Disjunctive View Research Articles

Acting in light of the facts: an ecological approach

We conceive of ourselves as capable of acting in response to normative reasons. Given that normative reasons are facts, this self-conception entails that we are capable of acting in response to facts. Arguments from error cases might seem to force us to deflate this self-conception, for they seem to show that to act in light of a fact must simply be a way of acting in light of a belief. The starting point of this paper is the rejection of this deflationary view. In order to reject the argument from error cases, we should adopt a disjunctive view of motivating reasons. According to this view there are two distinct ways of acting in light of a consideration: acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief. Disjunctivism about motivating reasons, however, is the target of a skeptical challenge grounded in a cognitivist account of the mind. According to this account, cognition is to explained in terms of the manipulation of representations and there is no meaningful difference between acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief: in both cases, one decides in light of a representation. The goal of this paper is to defend disjunctivism from this objection. In order to do so I appeal to Gibson’s ecological psychology. I argue that the ecological account of perception allows us to hold that in the case of actions guided by perception we act in light of the facts themselves (not representations of those facts) and that the same approach can be extended to cover cases in which we act in light of sensorily unavailable facts.

Physicalism or Anti-physicalism: A Disjunctive Account

AbstractIn this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are false. Furthermore, making use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and anti-physicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of physicalism and anti-physicalism are superior to their more traditional counterparts.

Braiding Liberation Discourses: Dialectical, Civic and Disjunctive Views about Resistance and Violence

AbstractThis article puts three discourses about resistance and violence, coming from two distinct settler colonial contexts, in conversation, to highlight a distinctive theory of change associated with contemporary Indigenous movements. The first, from South Africa, can be seen in the writings of Nelson Mandela. It offers a dialectical view of resistance, where the oppressor sets the terms of the confrontation and where violence is allowable in the pursuit of change. The second discourse can be seen in the writings of James Tully and offers a theoretical bridge between the first and the third. It focuses on civic citizenship as a nonviolent engagement with terms of governance. The third can be seen in the writings of Indigenous theorists whose work focuses on resurgence. It offers a disjunctive theory of change that centres transgression and prefigurative practices. The conclusion of the article braids these discourses to discuss how they both converge and diverge.

Acting in Light of a Fact and Acting in Light of a Belief

AbstractWe conceive of ourselves as beings capable of acting in response to normative reasons. Given that our normative reasons are usually facts, this self‐conception entails that we are capable of acting in response to facts. Arguments from error cases might seem to force us to deflate that self‐conception, for they seem to show that to act in light of a fact must simply be a way of acting in light of a belief. The goal of this article is to argue against this deflationary view. I offer a counterexample to it and argue that in order to reject the argument from error on which it is grounded we should adopt a disjunctive view of acting in light of a consideration. According to this view there are two subjectively indistinguishable but distinct ways of acting in light of a consideration: acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief. This view allows us to take seriously the idea that our motivating reasons can be identical to facts and not mere true considerations and thus to take seriously our self‐conception as beings that respond to and are capable of being moved by normative reasons for action.

Collective memories, emotions, and spatial tactics in social movements: The case of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

Recent studies have increasingly acknowledged the dynamic relationship between emotions and space in social movements. They, however, have seldom tied emotions and space to time when discussing activists’ emotions and their tactical choices. This paper studies the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and explores how collective memory and generational experiences—two intertwined notions of time—shaped how activists felt and how they designed and deployed a spatial tactic. The Umbrella Movement was characterized by miscellaneous emotions and intense disputes among activists regarding how to best use spatial occupation to fight for democratization before and during the struggle. Using a qualitative dataset that contains textual and interview data, I argue that while emotions and the political-cultural characteristics of contentious space were two factors in informing tactical choices, collective memory and generational experiences were key to understanding the rise of the movement and its characteristics. Experiencing different political events in their years of early adulthood, young and veteran activists felt differently in the context of 2013–2014, which led them to embrace disjunctive views on the pace, sequence, and bodily action for the same tactic of spatial occupation and dissimilar emotional management strategies. This created ongoing internal clashes before and during the movement.

Bases and dimension of interval vector space

Linear independence of interval vectors is one of the most important issue in analyzing the controllability or observability of systems under uncertainty. From the viewpoint of quasilinear space, this paper aims to determine the linear independence of interval vectors by the conjunctive and disjunctive views of sets, respectively. We first show the concept of linear independence of interval vectors as conjunctive sets. And then, the dimension of $$\langle {\mathbb {I}}{\mathbb {R}}^n, +,\cdot \rangle $$ is investigated. Second, viewed the interval as a disjunctive set, we introduce the weak, strong, tolerable, and controllable linear independence of interval vectors, respectively. The method and algorithms are developed to check the weak, strong, tolerable, and controllable linear independence of a set of interval vectors. Moreover, the linear independence of fuzzy number vectors is studied, too. Finally, four numerical examples are provided to illustrate and substantiate our theoretical developments and established algorithms.

