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The present study investigated whether humans are more likely to trust people who are coordinated with them. We examined a well-known type of linguistic coordination, lexical entrainment, typically involving the elaboration of “conceptualpacts,” or partner-specific agreements on how to conceptualize objects. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical entrainment in a referential communication task and measured the effect of this manipulation on epistemic and practical trust. Our results showed that participants were more likely to trust a coordinated partner (...) than an uncoordinated one, but only when the latter broke previously establishedconceptualpacts. (shrink)

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This paper sets out the felicity conditions for metalinguistic proposals, a type of directive illocutionary act. It discusses the relevance of metalinguistic proposals and other metalinguistic directives for understanding both small- and large-scale linguistic engineering projects, essentially contested concepts, metalinguistic provocations, and the methodology of ordinary language philosophy. Metalinguistic proposals are compared with other types of linguistic interventions, including metalinguistic negotiation,conceptual engineering, lexical warfare, and ameliorative projects.

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The author argues that Bobbio’s philosophy of international relations is inspired by a highly positive conception of pacificism. Bobbio strongly rejects the Catholic notion of “just war” and claims that in the nuclear era war is the antithesis of the right, being as uncontrolled and uncontrollable as an earthquake or a tempest. Nonetheless, according to the author, Bobbio’s “juridical pacifism” still leaves a number of important political and theoretical problems in obscurity. First of all, there is room for doubt as (...) to whether the so-called “domestic analogy,” to which Bobbio expressly alludes, is capable of furnishing the appropriateconceptual means for constructing a theory of international relations. Secondly, it is by no means certain that the concentration of supreme international authority in the hands of a global organization is the best way to construct a more secure international order. Finally, according to the author, we may well doubt whether the United Nations does derive from a universal pact or agreement and is ultimately inspired by democratic principles. (shrink)

