Rawls’s Rejection of Preinstitutional Desert

For many, the idea that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they deserve is the very essence of distributive justice. However, while the notion of moral desert is otherwise widely accepted, Rawls rejects it entirely in his A Theory of Justice. Many authors have argued that Rawls’s claims about desert have serious and unappealing consequences for his conception of justice as fairness, and also that they deny the possibility of autonomous choice to the very agents whose decisions are supposed to underlie Rawls’s approach to justice. In this paper, I analyze the arguments of those who believe that Rawls can be interpreted in a way that doesn’t in fact deny either desert or the possibility of autonomous action. I conclude by allowing for the interpretation that Rawls does not necessarily deny autonomous action, but I contend that he nevertheless finds the idea of preinstitutional desert entirely off the mark.     

Equity in mathematics education: unions and intersections of feminist and social justice literature

Traditional models of gender equity incorporating deficit frameworks and creating norms based on male experiences have been challenged by models emphasizing the social construction of gender and positing that women may come to know things in different ways from men. This paper draws on the latter form of feminist theory while treating gender equity in mathematics as intimately interconnected with equity issues by social class and ethnicity. I integrate feminist and social justice literature in mathematics education and argue that to secure a transformative, sustainable impact on equity, we must treat mathematics as an integral component of a larger system producing educated citizens. I argue the need for a mathematics education with tri-fold support for mathematical literacy, critical literacy, and community literacy. Respectively, emphases are on mathematics, social critique, and community relations and actions. Currently, the integration of these three literacies is extremely limited in mathematics.     

Perdurance, Endurance, and ‘Having a Property Atemporally’

In this paper, I argue that both perdurance theory and the ‘relations-to-times’ endurantist view rely on an atemporal notion of property instantiation and relation bearing. I distinguish two possible meanings of ‘atemporal’ which result in two different understandings of what it is for an object to have a property or to bear a relation atemporally. I show that standard presentations of the theories considered are indeterminate as to which of these two understandings is the intended one. I claim that even if both understandings are admissible, one of them is more attractive and has more to recommend than the other.     

Theories and Theories of Truth

Formal theories, as in logic and mathematics, are sets of sentences closed under logical consequence. Philosophical theories, like scientific theories, are often far less formal. There are many axiomatic theories of the truth predicate for certain formal languages; on analogy with these, some philosophers (most notably Paul Horwich) have proposed axiomatic theories of the property of truth. Though in many ways similar to logical theories, axiomatic theories of truth must be different in several nontrivial ways. I explore what an axiomatic theory of truth would look like. Because Horwich’s is the most prominent, I examine his theory and argue that it fails as a theory of truth. Such a theory is adequate if, given a suitable base theory, every fact about truth is a consequence of the axioms of the theory. I show, using an argument analogous to Gödel’s incompleteness proofs, that no axiomatic theory of truth could ever be adequate. I also argue that a certain class of generalizations cannot be consequences of the theory.     

Contextualism,art, and rigidity: Levinson,Currie and Davies

The topic of this paper is the role played by context in art. In this regard I examine three theories linked to the names of J. Levinson, G. Currie and D. Davies. Levinson’s arguments undermine the structural theory. He finds it objectionable because it makes the individuation of artworks independent of their histories. Secondly, such a consequence is unacceptable because it fails to recognise that works are created rather than discovered. But, if certain general features of provenance are always work-constitutive, as it seems that Levinson is willing to claim, these features must always be essential properties of works. On the other hand, consideration of our modal practice suggests that whether a given general feature of provenance is essential or non-essential depends upon the particular work in question or is “work relative”. D. Davies builds his performance theory on the basis of the critical evaluation of Currie’s action-type hypotheses (ATH). Performances, says Davies, are not to be identified with “basic actions” to which their times belong essentially, but with “doings” that permit of the sorts of variation in modal properties required by the work-relativity of modality. He is also a fierce critic of the contextualist account. Contextualism is in his view unable to reflect the fact that aspects of provenance bear upon our modal judgements with variable force.In the second part of the paper I consider Davies’s “modality principle”. Davies is inclined to defend the claim that labels used for designation of works are rigid designators. Such a view offers a ground for discussion about the historicity of art. What has been meant when people claim that art is an historical concept? I argue that any historical theory implies a two-dimensional notion of “art”. At the end of the paper I suggest that Davies should embrace the theory of contingent identity and not the colocationist view about the relationship that exists between a particular artwork and its physical bearer.     

Contextualism for consequentialists

If, as I have argued elsewhere, consequentialism is not fundamentally concerned with such staples of moral theory as rightness, duty, obligation, moral requirements, goodness (as applied to actions), and harm, what, if anything, does it have to say about such notions? While such notions have no part to play at the deepest level of the theory, they may nonetheless be of practical significance. By way of explanation I provide a linguistic contextualist account of these notions. A contextualist approach to all these notions makes room for them in ordinary moral discourse, but it also illustrates why there is no room for them at the level of fundamental moral theory. If the truth value of a judgment that an action is right or good varies according to the context in which it is made, then rightness or goodness can no more be properties of actions themselves than thisness or hereness can be properties of things or locations themselves.     