Reasoning and grasping objects

AbstractThere is a pervasive view that inference—as opposed, notably, to a grasp of objects—is an intralinguistic process that does not draw on extralinguistic resources. The present paper aims to show that this dichotomy between inferring and grasping objects can be resisted. Specifically, I offer an alternative view: a phenomenological account according to which our most basic inferences draw on our grasp of objects. I motivate this account on the grounds that, although it is restricted to such basic inferences, it has significant implications for the general question of whether inference involves taking one's premises to support one's conclusion. The proposed account implies that basic inferences need not involve corresponding “takings,” (even though such inferences involve conceptual content), but it leaves open the possibility that non‐basic inferences do involve corresponding “takings,” while relying on basic inferences. It will turn out that such a disjunctive view, according to which non‐basic reasoning is somewhat parasitic on basic reasoning, manages to avoid many of the problems with which the literature on the “taking condition” deals.

A Dilemma for Modest Actual Intentionalism

Abstract Modest actual intentionalism is a major position on interpretation in contemporary analytic aesthetics. The position consists of a disjunctive formulation according to which work-meaning is determined by the author’s intention when such intention succeeds or by non-intentionalistic factors when it fails. I challenge the disjunctive view by presenting a constructive dilemma, the conclusion being that modest actual intentionalism ends up either making non-intentionalistic factors idle or making authorial intent superfluous.

Husserl on Hallucination: A Conjunctive Reading

Several commentators have recently attributed conflicting accounts of the relation between veridical perceptual experience and hallucination to Husserl. Some say he is a proponent of the conjunctive view that the two kinds of experience are fundamentally the same. Others deny this and purport to find in Husserl distinct and non-overlapping accounts of their fundamental natures, thus committing him to a disjunctive view. My goal is to set the record straight. Having first briefly laid out the problem under discussion and the terms of the debate, I then review the proposals that have been advanced, disposing of some and marking others for further consideration later in the paper. A. D. Smith's disjunctive reading is among the latter. I discuss it at length, arguing that Smith fails to show that Husserl's views on perceptual experience entail a form of disjunctivism. Following that critical discussion, I present a case for a conjunctive reading of Husserl's account of perceptual experience.

Lord, Errol. The Importance of Being Rational. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 288. $60.00 (cloth).

Lord, Errol. <i>The Importance of Being Rational</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 288. $60.00 (cloth).

The Formulation of Disjunctivism About φ-ing for a Reason

We can contrast rationalising explanations of the form S φs because p with those of the form S φs because S believes that p. According the Common Kind View, the two sorts of explanation are the same. The Disjunctive View denies this. This paper sets out to elucidate the sense in which the Common Kind Theorist asserts, but the Disjunctivist denies, that the two explanations are the same. I suggest that, in the light of the distinction between kinds of explanation and particular explanations, the relevant sameness thesis is ambiguous, thus giving us two distinct versions of the Common Kind View. I then argue that the only direct arguments for Disjunctivism available in the literature fail because they only succeed in undermining one version of the Common Kind View. I finish, however, by providing a fresh argument for the Disjunctive View which aims to undermine both versions of its competitor.

Sexual Consent In and Out of the Bedroom: Disjunctive Views of Heterosexual College Students

Previous research assumes that people communicate consent “in the bedroom” or other private settings and immediately prior to sexual activity. The research presented in this study challenges that notion, examining consent as it was interpreted by 30 heterosexual college students during in-depth interviews. Our findings suggest that men often read consent as happening in social settings, whereas women are more likely to conceptualize such cues as part of a larger consent process that also includes cues occurring in private settings. This disjunctive understanding may be a function of larger social scripts regarding expected sexual behavior and may lead to problematic interpretations of consent messages.

Caribe de Esteban Ramírez, una excusa visual para la marginalización del afrocostarricense

En las últimas décadas, el espacio caribeño y la figura del afrocostarricense se han convertido en germen propulsor creativo que bien se podría interpretar como una celebración de los símbolos de un espacio y etnicidad oprimidos. Sin embargo, una lectura detallada muestra que sus propuestas podrían no pasar de lo anecdótico, estereotípico y exótico. Esta supuesta inserción del Caribe y los sujetos afrocostarricenses logran más bien, marginar y eliminar cualquier posibilidad deinserción, así como consolidar los discursos hegemónicos tradicionales, en los que se refuerza un nacionalismo del Valle Central, presentando los otros espacios como ajenos. Bajo esta impronta se inscribe Caribe (2004) de Esteban Ramírez. Este filme muestra al Caribe como un espacio exótico en donde los sujetos que conviven no pasan de ser forasteros, foráneos a cualquier discurso nacional verdadero e inclusivo. El ensayo reflexiona cómo a través de la introducción del Caribe y los sujetos afrocostarricenses, dentro de una problemática que les involucre como parte de la patria y una disyuntiva del Caribe como idilio o barbarie, reconstruye un sentido de exotismo que demuestra una contemporaneidad fragmentada. Es mediante una fetichización de la imagen del Caribe lo que permite que las líneas de la hegemonía relacionadas con el debate de la etnicidad y la identidad nacional sean reposicionadas para crear lo que el crítico Jerome Branche (1999) llama “nuevo consensus o ‘definición’ de la realidad, dirigida en última instancia a mantener el status quo” de la clase dominante.

