This article reconsiders the early hominid ‘‘lithic niche’’ by examining the social implications of stone artifact making. I reject the idea that making tools for use is an adequate explanation of the elaborate artifact forms of the Lower Palaeolithic, or a sufficient cause for long-term trends in hominid technology. I then advance an alternative mechanism founded on the claim that competency in making stone artifacts requires extended learning, and that excellence in artifact making is attained only by highly skilled individuals (...) who have been taught and practiced for extensive periods. Consequently both competency and expertise in knapping comes at a high learning cost for both the individual learner and the social group to which they belong. Those high intrinsic costs of learning created contexts in which groups selected cost-reducing forms of social learning and teaching, and in which specialization could develop. Artifacts and their manufacturing processes probably acquired functions as social signals—as honest signals of valuable capacities. The magnification of these signals, through competition between knappers and through inspiring later craftspeople, may account for a substantial amount of the accumulated elaboration visible in the archaeological record. Consequently lithic artifacts operated as material symbols from an early time in hominid evolution. (shrink)

The articles in this issue represent the pursuit of a new understanding of the human past, one that can replace the neo-saltationist view of a human revolution with models that can account for the complexities of the archaeological record and of human social lives. The articulation of archaeological, philosophical, and biological perspectives seems to offer a strong foundation for exploring available evidence, and this was the rationale for collecting these particular articles. Even at this preliminary stage there is a coherence (...) emerging in proposals: the origin and operation of symbolically rich, complexly signaling human social systems was the consequence of the long-term evolution of multiple components of perceiving and negotiating social interactions, a contingent outcome of myriad adaptive shifts rather than a single event. (shrink)

Not only the direct physical experiences of deployment can severely harm soldiers’ mental health. Witnessing violations of their moral principles by the enemy, or by their fellow soldiers and superiors, can also have a devastating impact. It can cause soldiers’ moral disorientation, increasing feelings of shame, guilt, or hate, and the need for general answers on questions of right and wrong. Various attempts have been made to keep soldiers mentally sane. One is to provide convincing causes for their deployment, which (...) risks an “end justifies the means” way of thinking. The good cause can provide a moral justification for horrible atrocities. Another method, introduced in the USA, Canada, and Australia, aims to strengthen military personnel’s resistance by promoting and maintaining a happy, optimistic state of mind through the use of positive psychology. Alongside making soldiers “morally fit” for all kinds of situations, the focus could also be on moral recovery and forgiveness. Such a care-based military ethics approach, aimed at mutual understanding and interdependence, could help soldiers handle the emotional impact of moral conflicts. This demands that military units reflect on their organizational culture and rethink oaths and codes of conduct that focus mainly on efficiency and readiness, as well as the soldierly self-image with its seemingly still deeply rooted warrior ethos. Today, resilience and positive psychology in the military is apparently mainly geared to assuring its soldiers’ readiness. An appropriate set of virtues and understanding of virtue ethics that are less centered on self-perfection and autonomy could point to a different form of character-building and lead to a better understanding of others. (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world's scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement 'Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus'. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Do perceptual states necessarily constitute evidence epistemically supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs? Susanna Schellenberg thinks so. She argues that perceptual states, veridical or not, necessarily provide (or constitute) a kind of evidence (for the existence of the truth-maker) supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs. She uses “phenomenal evidence” as a label for this kind of evidence and calls her argument “The Phenomenal Evidence Argument.” Having introduced her project, we offer a reconstruction of Schellenberg’s argument (Sect. 2 ). A key premise has it that, (...) necessarily, for items with a function, fulfillment of the function (the good case) is explanatorily and metaphysically prior to function failure (the bad case). We suggest that the etiological theory of functions renders this key premise plausible (Sect. 3 ). However, Schellenberg rejects the etiological theory of functions (Sect. 4 ) and likewise the idea that the epistemic or warranting force of perceptual states is grounded in their being reliably linked to veridical perception (Sect. 5 ). But then what supports the key premise? Schellenberg argues that accurate perception is a part of the _nature_ of perceptual capacities because the nature of perceptual capacities is explained in terms of their function, and their function is to represent accurately (Sect. 6 ). We suggest that Schellenberg is committed to an understanding of priority which doesn’t require any _actual_ good cases—just possible ones (Sect. 7 ). This reading, we argue, is too weak to support the key premise (Sect. 8 ). Given Schellenberg’s commitments, it is not necessarily the case that perceptual states are evidence for a corresponding perceptual belief. Before concluding we discuss an overgeneralization objection to Schellenberg’s argument (Sect. 9 ). (shrink)

