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No God, No Powers

One common feature of debates about the best metaphysical analysis of putatively lawful phenomena is the suspicion that nomic realists who locate the modal force of such phenomena in quasi-causal necessitation relations between universals are working with a model of law that cannot convincingly erase its theological pedigree. Nancy Cartwright distills this criticism into slogan form: no God, no laws. Some have argued that a more plausible alternative for nomic realists who reject theism is to ground laws of nature in the fundamental dispositional properties or “pure powers” of physical objects. This article argues that for all its advantages over deflationary and rival realist accounts, a pandispositionalist account of law cuts against the commitment to metaphysical naturalism that its supporters almost always presuppose. It then examines and rejects a Platonic version of this account before elaborating and advancing a theistic alternative that is more theoretically powerful and more metatheoretically parsimonious. In slogan form: no God, no powers.

ON UNDERSTANDING PHYSICALISM*

ABSTRACT This paper aims at exposing a strategy to organize the debate around physicalism. Our starting point (following Stoljar 2010) is the pre-philosophical notion of physicalism, which is typically formulated in the form of slogans. Indeed, philosophers debating metaphysics have paradigmatically introduced the subject with aid of slogans such as “there is nothing over and above the physical”, “once every physical aspect of the world is settled, every other aspect will follow”, “physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical”. These ideas are very intuitive but they are, of course, far from being a satisfactory metaphysical conception of Physicalism. For that end, we will begin with the definition of physicalism as the thesis that everything is physical, following Stoljar, we should be able to respond to one central question: how to interpret the physicalist claim that everything in physical.

Normativity all the way down: from normative realism to pannormism

In this paper, I will give an argument for what I call pannormism, the view according to which if x instantiates a metaphysically basic normative property F, then whatever grounds the being of x also instantiates F. In slogan form: if there is normativity, there is normativity all the way down. Such pannormism is in many ways analogous to panpsychism, and my discussion also contains an important lesson for panpsychism, a way to avoid its so-called combination problem. In Sect. 1, I present the argument; in Sect. 2, I discuss its conclusion.

MŰFORDÍTÁS, ÚJRAÍRÁS, RECEPCIÓ

Ivo Andrić jelentős helyet foglal el a magyar irodalmi gondolkodásban. Műveiről folyamatosan jelennek meg tanulmányok, tárcák sorának címében jelenik meg utalás a Nobel-díjas regényre, a Híd a Drinánra. Poétikája a mai középnemzedék irodalmi affinitásával találkozott, s ennek során mottók és intertextuális áthallások formájában jelentkezik az andrići szövegvilág hatása. Miközben a recepció jelenségeit regisztráljuk, nem téveszthetjük szem elől, hogy Ivo Andrić munkássága nem a szerb eredeti szövegek olvasásán, hanem a fordításokon keresztül fejti ki hatását. Alkotásait pályájának kezdetétől fogva rendszeresen fordították magyar nyelvre. Dolgozatomban arra keresem a választ, hogy a fordítás jellege hogyan határozta meg a recepciót, s vajon hatott-e és hogyan irodalmi hatásának kiteljesedésére. Munkám során André Lefevere elméletéből indulok ki, aki a fordítást – a szövegmanipuláció más formáival egyetemben – újraírásként határozza meg.

Existence and Strong Uncountability

On the standard view for something to exist is for one thing to exist: in slogan form, to be is to be countable (cf. van Inwagen 2009). E.J. Lowe (2009, 2003, 1998) argues something can exist without being countable as one, however. His primary example is homogenous “stuff,” i.e., qualitatively uniform and infinitely divisible matter. Lacking nonarbitrary boundaries and being everywhere the same, homogenous stuff lacks a principle of individuation that would yield countably distinct constituents. So, for Lowe, homogenous stuff is strongly uncountable. Olson (2011) rejects Lowe’s view and defends the orthodox connection between existence and number. He argues that if there is any stuff, there is a (determinate) number of portions of stuff. Sider (2011, 2001) also rejects a stuff ontology, claiming it is incompatible with his preferred view that the familiar quantifiers of predicate logic carve at nature’s joints. Against these arguments, I defend the uncountability of stuff and the possibility of existence without countability. If to be is to be countable, more is needed than the arguments that Olson and Sider provide.

