What is structuralism?

Mcdowell’s Moral Realism and the Secondary Quality Analogy

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In this paper, I focus on the so-called ‘tacking by disjunction problem.’ Namely, the problem to the effect that, if a hypothesis <italic>h</italic> is confirmed by a statement <italic>e</italic>, <italic>h</italic> is confirmed by the disjunction <italic>e</italic> ∨ <italic>f</italic>, for whatever statement <italic>f</italic>. I show that the attempt to settle this difficulty made by Grimes 1990, in a paper apparently forgotten by today methodologists, is irremediably faulty.</abstract>

Grimes on the tacking by disjunction problem

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Several alternatives vie today for recognition as the most plausible ontology, from physicalism to panpsychism. By and large, these ontologies entail that physical structures circumscribe consciousness by bearing phenomenal properties within their physical boundaries. The ontology of idealism, on the other hand, entails that all physical structures are <italic>circumscribed by</italic> consciousness in that they exist <italic>solely as</italic> phenomenality in the first place. Unlike the other alternatives, however, idealism is often considered implausible today, particularly by analytic philosophers. A reason for this is the strong intuition that an objective world transcending phenomenality is a self-evident fact. Other arguments—such as the dependency of phenomenal experience on brain function, the evidence for the existence of the universe before the origin of conscious life, etc.—are also often cited. In this essay, I will argue that these objections against the plausibility of idealism are false. As such, this essay seeks to show that idealism is an entirely plausible ontology.</abstract>

On the Plausibility of Idealism: Refuting Criticisms

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> In this introductory study I discuss the notion of alternative possibilities and its relation to contemporary debates on free will and moral responsibility. I focus on two issues: whether Frankfurt-style cases refute the principle of alternative possibilities, and whether alternative possibilities are relevant to grounding free will and moral responsibility. With respect to the first issue, I consider three objections to Frankfurt-syle cases: the flicker strategy, the dilemma defense, and the objection from new dispositionalism. With respect to the second issue, I consider the debate between Alternative Possibilities views and Actual Sequence views, as framed by Carolina Sartorio in her Causation and Free Will. I then explain how these two issues are relevant to the papers included in this volume.</abstract>

Does Free Will Require Alternative Possibilities?

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The view that music can have a positive or negative effect on a person’s character has been defended throughout the history of philosophy. This paper traces some of the history of the ethos theory and identifies a version of the theory that could be true. This version of the theory can be traced to Plato and Aristotle and was given a clear statement by Herbert Spencer in the nineteenth century. The paper then examines some of the empirical literature on how music can affect dispositions to behave and moral judgement. None of this evidence provides much support for the ethos theory. The paper then proposes a programme of research that has the potential to confirm the ethos theory.
</abstract>

Assessing the Ethos Theory of Music

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Thomas Hobbes’s most important recommendations for a sovereign reader concerned the governing of opinion. Due to the spread of false doctrines and their powerful champions, Hobbes was afraid that subjects would have opinions contrary to the maintenance of peace. His solution comprehended a combination of civic education and censorship. This text explains how Hobbes justifies his recommendations from the perspective of individual deliberation. It argues that Hobbes conceived censoring circulating doctrines as a way of keeping subjects’ minds like clean paper, ready for the sovereign to imprint civil doctrine in them through teaching, thereby increasing the chances of influencing subjects’ (free) deliberation, and thus of producing obedience.
</abstract>

The Governing of Opinions

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
I argue that <italic>pace</italic> Quine, indeterminacy of translation affects observation sentences. I illustrate this indeterminacy with examples and show how it is tied to the indeterminacy affecting the analytical status of observation categoricals. I propose my own construal of the thesis of indeterminacy of translation, according to which indeterminacy is based on the inextricability of meaning and belief. I explain why this construal should be favored over Quine’s.
</abstract>

Translating Observation Sentences

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Expressivism, as applied to a certain class of statements, evaluative ones, for instance, is constituted by two doctrines, only the first of which will concern me in this paper. Evaluative statements, according to this doctrine, aren’t propositional (susceptible of truth or falsity). In this paper, I will argue that one of the vexing problems (that I label the “logical problem”) this doctrine engenders for the expressivist is equally pressing for some cognitivists (who think evaluative statements <italic>do</italic> have a truth-value). I will present the difficulty and argue that some constructivists, who <italic>are</italic> cognitivists, cannot contend with it at all, and others must resort to more complex ways than the one available to other cognitivists.
</abstract>

Who Is Afraid of the Logical Problem in Meta-Ethics?