Throughout her philosophical writing, Margaret Cavendish is clear in stating that colours are real; they are not mere mind-dependent qualities that exist only in the mind of perceivers. This puts her at odds with other seventeenthcentury thinkers such as Galileo and Descartes who endorsed what would come to be known as the ‘primary-secondary quality distinction’. Cavendish’s argument for this view is premised on two claims. First, that colourless objects are inconceivable. Second, that if an object is inconceivable then it could (...) not possibly exist in nature. My aim in this paper is to explain why Cavendish accepts both premises of this argument. However, the repercussions of this paper go much further than just explaining why she thinks colourless objects cannot exist in nature and the upshots are twofold. First, it provides new insights into the fundamental role that perception plays in Cavendish’s metaphysics. While Cavendish’s view that all of nature perceives is well-established, I show that Cavendish is also committed to the view that all of nature is perceivable. Second, it provides the first in-depth discussion of Cavendish’s modal epistemology and her reasons for thinking that inconceivability entails impossibility (in nature). (shrink)

Peter Ludlow shows how word meanings are much more dynamic than we might have supposed, and explores how they are modulated even during everyday conversation. The resulting view is radical, and has far-reaching consequences for our political and legal discourse, and for enduring puzzles in the foundations of semantics, epistemology, and logic.

Peter Ludlow presents the first book on the philosophy of generative linguistics, including both Chomsky's government and binding theory and his minimalist ...

What does ‘Smith knows that it might be raining’ mean? Expressivism here faces a challenge, as its basic forms entail a pernicious type of transparency, according to which ‘Smith knows that it might be raining’ is equivalent to ‘it is consistent with everything that Smith knows that it is raining’ or ‘Smith doesn’t know that it isn’t raining’. Pernicious transparency has direct counterexamples and undermines vanilla principles of epistemic logic, such as that knowledge entails true belief and that something can (...) be true without one knowing it might be. I re-frame the challenge in precise terms and propose a novel expressivist formal semantics that meets it by exploiting (i) the topic-sensitivity and fragmentation of knowledge and belief states and (ii) the apparent context-sensitivity of epistemic modality. The resulting form of assertibility semantics advances the state of the art for state-based bilateral semantics by combining attitude reports with context-sensitive modal claims, while evading various objectionable features. In appendices, I compare the proposed system to Beddor and Goldstein’s ‘safety semantics’ and discuss its analysis of a modal Gettier case due to Moss. (shrink)

The doyen of living English philosophers, by these reflections, took hold of and changed the outlook of a good many other philosophers, if not quite enough. He did so, essentially, by assuming that talk of freedom and responsibility is talk not of facts or truths, in a certain sense, but of our attitudes. His more explicit concern was to look again at the question of whether determinism and freedom are consistent with one another -- by shifting attention to certain personal (...) rather than moral attitudes, first of all gratitude and resentment. In the end, he arrived at a kind of Compatibilist or, as he says, Optimist conclusion. That is no doubt a recommendation but not the largest recommendation of this splendidly rich piece of philosophy. (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next (...) twenty or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

Generic statements play a crucial role in concept learning, communication and education. Despite many efforts, the semantics of generics remain a controversial issue, as they do not seem to fit our standard theories of meaning. In this article, we attempt to shed light on this problem by focusing on how these sentences function in reasoning. Drawing on a distinction between property and diagnostic generics, we defend three theses: First, property generics are not about facts but express relations between concepts. Second, (...) generics play an important role in everyday reasoning by interacting with our expectations about the world. Third, diagnostic generics emphasise properties that separate the category in the generics from other categories in the same contrast class. We use the theory of conceptual spaces to advance measures of typicality and diagnosticity capable of modelling different aspects of generics and apply them to the modifier effect and the inverse conjunction fallacy. Finally, we discuss the pragmatics of generics. (shrink)