A (Different) Virtue Responsibilism: Epistemic Virtues Without Motivations

Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I develop and argue for a new kind of responsibilism that is more conciliar to reliabilism. First, I argue that competence-based virtue reliabilism(s) cannot adequately ground epistemic credit. Then, with this problem in hand, I show how Aristotle’s virtue theory is motivated by analogous worries. Yet, incorporating too many details of Aristotelian moral theory leads to problems, notably the problem of unmotivated belief. As a result, I suggest a re-turn to Aristotle to develop a distinctively epistemological virtue theory that does not require any motive or affect for epistemic virtue. Nevertheless, my theory affirms that virtues are acquired, agent-expressive traits. The result is a conciliar responsibilism that leans closer to reliabilism. I end by arguing that my virtue responsibilism can solve worries facing both reliabilism and (extant) responsibilism.     

Dispositions, Laws, and Categories

After a short sketch of Lowe’s account of his four basic categories, I discuss his theory of formal ontological relations and how Lowe wants to account for dispositional predications. I argue that on the ontic level Lowe is a pan-categoricalist, while he is a language dualist and an exemplification dualist with regard to the dispositional/categorical distinction. I argue that Lowe does not present an adequate account of disposition. From an Aristotelian point of view, Lowe conflates dispositional predication with hôs epi to poly statements about what is normally or mostly the case.     

Non-Realist Cognitivism,Truth and Objectivity

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit defends a new metaethical theory, which he calls non-realist cognitivism. It claims that (i) normative judgments are beliefs; (ii) that some normative beliefs are true; (iii) that the normative concepts that are a part of the propositions that are the contents of normative beliefs are irreducible, unanalysable and of their own unique kind; and (iv) that neither the natural features of the reality nor any additional normative features of the reality make the relevant normative beliefs true. The aim of this article is to argue that Parfit’s theory is problematic because its defenders have no resources to make sense of the nature of normative truth, which is an essential element of their view. I do this by showing how the traditional theories of truth are not available for the non-realist cognitivists.     

Deflationist Truth is Substantial

Deflationism is usually thought to differ from the correspondence theory over whether truth is a substantial property. However, I argue that this notion of a ‘substantial property’ is tendentious. I further argue that the Equivalence Schema alone is sufficient to lead to idealism when combined with a pragmatist theory of truth. Deflationism thus has more powerful metaphysical implications than is generally thought and itself amounts to a kind of correspondence theory.     

No Evidence is False

If evidence is propositional, is one’s evidence limited to true propositions or might false propositions constitute evidence? In this paper, I consider three recent attempts to show that there can be ‘false evidence,’ and argue that each of these attempts fails. The evidence for the thesis that evidence consists of truths is much stronger than the evidence offered in support of the theoretical assumptions that people have relied on to argue against this thesis. While I shall not defend the view that evidence is propositional, I shall defend the view that any propositional evidence must be true.     

Cynefin: uncertainty,small worlds and scenarios

Uncertainty, its modelling and analysis have been discussed across many literatures including statistics and operational research, knowledge management and philosophy: (i) adherents to Bayesian approaches have usually argued that uncertainty should either be modelled by probabilities or resolved by discussion that clarifies meaning; (ii) some have followed Knight in distinguishing between contexts of risk and of uncertainty: the former admitting modelling and analysis through probability; the latter not; (iii) there are also host of approaches in the literatures stemming from Zadeh’s concept of a fuzzy set; (iv) theories of sense-making in the philosophy and management literatures see knowledge and uncertainty as opposite extremes of human understanding and discuss the resolution of uncertainty accordingly. Here I provide a personal perspective, taking a Bayesian stance. However, I adopt a softer position than conventional and recognise the concerns in other approaches. In particular, I use the Cynefin framework of decision contexts to reflect on processes of modelling and analysis in statistical, risk and decision analysis. The approach builds on several recent strands of discussion that argue for a convergence of qualitative scenario planning ideas and more quantitative approaches to analysis. I discuss how these suggestions and discussions relate to some earlier thinking on the methodology of modelling and, in particular, the concept of a ‘small world’ articulated by Savage.     

Naïve Realism,Adverbialism and Perceptual Error

My paper has three parts. First I will outline the act/object theory of perceptual experience and its commitments to (a) a relational view of experience and (b) a view of phenomenal character according to which it is constituted by the character of the objects of experience. I present the traditional adverbial response to this, in which experience is not to be understood as a relation to some object, but as a way of sensing. In the second part I argue that acceptance of (a) is independent of acceptance of (b). I then present a modified adverbialism that presents experience as relational in nature but whose character is nevertheless to be explained in terms of the way in which one senses an object. Finally, I will offer an explanation of how a naïve realist about experience can adopt this modified adverbialism and in so doing accommodate the possibility of perceptual error.     

