Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 0309-7013 - ISSN (Online) 1467-8349 Published by Oxford University Press[413 journals]
Authors:Divers J. Pages: 1 - 25 Abstract: AbstractI argue that a pragmatic scepticism about metaphysical modality is a perfectly reasonable position to maintain. I then illustrate the difficulties and limitations associated with some strategies for defeating such scepticism. These strategies appeal to associations between metaphysical modality and the following: objective probability, counterfactuals and distinctive explanatory value. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky008 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Harte V. Pages: 27 - 48 Abstract: AbstractIn modern epistemology, one ‘value of knowledge’ problem concerns the question why knowledge should be valued more highly than mere true belief. Though this problem has a background in Plato, the present paper, focused on Philebus 55–9, is concerned with a different question: what questions might one ask about the value of knowledge, and what question(s) does Plato ask here' The paper aims to articulate the kind(s) of value Plato here attributes to ‘useless’ knowledge, knowledge pursued without practical object; and why, according to him, there is value in being a knower. Though his answer to this question requires commitments we may resist, it has a structure of general philosophical interest. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky013 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Lane M. Pages: 49 - 67 Abstract: AbstractThis paper transposes for evaluation in relation to the concerns of Plato’s Politicus (or Statesman) a claim developed by Verity Harte in the context of his Philebus, that ‘external imposition of a practical aim would in some way corrupt paideutic [philosophical] knowledge’ (Harte 2018, p. 41). I argue that the Politicus provides a case for which the Philebus distinction may not allow: ruling, or statecraft, as embodying a form of knowledge that can be answerable to practical norms in a way that does not necessarily subordinate or corrupt its epistemic norms. I argue further that while Harte shows that the Philebus develops a view of the ethical value for a knower in being a knower, the Politicus for its part does not develop any view of the ethical value for a knower in being a ruler. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky010 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Mills C. Pages: 69 - 89 Abstract: Abstract‘Racial justice’ is a term widely used in everyday discourse, but little explored in philosophy. In this essay, I look at racial justice as a concept, trying to bring out its complexities, and urging a greater engagement by mainstream political philosophers with the issues that it raises. After comparing it to other varieties of group justice and injustice, I periodize racial injustice, relate it to European expansionism and argue that a modified Rawlsianism relying on a different version of the thought experiment could come up with suitable principles of corrective racial justice. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky002 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Flikschuh K. Pages: 91 - 110 Abstract: AbstractPhilosophical discussions frame the problem of race as either a social or a historical one; race is rarely diagnosed as a problem in philosophy. This article employs African philosophical writings to capture the distinctiveness of philosophical racism. I offer some remarks on the concept of race, distinguish between social and philosophical racism, and set out African diagnoses of Western philosophical racism, before considering possible responses to these diagnoses. I reject a blanket anti-racist prescriptivism and instead urge individual adoption of a research maxim that is responsive to opportunities for philosophical race reform as they arise within any domain of philosophical inquiry. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky003 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Korsgaard C. Pages: 111 - 131 Abstract: AbstractIn this paper I explore the possibility of explaining why there is such a thing as the good in naturalistic terms. More specifically, I seek an explanation of the fact that some things are good-for human beings and the other animals in the final sense of good: worth aiming at. I trace the existence of the final good to the existence of conscious agents. I propose that the final good for an animal is her own well-functioning as the kind of creature she is, taken as an end of action, and that having this as her final good makes her better at the activity she is necessarily engaged in, namely, living. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky001 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Rowlands M. Pages: 133 - 149 Abstract: AbstractThis paper explores certain facets of Christine Korsgaard’s paper, ‘Prospects for a Naturalistic Explanation of the Good’ (2018). Korsgaard’s account requires that an animal be able to experience ‘herself trying to get or avoid something’. The claim that animals possess such self-awareness is regarded by many as problematic and, if this is correct, it would jeopardize Korsgaard’s account. This paper argues that animals can, in fact, be aware of themselves in the way required by Korsgaard’s account. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky012 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Magidor O. Pages: 151 - 181 Abstract: AbstractEpistemic externalism offers one of the most prominent responses to the sceptical challenge. Externalism has commonly been interpreted (not least by externalists themselves) as postulating a crucial asymmetry between the actual-world agent and their brain-in-a-vat (biv) counterpart: while the actual agent is in a position to know she is not envatted, her biv counterpart is not in a position to know that she is envatted, or in other words, only the former is in a position to know whether or not she is envatted. In this paper, I argue that there is in fact no such asymmetry: assuming epistemic externalism, both the actual world agent and their biv counterpart are in a position to know whether or not they are envatted. After an introduction (§i), I present the main argument (§ii). I examine to what extent the argument survives when one accepts additional externalist-friendly commitments: semantic externalism, a sensitivity condition on knowledge, and epistemic contextualism (§iii). Finally, I discuss the implications of my conclusion to a variety of debates in epistemology (§iv). PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky009 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:McGlynn A. Pages: 183 - 205 Abstract: AbstractThe orthodox position in epistemology, for both externalists and internalists, is that a subject in a ‘bad case’—a sceptical scenario—is so epistemically badly off that they cannot know how badly off they are. Ofra Magidor (2018) contends that externalists should break ranks on this question, and that doing so is liberating when it comes time to confront a number of central issues in epistemology, including scepticism and the new evil demon problem for process reliabilism. In this reply, I will question whether Magidor’s argument should persuade externalists, whether it really engages with the orthodox view on what subjects in bad cases can know, and whether the dispute is, as Magidor insists, a significant one for contemporary epistemology. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky011 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Arpaly N. Pages: 207 - 223 Abstract: AbstractIt is widely agreed that benevolence is not the whole of the moral life, but it is not as widely appreciated that benevolence is an irreducible part of that life. This paper argues that Kantian efforts to characterize benevolence, or something like it, in terms of reverence for rational agency fall short. Such reverence, while credibly an important part of the moral life, is no more the whole of it than benevolence. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky004 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Mayr E. Pages: 225 - 245 Abstract: AbstractKantians may be unable to derive all of benevolence from reverence for rational agency, but the remaining lacuna is not as extensive as Arpaly thinks. For while we should take seriously Kantian worries about separating benevolence from reverence, a considerable part of benevolence can be explained in terms of reverence for rational agency on a plausible intepretation of the latter. Furthermore, Kantians have an irreducible role for benevolence within their ethics, which is different from the role of a self-standing virtue. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky005 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Bird A. Pages: 247 - 275 Abstract: AbstractPowers have in recent years become a central component of many philosophers’ ontology of properties. While I have argued that powers exist at the fundamental level of properties, many other theorists of powers hold that there are also non-fundamental powers. In this paper I articulate my reasons for being sceptical about the existing reasons for holding that there are non-fundamental powers. However, I also want to promote a different argument for the existence of a certain class of non-fundamental powers: properties which have natural selection to thank for their existence and nature. Such properties will include functional properties of organisms, and so may also include their mental properties. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky006 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Vetter B. Pages: 277 - 297 Abstract: AbstractAlexander Bird (2018) puts forward a modest version of anti-Humeanism about the non-fundamental, by providing an argument for the existence of a certain select class of non-fundamental but sparse dispositions: those that have an evolutionary function. I argue that his argument over-generates, so much so that the sparse–abundant distinction, and with it the tenet of his anti-Humean view, becomes obsolete. I suggest an alternative way of understanding anti-Humeanism in the non-fundamental realm, one which is not concerned with the existence of sparse properties but with explanatory relations. PubDate: Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/arisup/aky007 Issue No:Vol. 92, No. 1 (2018)
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
[413 journals]