For synergistic interactions between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) systems, AI outputs often need to be explainable to people. Explainable AI (XAI) systems are commonly tested in human user studies. However, whether XAI researchers consider potential cultural differences in human explanatory needs remains unexplored. We highlight psychological research that found significant differences in human explanations between many people from Western, commonly individualist countries and people from non-Western, often collectivist countries. We argue that XAI research currently overlooks these variations and that (...) many popular XAI designs implicitly and problematically assume that Western explanatory needs are shared cross-culturally. Additionally, we systematically reviewed over 200 XAI user studies and found that most studies did not consider relevant cultural variations, sampled only Western populations, but drew conclusions about human-XAI interactions more generally. We also analyzed over 30 literature reviews of XAI studies. Most reviews did not mention cultural differences in explanatory needs or flag overly broad cross-cultural extrapolations of XAI user study results. Combined, our analyses provide evidence of a cultural bias toward Western populations in XAI research, highlighting an important knowledge gap regarding how culturally diverse users may respond to widely used XAI systems that future work can and should address. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence chatbots driven by large language models (LLMs) have the potential to increase public science literacy and support scientific research, as they can quickly summarize complex scientific information in accessible terms. However, when summarizing scientific texts, LLMs may omit details that limit the scope of research conclusions, leading to generalizations of results broader than warranted by the original study. We tested 10 prominent LLMs, including ChatGPT-4o, ChatGPT-4.5, DeepSeek, LLaMA 3.3 70B, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet, comparing 4900 LLM-generated summaries to (...) their original scientific texts. Even when explicitly prompted for accuracy, most LLMs produced broader generalizations of scientific results than those in the original texts, with DeepSeek, ChatGPT-4o, and LLaMA 3.3 70B overgeneralizing in 26–73% of cases. In a direct comparison of LLM-generated and human-authored science summaries, LLM summaries were nearly five times more likely to contain broad generalizations (OR = 4.85, 95% CI [3.06, 7.70], p < 0.001). Notably, newer models tended to perform worse in generalization accuracy than earlier ones. Our results indicate a strong bias in many widely used LLMs towards overgeneralizing scientific conclusions, posing a significant risk of large-scale misinterpretations of research findings. We highlight potential mitigation strategies, including lowering LLM temperature settings and benchmarking LLMs for generalization accuracy. (shrink)

When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics: the view that propositional contents comprise (at least) two irreducibly distinct constituents: (1) truth-conditions and (2) subject-matter. We contrast 2C with one-component (1C) semantics, focusing on the view that subject-matter is reducible to truth-conditions. We identify exponents of this view and argue in favor of 2C. An appendix proposes a general formal template for propositional 2C semantics.

You don't say much about who you are teaching, or what subject you teach, but you do seem to see a need to justify what you are doing. Perhaps you're teaching underprivileged children, opening their minds to possibilities that might otherwise never have occurred to them. Or maybe you're teaching the children of affluent families and opening their eyes to the big moral issues they will face in life — like global poverty, and climate change. If you're doing something like (...) this, then stick with it. Giving money isn't the only way to make a difference. (shrink)

It has been argued that our currently most satisfactory social epistemology of science can’t account for science that is based on artificial intelligence (AI) because this social epistemology requires trust between scientists that can take full responsibility for the research tools they use, and scientists can’t take full responsibility for the AI tools they use since these systems are epistemically opaque. I think this argument overlooks that much AI-based science can be done without opaque models, and that agents can take (...) full responsibility for the systems they use even if these systems are opaque. Requiring that an agent fully understand how a system works is an untenably strong condition for that agent to take full responsibility for the system and risks absolving AI developers from responsibility for their products. AI-based science need not create trust-related social epistemological problems if we keep in mind that what makes both individual scientists and their use of AI systems trustworthy isn’t full transparency of the internal processing but their adherence to social and institutional norms that ensure that scientific claims can be trusted. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