Evidence of evidence is evidence (trivially)

Richard Feldman (2007, 2011) has proposed and defended different versions of a principle about evidence. In slogan form, the principle holds that ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’. Recently, Branden Fitelson (2012) has argued that Feldman’s preferred rendition of the principle falls pray to a counterexample related to the non-transitivity of the evidence-for relation. Feldman (2014) replies arguing that Fitelson’s case does not really represent a counterexample to the principle. In this note, we argue that Feldman’s principle is trivially true.

Evidence, Significance, and Counterfactuals: Schramm on the New Riddle of Induction

In a recent paper in this journal, Schramm (Erkenntnis 79:571–591, 2014) presents what he takes to be an answer to Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction. His solution relies on the technical notion of evidential significance, which is meant to distinguish two ways that evidence may bear on a hypothesis: either via support or confirmation. As he puts his view in slogan form: “confirmation is support by significant evidence” (p. 571). Once we make this distinction, Schramm claims, we see that Goodman’s famous riddle is dissolved, and we are no longer forced into the “intolerable result” that anything confirms anything. Schramm makes a number of incisive observations in his paper, but I do not think he has solved the New Riddle. There are two reasons for this. First, Schramm has an overly narrow conception of what the Riddle amounts to; I would venture to guess that it is narrower than that of most contemporary philosophers. Thus his proposal does not address the primary concern. Second, Schramm’s notion of significant evidence relies on a counterfactual condition that bears more than a passing resemblance to that made famous by Jackson in his (J Philos 72:113–131, 1975) paper on the topic. However, Jackson’s proposal faces several well-known counterexamples (and even charges of petitio principii), some of which can be adapted into Schramm’s framework. Schramm’s solution thus inherits a number of outstanding problems from Jackson’s proposal, which he has not shown us how to handle.

Second person thought

There are modes of presentation of a person in thought corresponding to the first and third person pronouns. This paper proposes that there is also thought involving a second person mode of presentation of another, which might be expressed by an utterance involving ‘you’, but need not be expressed linguistically. It suggests that co-operative activity is the locus for such thought. First person thought is distinctive in how it supplies reasons for the subject to act. In co-operative action there is first person plural intending and judging. So there is a way of thinking of another, when openly co-operating with him or her, which plays the distinctive role of giving reason for contribution to the co-operative activity. In slogan form, ‘you’ is ‘we minus I’. The way children learn to use second and third person pronouns is naturally explained on this view. Contrasting less sophisticated kinds of co-operative activity with more sophisticated forms, and considering some issues about common knowledge and common purpose, help to fill out the proposal.

The Methodology of Modal Logic as Metaphysics

Timothy Williamson’s Modal Logic as Metaphysics is, among much else, a detailed and complex defense of the metaphysical view he calls necessitism, the view that necessarily everything necessarily exists (is something), that although it may be a contingent matter how things are, what things there are is entirely a matter of necessity. The majority of contemporary modal metaphysicians reject this view; they are contingentists. Williamson examines the case for necessitism with great thoroughness, and with a distinctive methodology captured in slogan form by the book’s title. The book is an impressive achievement, and will have an impact on the shape of future debate. Necessitism appears to fly in the face of common opinion. Surely—or so I think—if my parents had never met, then I would not have existed. Surely—or so I think—I could have had a brother (although I actually do not), without it being the case that there (actually) exists something that could have been my brother. Indeed, on the familiar assumption that one’s genetic makeup is part of one’s essence, necessitism leads to an ontological explosion of my possible brothers, all of whom (actually) exist. A common response to necessitism is that the conflict with common opinion is so great that it can be rejected out of hand. Williamson would disagree. A possible person is not a person, not something made of flesh and blood; a possible person is a non-concrete object that is possibly concrete. Common opinion, arguably, does not distinguish between concrete existence and existence tout court. Perhaps the common opinion that I could have failed to exist is respected well enough if I could have failed to be anything concrete.