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
By “strong representationalism” (“SR” hereafter), I mean a version of naturalistic philosophy of mind which first naturalizes intentionality by identifying it with causation to physical properties and then naturalizes phenomenology by identifying it with intentionality or making them co-supervene on each other (Montague [2010]). Most specifically, SR will be taken as the conjunction of causal-function semantics and the intentionality-phenomenology identity thesis, the latter of which entails what I call “converse intentionalism”, the principle that experiential content supervenes on phenomenology. Because of this identity thesis, SR enjoys some phenomenological plausibility which is absent from traditional physicalism of mind. However, in this paper, I shall raise an <italic>integration challenge</italic> to SR by arguing that its foundational principles do not integrate easily. I will also explore some strategies open to SR for addressing my challenge, and argue that by invoking those strategies, SR either loses its phenomenological plausibility or undermines causal-function semantics. I conclude that if my argument is correct, it provides us reason to search for new principles to replace SR’s foundations.
</abstract>

An Integration Challenge to Strong Representationalism

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
As a legitimate authoritative directive is a second-order reason, it defeats conflicting reasons by a process of exclusion. Nonetheless, a legitimate authoritative directive can be defeated by more weighty reasons, including, as I argue in this paper, the more weighty reasons it excludes. This is part of a value pluralist conception of authority, according to which there is no general rule for the resolution of conflicting reasons. And I advance this argument in response to the work of Joseph Raz. Although Raz is a value pluralist, he posits a general rule for the resolution of some conflicts: namely, that an exclusionary reason cannot be defeated by a (more weighty) reason it excludes. This represents a weak version of value pluralism. My argument is that Raz does not succeed in his efforts to show that this general rule either better ensures conformity with reason or that it is justified by commitment to autonomy.
</abstract>

Authority, Excluded Reasons and Moral Conflict

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz’s book <italic>Nothing to Come: a Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time</italic> offers an incredibly rich and skillful defense of the growing block theory (GBT), a view of time that arguably has much intuitive appeal, and which has been under attack from many sides. Nonetheless, I have to report that the book’s tense-logical course of treatment has not worked for me; I still struggle with making sense of the GBT. This article begins by drawing out some implications of the book’s set up. First, the notion of existence in play here is not interpretable on the basis of ordinary usage. Second, it would be a mistake to take the tense-logical framework to have any metaphysical significance. I then articulate two main worries about their version of the GBT. The first worry takes a familiar shape: it is just hard to see how their view is dynamic in the relevant sense. The second worry is that the topic seems to have been changed. C&amp;R’s logical system helps itself to key notions whose intended interpretation includes a solution to every metaphysical puzzle about the GBT, so that these puzzles are not so much addressed as enshrined in a formal system. That is, their view seems to answer the question of how language should behave, if the GBT were (somehow) true.
</abstract>

Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia &amp; Rosenkranz’s Growing Block

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> I argue that virtual reality is a sort of genuine reality. In particular, I argue for virtual digitalism, on which virtual objects are real digital objects, and against virtual fictionalism, on which virtual objects are fictional objects. I also argue that perception in virtual reality need not be illusory, and that life in virtual worlds can have roughly the same sort of value as life in non-virtual worlds.</abstract>

The Virtual and the Real

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Rationality requires various things of you. For example, it requires you not to have contradictory beliefs, and to intend what you believe is a necessary means to an end that you intend. Suppose rationality requires you to F. Does this fact constitute a reason for you to F? Does it even follow from this fact that you have a reason to F? I examine these questions and reach a sceptical conclusion about them. I can find no satisfactory argument to show that either has the answer ‘yes’. I consider the idea that rationality is normative for instrumental reasons, because it helps you to achieve some of the things you ought to achieve. I also consider the idea that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. I reject both.</abstract>

Is Rationality Normative?

Scepticism and Implicit Bias

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>What is the relation between the intentionality of states and attitudes which can miss their mark, such as belief and desire, and the intentionality of acts, states and attitudes which cannot miss their mark, such as the different types of knowledge and simple seeing? Two theories of the first type of intentionality, the theory of correctness conditions and the theory of satisfaction conditions, are compared. It is argued that knowledge always involves knowledge of formal objects such as facts and values, that emotions are reactions to (apparently) known values and that beliefs are reactions to known or apparently known facts or to the objects of relational states.</abstract>

Intentionality, Knowledge and Formal Objects

Steps Toward Origins of Propositional Thought

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Are the objects and events that take place in Virtual Reality genuinely real? Those who answer this question in the affirmative are <italic>realists</italic>, and those who answer in the negative are <italic>irrealists</italic>. In this paper we argue against the realist position, as given by Chalmers (2017), and present our own preferred <italic>irrealist</italic> account of the virtual. We start by disambiguating two potential versions of the realist position—weak and strong— and then go on to argue that neither is plausible. We then introduce a <italic>Waltonian</italic> variety of <italic>ictionalism</italic> about the virtual, arguing that this sort of irrealist approach avoids the problems of the realist positions, fits with a unifying theory of representational works, and offers a better account of the phenomenology of engaging in virtual experiences.</abstract>

Virtual Reality: Digital or Fictional?

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Volume 14 (2022): Issue 67 (December 2022)

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