AI companies are racing to create artificial general intelligence, or “AGI.” If they succeed, the result will be human-level AI systems that can independently pursue high-level goals by formulating and executing long-term plans in the real world. Leading AI researchers agree that some of these systems will likely be “misaligned”–pursuing goals that humans do not desire. This goal mismatch will put misaligned AIs and humans into strategic competition with one another. As with present-day strategic competition between nations with incompatible goals, (...) the result could be violent and catastrophic conflict. Existing legal institutions are unprepared for the AGI world. New foundations for AGI governance are needed, and the time to begin laying them is now, before the critical moment arrives. -/- This Article begins to lay those new legal foundations. It is the first to think systematically about the dynamics of strategic competition between humans and misaligned AGI. The Article begins by showing, using formal game-theoretic models, that, by default, humans and AIs will be trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma. Both parties’ dominant strategy will be to permanently disempower or destroy the other, even though the costs of such conflict would be high. -/- The Article then argues that a surprising legal intervention could transform the game theoretic equilibrium and avoid conflict: AI rights. Not just any AI rights would promote human safety. Granting AIs the right not to be needlessly harmed–as humans have granted to certain non-human animals–would, for example, have little effect. Instead, to promote human safety, AIs should be given those basic private law rights–to make contracts, hold property, and bring tort claims–that law already extends to non-human corporations. Granting AIs these economic rights would enable long-run, small-scale, mutually-beneficial transactions between humans and AIs. This would, we show, facilitate a peaceful strategic equilibrium between humans and AIs for the same reasons economic interdependence tends to promote peace in international relations. Namely, the gains from trade far exceed those from war. Throughout, we argue that human safety, rather than AI welfare, provides the right framework for developing AI rights. This Article explores both the promise and the limits of AI rights as a legal tool for promoting human safety in an AGI world. (shrink)

We argue that, while Cavendish did express orthodox piety, she is likely to have been read by her contemporaries as heterodox and deistic at best, atheistic at worst. Furthermore, they would have been right: it is seemingly impossible to reconcile her metaphysical and epistemological views with particular providence, miracles, the incarnation and revelation. We proceed by outlining her general metaphysical position (section 1) before looking in some detail at her discussion of immaterial beings (section 2). We then consider the implications (...) of these views for certain orthodox Christian doctrines (section 3). (shrink)

How should we respond to extremist views that we know are false? This paper proposes that we should be intellectually humble, but not open-minded. We should own our intellectual limitations, but be unwilling to revise our beliefs in the falsity of the extremist views. The opening section makes a case for distinguishing the concept of intellectual humility from the concept of open-mindedness, arguing that open-mindedness requires both a willingness to revise extant beliefs and other-oriented engagement, whereas intellectual humility requires neither. (...) Building on virtue-consequentialism, the second section makes a start on arguing that intellectually virtuous people of a particular sort—people with ‘effects-virtues’—would be intellectually humble, but not open-minded, in responding to extremist views they knew were false. We suggest that while intellectual humility and open-mindedness often travel together, this is a place where they come apart. (shrink)

We explore some possibilities for developing epistemic logic using truthmaker semantics. We identify three possible targets of analysis for the epistemic logician. We then list some candidate epistemic principles and review the arguments that render some controversial. We then present the classic Hintikkan approach to epistemic logic and note—as per the ‘problem of logical omniscience’—that it validates all of the aforementioned principles, controversial or otherwise. We then lay out a truthmaker framework in the style of Kit Fine and present six (...) different ways of extending this semantics with a conditional knowledge operator, drawing on notions of implication and content that are prominent in Fine’s work. We demonstrate that different logics are thereby generated, bearing on the aforementioned epistemic principles. Finally, we offer preliminary observations about the prospects for each logic. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. However, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this article, I focus on Macdonald’s provocative 1953 paper, “Linguistic Philosophy and Perception,” in which she argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, it reveals (...) just how far Macdonald’s metaphilosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, the discussion in her article preempts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

This essay offers an explanation of how assertions express that the speaker has a propositional attitude towards what's asserted. The explanation is that this feature of assertion is owed to a hearer's spontaneous mindreading. I call this the assertoric mindreading hypothesis. Once developed and defended, the hypothesis is used to investigate which attitude is expressed. Since the attitude expressed is the attitude tracked during mindreading, the attitude must have a certain profile. It is argued that only factive attitudes like knowledge (...) have this profile. Non-factive attitudes like belief or acceptance are ineligible. (shrink)