EXPERIENCE AND CONTENT

The ‘content view’, in slogan form, is ‘Perceptual experiences have representational content’. I explain why the content view should be reformulated to remove any reference to ‘experiences’. I then argue, against Bill Brewer, Charles Travis and others, that the content view is true. One corollary of the discussion is that the content of perception is relatively thin (confined, in the visual case, to roughly the output of ‘mid‐level’ vision). Finally, I argue (briefly) that the opponents of the content view are partially vindicated, because perceptual error is due to false belief.

What is global supervenience?

The relation of global supervenience is widely appealed to in philosophy. In slogan form, it is explained as follows: a class of properties A supervenes on a class of properties B if no two worlds differ in the distribution of A-properties without differing in the distribution of B-properties. It turns out, though, that there are several ways to cash out that slogan. Three different proposals have been discussed in the literature. In this paper, I argue that none of them is adequate. Furthermore, I present a puzzle that reveals a tension in our concept of global supervenience.

The Person-Affecting Restriction, Comparativism, and the Moral Status of Potential People

Traditional ethical theories have paradoxical implications in regards to questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future people. It has been suggested that the crux of the problem resides in an all too 'impersonal' axiology and that the problems of population axiology can be solved by adopting a 'Person Affecting Restriction' which in its slogan form states that an outcome can only be better than another if it is better for people. This move has been especially popular in the context of medical ethics where many of the problems of population axiology are actualized. Examples are embryo or egg selection, pre-implantation genetic testing, assisted reproduction programmes, abortion, just to mention a few. I discuss a number of different interpretations of the Restriction and in particular one interpretation which I call Comparativism. According to this view, we should draw a distinction between uniquely and non-uniquely realizable people. The former people only exist in one out of two possible outcomes, whereas the latter exist in both of the compared outcomes. The idea is that we should give more weight to the well-being of non-uniquely realizable people or take it into account in a different way as compared to the well-being of uniquely realizable people. I argue that the different versions of the Person Affecting Restriction and Comparativism either have counterintuitive implications of their own or are compatible with traditional theories such as Utilitarianism.

Agrarian Protectionism in the Weimar Republic

In the last thirty-five years, a number of historians - for example, Gerschenkron, Hamerow and Barrington-Moore - have traced and interpreted the relationship between agriculture, conservatism and fascism.1 Their works clearly show the effectiveness of the agrarianconservative mentality and its associated social and political behaviour in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, its impact on contemporary German history still awaits full appreciation. Following his work on the relationship between Prussian conservatism and agrarian interest organizations, H.-J. Puhle has put forward several provocative theses about the correlation between conservatism, agricultural economics and 'pre-fascism'.2 Puhle renounced Moore's sociological methods and was far removed from those who saw a direct line of succession from the Prussian Junkers to Hitler. However, he ignores much of what German conservatism came to mean during the first German Republic and what gave it such tremendous influence during the last years of the Weimar Republic. Students of Weimar conservatism, such as Mohler and Klemperer, have concentrated upon a specific manifestation known as 'revolutionary' or 'young' conservatism, or as 'neo-conservatism'.3 This relates to a strong intellectual current which emerged in small groups such as the Berlin Herrenklub and its counterparts in other parts of Germany. The ideas of this movement became widely accessible in the form of slogans like Moeller van den Bruck's 'The Third Reich' and in this way did much to shape the political propaganda of the radical right. Intellectually, these ideas had far less in common with the traditions of agrarian conservatism than with the scepticism felt by traditionally liberal groups towards the forms of liberal and democratic thought in the era of 'organized capitalism'. Gerstenberger has convincingly argued that the share of liberalism in 'revolutionary conservatism' was much higher than that of traditional agrarian-based conservatism.4

Childhood Origins of Tolerance for Dissent1

The origins of children's attitudes toward freedom of dissent were investigated using questionnaire data from 1384 children in grades 5 through 9. Political socialization of attitudes toward free speech apparently does occur during late childhood and early adolescence. Most children acquire support for the abstract principle of free speech in slogan form, without learning its concrete implications. Support for free speech in concrete instances is dictated largely by the child's attitude toward the dissenting out‐group in question and only rarely by the general principle of free expression. There are indications that the child's confidence in his ability to think divergently contributes to tolerance, presumably by reducing the personal threat posed by deviant out‐groups.