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Recent rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning have raised many questions about the regulatory and governance mechanisms for autonomous machines. Many commentators, scholars, and policy-makers now call for ensuring that algorithms governing our lives are transparent, fair, and accountable. Here, I propose aconceptual framework for the regulation of AI and algorithmic systems. I argue that we need tools to program, debug and maintain an algorithmic social contract, a pact between various human stakeholders, mediated by machines. (...) To achieve this, we can adapt the concept of human-in-the-loop (HITL) from the fields of modeling and simulation, and interactive machine learning. In particular, I propose an agenda I call society-in-the-loop (SITL), which combines the HITL control paradigm with mechanisms for negotiating the values of various stakeholders affected by AI systems, and monitoring compliance with the agreement. In short, ‘SITL = HITL + Social Contract.’. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Theory of International Bioethics: Multiculturalism, Postmodernism, and the Bankruptcy of Fundamentalism 1Robert Baker (bio)AbstractThis first of two articles analyzing the justifiability of international bioethical codes and of cross-cultural moral judgments reviews “moral fundamentalism,” the theory that cross-cultural moral judgments and international bioethical codes are justified by certain “basic” or “fundamental” moral principles that are universally accepted in all cultures and eras. Initially propounded by the judges at the (...) 1947 Nuremberg Tribunal, moral fundamentalism has become the received justification of international bioethics, and of cross-temporal and cross-cultural moral judgments. Yet today we are said to live in a multicultural and postmodern world. This article assesses the challenges that multiculturalism and postmodernism pose to fundamentalism and concludes that these challenges render the position philosophically untenable, thereby undermining the received conception of the foundations of international bioethics. The second article, which follows, offers an alternative model—a model of negotiated moral order—as a viable justification for international bioethics and for transcultural and transtemporal moral judgments.Man in the Twentieth Century can not be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture.American Anthropological Association (1948) in a statement officially denouncing the 1948 United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights.Recently... so-called “liberal” medicine has revived the old rights of a clinic understood in terms of a special contract, a tacit pact made between one man and another. This patient gaze has even been attributed the power of assuming [a role in clinical decision making].Miracles are not so easy to come by....Michel Foucault (1975, p. 5) [End Page 201]An Overview of the AnalysisInternational bioethics originated in the trauma of the Holocaust, specifically, in the 1946–1947 Nuremberg “Doctors Trial” when a tribunal of three American judges convicted Nazi medical researchers of “crimes against humanity.” In justifying their judgment, the Nuremberg Tribunal cited 10 principles for morally permissible research, which, they claimed, were based on “fundamental” principles that civilized societies “all agree” upon and accept as the foundations of their “moral, ethical, and legal” norms. Foremost among the principles was one stating that morally permissible human experiments require the informed voluntary consent of the subject. The Nuremberg judgment soon became associated with the ideal of human rights declared in the 1948 United Nations Charter. These two ideas—fundamental principles of morality and human rights—have been linked in all major formulations of international bioethics promulgated in the past 50 years, including the Council of Europe’s 1997 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine (Council of Europe 1997; Dommel and Alexander 1997). In this paper, I explore the received justification for international bioethics—the idea that it is grounded in fundamental principles accepted in all societies—tracing it from its initial, almost off-hand, promulgation by the Nuremberg Tribunal, through its more thoughtful development by such bioethicists as Ruth Macklin, to its more complex use by the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.After a brief review of the evolution of the received justification, I discuss the viability of this justification in the face of the critique implicit in two important intellectual movements: multiculturalism and postmodernism. In the international context, multiculturalism asserts the claim that there are no common moral principles shared by all cultures. Postmodernism asserts a similar claim against all universal standards, moral and nonmoral. In the 1990s, bioethicists have attempted to respond to these claims in various ways. These responses are documented, analyzed, and then shown to be “bankrupt,” in the sense that they undercut the most important objective of moral fundamentalism: the justification of transcultural moral judgments, such as the condemnation of the Nazi doctors.A second article, which follows the present one in the same issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, revisits the contractarian tradition [End Page 202] of Hobbes and Locke, as it has been reinterpreted by David Gauthier (1986), John Rawls (1971, 1993), and Robert Nozick (1974), to develop the idea of negotiated moral order as the basis of international bioethics. When conceptualized as a negotiated moral order, international bioethics can accept the genuine insights... (shrink)

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The terms “shādh” and “munkar”, well-known in hadith terminology, have existed across all scholarly fields since the earliest periods of Islam. However, the concepts expressing these narrations could vary depending on time, individuals, and academic disciplines. The primary reasons for pe-ople's interest in these narrations are the use of an exaggerated style in the stories they convey and the inclusion of details not found in mainstream narrations. Many ideas and thoughts opposing the fundamental principles and teachings of the Qur'an and (...) Sunnah have found a place in religious literature through munkar and shâdh narrations. It is crucial to scrutinize these narrations, which have the potential to influence Muslims’ thoughts and ideas in every era through Israiliyyat, certain narrative works, and schools with wide influence, to identify the damage they cause, understand their historical background, sources, and the reasons for their use, and de-termine the correct attitude towards them. In some modern studies, topics such as munkar hadiths, shādh readings, shādh legal opinions, and the con-cept of enjoining good and forbidding evil (amr bi’l-ma‘rūf and nahy ‘an al-munkar) have been examined within the context of the meanings of these terms in the scholarly disciplines where they are used. In the study titled “The Role of Shādh and Munkar Narrations in Religious Thought”, the con-ceptual framework and historical background of shādh and munkar narra-tions, the general sources in which these narrations found a place, the rea-sons why people resort to these narrations, the positive and negative im-pacts of shādh and munkar narrations on religious thought, and the correct attitude towards these narrations will be discussed. Classical hadith works and modern academic studies were consulted in the research of this topic, and evaluations regarding theconceptual framework and historical backg-round of the terms shādh and munkar were analyzed. The accuracy, consis-tency, and conformity of these texts with the religion of Islam, as well as their positive and negative impacts on religious thought, are discussed from a critical perspective. A comparative method based on the approaches of different schools and scholars towards shādh and munkar hadiths was also utilized. (shrink)