Confirmation bias is one of the most widely discussed epistemically problematic cognitions, challenging reliable belief formation and the correction of inaccurate views. Given its problematic nature, it remains unclear why the bias evolved and is still with us today. To offer an explanation, several philosophers and scientists have argued that the bias is in fact adaptive. I critically discuss three recent proposals of this kind before developing a novel alternative, what I call the ‘reality-matching account’. According to the account, confirmation (...) bias evolved because it helps us influence people and social structures so that they come to match our beliefs about them. This can result in significant developmental and epistemic benefits for us and other people, ensuring that over time we don’t become epistemically disconnected from social reality but can navigate it more easily. While that might not be the only evolved function of confirmation bias, it is an important one that has so far been neglected in the theorizing on the bias. (shrink)

When is it (epistemically) rational to suspend judgment on a proposition? Before addressing this question, one has to clarify what suspension of judgment (in short: suspension) is and establish rationality standards for the attitudes that constitute suspension. Ideally, suspending can be reduced to attitudes for which one already has established rationality standards. This paper distinguishes two kinds of suspension, weak and strong, and offers a reductionist account of suspension based on credence. However, it does not reduce suspension to credence alone (...) but takes a higher-order perspective on credence into account. Other doxastic attitudes such as belief and doubtful belief are also reexamined and defined in the light of this higher-order perspective. (shrink)

Tyler Burge famously argues in his 1993 paper "Content Preservation" that it is not only a priori true that we enjoy a prima facie warrant to take what others assert as true, but also that there our warrant to believe what we are told in certain special cases is a priori. So just as our warrant for believing certain mathematical truths might be a priori, so too there are cases of belief through testimony that are a priori. Then in a (...) 2013 Postscript to "Content Preservation" he took it all back. All of Burge's ideas and arguments for and against are interesting and important, and deepen our understanding of testimony, comprehension, warrant, and the a priori. But his ideas and arguments are hard to understand. This paper explains all of ideas and arguments, both for and against, in a clear and comprehensive way. Along the way, Anna-Sara Malmgren's interpretation and criticism of Burge's position is also expounded and criticized. (shrink)

Some artificial intelligence systems can display algorithmic bias, i.e. they may produce outputs that unfairly discriminate against people based on their social identity. Much research on this topic focuses on algorithmic bias that disadvantages people based on their gender or racial identity. The related ethical problems are significant and well known. Algorithmic bias against other aspects of people’s social identity, for instance, their political orientation, remains largely unexplored. This paper argues that algorithmic bias against people’s political orientation can arise in (...) some of the same ways in which algorithmic gender and racial biases emerge. However, it differs importantly from them because there are strong social norms against gender and racial biases. This does not hold to the same extent for political biases. Political biases can thus more powerfully influence people, which increases the chances that these biases become embedded in algorithms and makes algorithmic political biases harder to detect and eradicate than gender and racial biases even though they all can produce similar harm. Since some algorithms can now also easily identify people’s political orientations against their will, these problems are exacerbated. Algorithmic political bias thus raises substantial and distinctive risks that the AI community should be aware of and examine. (shrink)

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

Drawing on the puzzling behavior of ordinary knowledge ascriptions that embed an epistemic (im)possibility claim, we tentatively conclude that it is untenable to jointly endorse (i) an unfettered classical logic for epistemic language, (ii) the general veridicality of knowledge ascription, and (iii) an intuitive ‘negative transparency’ thesis that reduces knowledge of a simple negated ‘might’ claim to an epistemic claim without modal content. We motivate a strategic trade-off: preserve veridicality and (generalized) negative transparency, while abandoning the general validity of contraposition. (...) We criticize various approaches to incorporating veridicality into domain semantics, a paradigmatic ‘information-sensitive’ framework for capturing negative transparency and, more generally, the non-classical behavior of sentences with epistemic modals. We then present a novel information-sensitive semantics that successfully executes our favored strategy: stable acceptance semantics, extending a vanilla bilateral state-based semantics for epistemic modals with a knowledge operator loosely inspired by the defeasibility theory of knowledge. (shrink)

