a priori. We explain what we think is at stake. Along the way, we comment on his idea of that there may be an epistemic payoff to making a distinction between assumptions and presumptions. In the book, we argued that an epistemically important form of nonaccidental reliability can be understood as a matter of processes being “transglobally reliable under modulational control.” Graham recommends another form of nonaccidental reliability, one rooted in evolutionary etiology. We explain why we think that the reliability of perceptual processes is best understood as turning of the kinds of modulational control that we highlight. We clarify how this approach represents a kind of reasonable epistemic patience—modulational control takes time, as it must turn on agents generating information about their own capacities and foibles. Lyons raises interesting questions regarding how (what we term) morphological content possessed by the agent can do the work that we set for it. We argue that it is necessary in order for agents to accommodate the background information that is relevant to many central problems of belief formation. We clarify how it can be expected to work.     

Outstanding problems: Replies to ZiF critics

Answers set the stage for new questions. Reconfigured terrains require new maps. We endedReconceptions with the words constructionalism always has plenty to do. The papers in this volume prove our point. They raise issues and disclose avenues that merit further investigation. In what follows, I venture some brief replies that answer objections and indicate areas that deserve further study.