The Subtle Disjunctivism: The Wright-McDowell Debate on the Epistemology of Perception

The aim of this paper is to cover, at least partly, the Wright- McDowell debate over the epistemology of Perception. I will argue why Wright’s concerns about the epistemological aspect of McDowell’s disjunctive view in perception, though serious, are off-target. My diagnosis of the debate will demonstrate that Wright’s criticisms against McDowell have two problems: first, in his attack on McDowell’s “criteria”, Wright confuses “being justified” and “justifying” in his first argument. Second, in his reformulation of an Agnostic-Skeptical argument throughout his second objection, Wright presupposes Access-Internalist conception of justification. Both of these ideas are rejected by McDowell.

Omissions: Agency, Metaphysics, and Responsibility, by Randolph Clarke.

Although philosophers are often quick to look to omissions to provide difficult cases and counterexamples, we rarely consider just what omissions are on their own. And what little work there is on the nature of omissions tends to focus solely on what omissions are and not how what they are should influence our theories in other subfields. This book does a wonderful job bridging this gap. It begins by carefully considering what view of omissions we should have, and then, once the theory is in hand, it spans out to consider how we should think about adjacent issues in the philosophy of action and law. In the first two chapters, Clarke argues for a disjunctive view of omissions. Most of our omissions are simply a matter of our not performing certain actions (e.g. my not picking a friend up from the airport after promising to do so). That is, most omissions are absences of action. Now, it is a further matter just what absences are, but Clarke argues for the reasonable position that they are nothing at all — that there is no thing that is an absence. So, since most omissions are absences of action, most omissions are nothing at all.

The Epistemology of Modest Atheism

Distinguishing between the old atheism, the new atheism, and modest atheism, and also between belief and acceptance, and belief and acceptance tokens and types, I defend the disjunctive view that either modest atheistic belief or modest atheistic acceptance, construed as type, is today epistemically justified in the context of philosophical inquiry. Central to my defence is a deductive version of the hiddenness argument and an emphasis on the early stage of philosophical inquiry that we presently occupy.

The Value of the Virtues

I argue that debates about virtue are best settled by clearly distinguishing two questions:(a)What sort of character trait is there reason to cultivate?(b)What sort of character trait is there reason (morally) to admire?With this distinction in mind, I focus on recent accounts of what consequentialists ought to say about virtue, arguing that:(1)The instrumentalist view of virtue accepted by many prominent consequentialists should not be accepted as the default view for consequentialists to hold.(2)The main rival view, the appropriate response account, not only avoids the major objection facing the instrumental view, but gives the correct diagnosis of where it goes wrong.(3)Two objections that seem to face the appropriate response account can in fact be convincingly met in ways which leave it looking stronger.(4)The appropriate response account is also to be preferred to a disjunctive view or a mixed view.

Hallucinations for disjunctivists

In this paper, I examine the so-called disjunctive views on hallucinations. I argue that neither of the options open to the disjunctivist is capable of accommodating basic phenomenological facts about hallucinatory experiences and the explanatory demands behind the classical argument from hallucination. A positive characterization of the hallucinatory case is not attractive to a disjunctivist once she is disposed to accept certain commonalities with veridical experiences. Negative disjunctivism glosses the hallucinatory disjunct in terms of indiscriminability. I will argue that this move either renounces to characterize phenomenally the hallucinatory experience or does not take seriously questions about why indiscriminability is possible in the phenomenal realm.

Reality and technology

Is it possible to have a wide and deep theory of technology? Commodification provides a helpful clue. It refers to the width of the economy and suggests incisive criticism. Although it is economically precise, its moral and cultural force needs explication. In that sense it refers to the detachment of a thing or practice from its context of engagement with a time, a place, and a community. Engagement is replaced by a technological machinery. The conjunction of commodity and machinery sheds light on consumption and labour and on the discontents of life in an advanced industrial society. It also suggests a disjunctive view of the future--still more commodification or a recovery of engagement.

On not unnecessarily darkening the glass: a reply to Poston and Dougherty

AbstractI argue that Poston and Dougherty are mistaken in supposing that the hiddenness argument contains ambiguities about the nature of belief. And the attempt to extract from their mistaken account some reasons for favouring a broad, disjunctive view of divine – creature relationship that will be convincing for individuals not in the grip of theological assumptions comes up dry.