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When scientists or science reporters communicate research results to the public, this often involves ethical and epistemic risks. One such risk arises when scientific claims cause cognitive or behavioural changes in the audience that contribute to the self-fulfilment of these claims. I argue that the ethical and epistemic problems that such self-fulfilment effects may pose are much broader and more common than hitherto appreciated. Moreover, these problems are often due to a specific psychological phenomenon that has been neglected in the (...) research on science communication: many people tend to conform to ‘descriptive norms’, that is, norms capturing (perceptions of) what others commonly do, think, or feel. Because of this tendency, science communication may frequently produce significant social harm. I contend that scientists have a responsibility to assess the risk of this potential harm and consider adopting strategies to mitigate it. I introduce one such strategy and argue that its implementation is independently well motivated by the fact that it helps improve scientific accuracy. (shrink)

Jennifer Lackey ('Testimonial Knowledge and Transmission' The Philosophical Quarterly 1999) and Peter Graham ('Conveying Information, Synthese 2000, 'Transferring Knowledge' Nous 2000) offered counterexamples to show that a hearer can acquire knowledge that P from a speaker who asserts that P, but the speaker does not know that P. These examples suggest testimony can generate knowledge. The showpiece of Lackey's examples is the Schoolteacher case. This paper shows that Lackey's case does not undermine the orthodox view that testimony cannot generate (...) knowledge. This paper explains why Lackey's arguments to the contrary are ineffective for they misunderstand the intuitive rationale for the view that testimony cannot generate knowledge. This paper then elaborates on a version of the case from Graham's paper 'Conveying Information' (the Fossil case) that effectively shows that testimony can generate knowledge. This paper then provides a deeper informative explanation for how it is that testimony transfers knowledge, and why there should be cases where testimony generates knowledge. (shrink)

According to the structured theory of propositions, if two sentences express the same proposition, then they have the same syntactic structure, with corresponding syntactic constituents expressing the same entities. A number of philosophers have recently focused attention on a powerful argument against this theory, based on a result by Bertrand Russell, which shows that the theory of structured propositions is inconsistent in higher order-logic. This paper explores a response to this argument, which involves restricting the scope of the claim that (...) propositions are structured, so that it does not hold for all propositions whatsoever, but only for those which are expressible using closed sentences of a given formal language. We call this restricted principle Closed Structure, and show that it is consistent in classical higher-order logic. As a schematic principle, the strength of Closed Structure is dependent on the chosen language. For its consistency to be philosophically significant, it also needs to be consistent in every extension of the language which the theorist of structured propositions is apt to accept. But, we go on to show, Closed Structure is in fact inconsistent in a very natural extension of the standard language of higher-order logic, which adds resources for plural talk of propositions. We conclude that this particular strategy of restricting the scope of the claim that propositions are structured is not a compelling response to the argument based on Russell’s result, though we note that for some applications, for instance to propositional attitudes, a restricted thesis in the vicinity may hold some promise. (shrink)

We present a formal semantics for epistemic logic, capturing the notion of knowability relative to information (KRI). Like Dretske, we move from the platitude that what an agent can know depends on her (empirical) information. We treat operators of the form K_AB (‘B is knowable on the basis of information A’) as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a topic- or aboutness- preservation constraint. Variable strictness models the non-monotonicity of knowledge acquisition while allowing knowledge to be intrinsically stable. Aboutness-preservation models (...) the topic-sensitivity of information, allowing us to invalidate controversial forms of epistemic closure while validating less controversial ones. Thus, unlike the standard modal framework for epistemic logic, KRI accommodates plausible approaches to the Kripke-Harman dogmatism paradox, which bear on non-monotonicity, or on topic-sensitivity. KRI also strikes a better balance between agent idealization and a non-trivial logic of knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