A Novel Interpretation of Plato’s Theory of Forms

In several recent issues of this journal, I argued for an account of property possession as strict, numerical identity. While this account has stuck some as being highly idiosyncratic in nature, it is not entirely something new under the sun, since as I will argue in this paper, it turns out to have a historic precedent in Plato’s theory of forms. Indeed, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to show that my account of property possession can be utilized to provide a novel interpretation of Plato’s theory of forms. And the second is to show that once it has been divorced from a variety of implausible doctrines with which it has historically been wedded, Plato’s central insight that all properties possess themselves, far from being of mere historical interest, is independently plausible, ironically enough, even from an empirical point of view.     

Lewis’ Modal Realism and Absence Causation

A major criticism of David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is that it allows too many things to count as causes, especially since Lewis allows, in addition to events, absences to be causes as well. Peter Menzies has advanced this concern under the title “the problem of profligate causation.” In this paper, I argue that the problem of profligate causation provides resources for exposing a tension between Lewis’ acceptance of absence causation and his modal realism. The result is a different problem of profligate causation—one that attacks the internal consistency of Lewisian metaphysics rather than employing common sense judgments or intuitions that conflict with Lewis’ extensive list of causes.     

Alethic Functionalism,Manifestation, and the Nature of Truth

Michael Lynch has recently proposed an updated version of alethic functionalism according to which the relation between truth per se and lower-level truth properties is not the realization relation, as might be expected, and as Lynch himself formerly held, but the manifestation relation. I argue that the manifestation relation is merely a resemblance relation and is inadequate to properly relate truth per se to lower-level truth properties. I also argue that alethic functionalism does not justify the claim that truth per se exists, or that truth per se is a functional property. Finally, I suggest a replacement for the manifestation relation. I argue that the resulting theory is a strict improvement over alethic functionalism on two counts, but that the improved theory does not justify the claim that truth per se exists. Since no further improvements to the theory are apparent, the prospects for alethic functionalism are dim.     

Frege,Dedekind, and the Modern Epistemology of Arithmetic

In early analytic philosophy, one of the most central questions concerned the status of arithmetical objects. Frege argued against the popular conception that we arrive at natural numbers with a psychological process of abstraction. Instead, he wanted to show that arithmetical truths can be derived from the truths of logic, thus eliminating all psychological components. Meanwhile, Dedekind and Peano developed axiomatic systems of arithmetic. The differences between the logicist and axiomatic approaches turned out to be philosophical as well as mathematical. In this paper, I will argue that Dedekind’s approach can be seen as a precursor to modern structuralism and as such, it enjoys many advantages over Frege’s logicism. I also show that from a modern perspective, Frege’s criticism of abstraction and psychologism is one-sided and fails against the psychological processes that modern research suggests to be at the heart of numerical cognition. The approach here is twofold. First, through historical analysis, I will try to build a clear image of what Frege’s and Dedekind’s views on arithmetic were. Then, I will consider those views from the perspective of modern philosophy of mathematics, and in particular, the empirical study of arithmetical cognition. I aim to show that there is nothing to suggest that the axiomatic Dedekind approach could not provide a perfectly adequate basis for philosophy of arithmetic.     

Conceptual Schemes Revisited: Davidsonian Metaphysical Pluralism

Davidson’s 1974 argument denying the possibility of incommensurable conceptual schemes is widely interpreted as entailing a denial of metaphysical pluralism. Speakers may group objects differently or have different beliefs about the world, but there is just one world. I argue there is tension arising from three aspects of Davidson’s philosophy: (1) the 1974 argument against conceptual schemes; (2) Davidson’s more recent emphasis on primitive triangulation as a necessary condition for thought and language; and (3) Davidson’s semantic approach to metaphysics, what he calls ‘the method of truth in metaphysics’. After elucidating the tension, I argue the tension can be resolved while preserving at least two major tenets of Davidson’s philosophy: (1) conceptual schemes do not carve an uninterpreted reality into different worlds and (2) truth is objective and non-epistemic. I argue Davidson is implicitly committed to a plurality of worlds.     

Clocks,Evidence, and the “Truth-Maker Solution”

Adrian Heathcote and I agree that a stopped clock does not show—as the adage has it—the right time twice a day, but he thinks, as I do not, that it does show what time it stopped. To think that it does is to treat the position of its hands as evidence of its stopping at the time it did. Add to the justified-true-belief analysis of knowledge the requirement that the evidence on the basis of which the believer is justified be evidence of what is believed in this sense, and you have the long-sought fourth condition to block Gettier cases. I argue that requiring that one’s evidence be evidence in this sense is incompatible with the fallibilism on which Gettier cases are predicated.     

Universal laws and economic phenomena

Despite the idiosyncratic behavior of individuals, empirical regularities exist in social and economic systems. These regularities often arise from simple underlying mechanisms which, analogous to the natural sciences, can be expressed as universal principles or laws. In this essay, I discuss the similarities between economic and natural phenomena and argue that it is advantageous for economists to adopt methods from the natural sciences to discover “universal laws” in economic systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2011