Key Statements -/- A new definition of consciousness. Consciousness is the minimal capacity to detect = feel (a) difference(s), whether in environmental conditions or internal states. -/- Reality is posited as an infinite, one-dimensional sequence of informational states, fraying into fractal complexity. This continuum has no origin in time, no final endpoint, and no external boundary. -/- Localized “Islands of Meaning”: Not all configurations appear comprehensible to us. Certain stable pockets yield phenomena that we interpret as consistent physical laws, living (...) organisms, or advanced technologies; we inhabit one of these pockets. -/- Consciousness as a Lens: Though the cosmic code is static in total, consciousness imposes a reading order that births our sense of time and development. Consciousness does not create the code but highlights specific strings as “our reality.” -> Creation of time. -/- Near Kinship of Natural and Artificial Intelligence: Both spring from the same portion of the universal code where symbol manipulation can yield adaptive, learning-based behavior. The difference is one of substrate and historical path, not fundamental principle. -/- Tree of known Intelligences: Biology, memetics, and AI form layered ‘software’ with shared roots on a unified information island, all existing within a vast sea of interconnected data flows and influences. -/- Life - a Servant of Entropy: In our pocket of informational infinity, higher-order information systems, e.g., life — as defined above — can be described as catalysts toward a state of increased entropy. Higher-order information processes, such as (biological and so-called artificial or synthetic) life and other software agents, are governed by the natural law of generating as many microstates — the amount of uncertainty or information in a system — as possible. -/- Determinism Amid Perceived Freedom: All is predetermined at the highest level, yet locally, we experience genuine choice because we lack full knowledge of how the program extends. Moral and ethical considerations remain relevant to navigate these local experiences. (shrink)

To better navigate social interactions, we routinely (consciously or unconsciously) categorize people based on their distinctive features. One important way we do this is by ascribing political orientations to them. For example, based on certain behavioral cues, we might perceive someone as politically liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian, Marxist, anarchist, or fascist. Although such ascriptions may appear to be mere descriptions, I argue that they can have deeper, regulative effects on their targets, potentially politicizing and polarizing them in ways that remain (...) underexplored in research on political polarization. To capture this dynamic, I introduce the notion of ‘politicizing mindshaping,’ distinguish it from other types of politicization, and review evidence suggesting that politicizing mindshaping is likely common. Finally, I contend that the pernicious effects of politicizing mindshaping may currently be significantly underestimated. This is because, unlike in many other cases of social labeling, negativity in political labeling is, to some extent, widely tolerated – even encouraged – and largely unconstrained by social norms in democratic countries. (shrink)

The semantic closure theory of consciousness attempts to explain the privacy of conscious representations. Such an explanation requires that representational content is more than just information carried by cognitive states but also arises in virtue of functional interrelations between such states. This paper shows that, given such a fine-grained view of representational content, the privacy or non-communicability of certain mental contents can be readily explained. Furthermore, the degree of semantic closure, i.e. the degree to which the states of a representational (...) system bear non-communicable content, can be quantified in information theoretic terms. A toy simulation of the evolution of semantic closure is presented. (shrink)

COMPLETE OBJECTIVITY IS UNATTAINABLE: Language structures our perception of reality. Words define and limit thought, shaping what is expressible or even thinkable. Since the link between words and meanings is socially constructed, language carries hidden constraints that influence how we interpret the world. Memory, too, is fluid rather than a fixed archive. Each recollection reshapes past events, prioritizing coherence over accuracy. Our senses and cognition evolved for survival, not for discovering absolute truth. Our „truth“ is never final but an evolving (...) approximation. The perception of reality is inherently selective. Evolution shaped our brains and senses to process only survival-relevant information, filtering overwhelming complexity into simplified, actionable categories. Cognitive biases further streamline decision-making but distort reality by reinforcing preexisting beliefs. These are not errors but evolved shortcuts. INVISIBLE COLLECTIVE FORCES: Memplexes, Pendulums, Discourses, and Animistic Spirits describe the same underlying phenomenon — external, self-replicating forces that shape human thought and behavior. They function like “software agents,” gaining influence by capturing collective attention and reinforcing dominant narratives. As they sustain themselves through cultural and social energy, they guide behavior, beliefs, and norms without conscious recognition. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AI, primarily based on language models, is emerging as a new vehicle for idea propagation. As AI evolves, it may not only spread but also generate novel „memplexes,” accelerating cultural and intellectual shifts at an unprecedented pace. However, despite its computational sophistication, AI remains constrained by its training data, programming, and structural limitations. (shrink)

Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that ‘Jane might be late’ canonically serves to express the speaker’s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance. Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with that sentence’s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is the property of doxastic attitudes it canonically serves (...) to express. In support, we synthesize data from the critical literature on expressivism—largely reflecting interactions between modals and disjunctions—and present a semantic expressivism that readily predicts the data. This contrasts with salient competitors, including: pragmatic expressivism based on domain semantics or dynamic semantics; semantic expressivism à la Moss [2015]; and the bounded relational semantics of Mandelkern [2019]. (shrink)

Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to (...) very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline. (shrink)

We examine Margaret Cavendish’s ecological views and argue that, in the Appendix to her final published work, Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668), Cavendish is defending a normative account of the way that humans ought to interact with their environment. On this basis, we argue that Cavendish is committed to a form of what, for the purposes of this paper, we call ‘deep ecology,’ where that is understood as the view that humans ought to treat the rest of nature as something (...) of intrinsic value. The reading of Cavendish we defend in this paper also commits her to a naturalistic account of ‘moral facts’ about how humans ought to interact with their environment. That is, on our reading of Cavendish, ‘moral facts’ (i.e., facts about how we ought and ought not to behave, and what it is right or wrong for us to do) are grounded in facts about nature—and, in Cavendish’s case, its (ir)regularity. Such facts are hypothetical, rather than categorical: they are facts about how we ought to act if we wish to attain happiness or flourishing. We thus contend that Cavendish anticipates, at least loosely speaking, movements in both deep ecology and in naturalistic meta-ethics that came to prominence well after the time in which she was writing. (shrink)

This book explores the idea that all of logic can be reduced to two very simple rules that are sensitive to logical polarity. The authors show that this idea has profound consequences for our understanding of the nature of human inferential capacities, and for some of the key issues in contemporary linguistics.

Inferentialism is the view that representational content is explained by linguistic or mental states interacting according to inferential rules. Mendelovici's and Bourget's swapping argument against inferentialism shows that rules of inference do not sufficiently constrain content. This paper argues that their argument can be further strengthened so that its conclusion yields that the content and inferential roles are strictly independent. It is then argued that this conclusion is untenable and that the argument, rather than undermining inferentialism, corrodes the model-theoretic foundations (...) of standard philosophical semantics. The paper concludes with some hints towards an alternative semantic paradigm inspired by intuitionistic type-theory that is immune to the swapping argument. (shrink)

Scientists may sometimes generalize from their samples to broader populations when they have not yet sufficiently supported this generalization. Do such hasty generalizations also occur in experimental philosophy? To check, we analyzed 171 experimental philosophy studies published between 2017 and 2023. We found that most studies tested only Western populations but generalized beyond them without justification. There was also no evidence that studies with broader conclusions had larger, more diverse samples, but they nonetheless had higher citation impact. Our analyses reveal (...) important methodological limitations of many experimental philosophy studies and suggest that philosophical training may not protect against hasty generalizations. (shrink)

Book Symposium on The Territories of Science and Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2015). The author responds to review essays by John Heilbron, Stephen Gaukroger, and Yiftach Fehige.

Many artificial intelligence (AI) systems currently used for decision-making are opaque, i.e., the internal factors that determine their decisions are not fully known to people due to the systems’ computational complexity. In response to this problem, several researchers have argued that human decision-making is equally opaque and since simplifying, reason-giving explanations (rather than exhaustive causal accounts) of a decision are typically viewed as sufficient in the human case, the same should hold for algorithmic decision-making. Here, I contend that this argument (...) overlooks that human decision-making is sometimes significantly more transparent and trustworthy than algorithmic decision-making. This is because when people explain their decisions by giving reasons for them, this frequently prompts those giving the reasons to govern or regulate themselves so as to think and act in ways that confirm their reason reports. AI explanation systems lack this self-regulative feature. Overlooking it when comparing algorithmic and human decision-making can result in underestimations of the transparency of human decision-making and in the development of explainable AI that may mislead people by activating generally warranted beliefs about the regulative dimension of reason-giving. (shrink)