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The book on Adler is one of the key works in Kierkegaard's thought. By writing it the Danish philosopher was able to verify for himself the religious content of his vocation and the accuracy of his critique against the modern church and society. It presents a profound investigation into the fundamental Christian concepts of "revelation", of "divine authority", and of "apostle". The inquiry shows that Kierkegaard is more of an objectivist than a subjectivist because he pronounced qualitative distinction between what (...) belongs to the immanent order, i.e. to men, and what belongs to the transcendal order, i.e. to God. But The book on Adler is also the result of a profound dialectical and psychological study performed on a certain Adler who pactatively gratified himself whith a revelation. The book, then, gives in details the most obvious proofs of his confusion and gives an account of its real causes : an emotionnal shock, a lack in both a Christianconceptual formation and an ethico-religious education, and the negative influence of Hegelian philosophy. While it sees in Adler the epitome of his era, it makes us understand the continual danger of missing what is essential in religious phenomena. (shrink)

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There are several reasons which suggest that the role of nuclear weapons for deterrence in Europe is gradually diminishing. Thus, Europeans are confronted with the question whether and under what conditions strategic stability can be obtained in a post-nuclear world. From the analysis of a simpleconceptual model of military conflict the conclusion is reached that, in order to preserve crisis stability in a non-nuclear world and to dampen the arms race, the antagonistic land forces in Europe need to (...) be gradually restructured in a manner so that neither side may perceive the other as a potential threat to its territorial integrity. The requisite structural changes ought to be brought about before nuclear weapons become altogether invailable for deterrence in Europe, otherwise the War saw Pact’s conventional superiority would, in a serious crisis, leave Western Europe only the choice between military defeat and a priori capitulation. There should be military as well as economic incentives for the implementation of structural changes toward a reduction of the offensive capabilities of conventional forces, if the so-called ‘defense efficiency hypothesis’ were to be validated. Otherwise, a deterioration of crisis stability must be expected during the transition period. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medical Ethics in a Time of De-CommunizationRobert Baker (bio)Ethics is often treated as a matter of ethereal principles abstracted from the particulars of time and place. A natural correlate of this approach is the attempt to measure actual codes of ethics in terms of basic principles. Such an exercise can be illuminating, but it can also obscure the circumstances that make a particular codification of morality a meaningful response (...) to specific historic circumstances. This is particularly true of the codes of medical ethics beginning to emerge from the post-Communist societies of Eastern Europe, which are, perhaps, best understood as artifacts of an era, rather than as expressions of abstract principles.The era in question is post-Communist. It is an era informed by a reaction to decades of Communism, which, of course, was more than an economic system or even an ideology; it was a form of life that permeated every aspect of civil society—advertising, art, literature, music. Medicine was not exempt. I recall entering an oncology ward in East Berlin and finding the patients seated around a large table making posters. Wondering whether this was a form of art therapy, I asked the head nurse what the patients were doing. She replied: it is "Party time—the portion of each week every citizen donates to the people and the Party." I looked again at the posters and saw that they honored Karl Marx on the 100th anniversary of his death: "1883-1983, The Struggle Goes On." The Party, the struggle, the people, were everywhere, and they penetrated and informed daily life even for terminal patients on a cancer ward.The interweaving of Communist practices into the warp and woof of daily life has profound implications for the post-Communist era. It means that East Europeans cannot simply rebuild; they must unweave Communist thought patterns—what might be called the ideostructure of Communism—from the fabric of their lives through a deliberate process of deCommunization. What remains after de-Communization depends upon [End Page 363] the historical relationship each country had with Communism. In Russia, removing Communist ideostructure sets theconceptual calendar back to 1918. For the Czechs, the calendar advances to the 1930s, leaving them with thought patterns that are Western, industrial, and democratic. In the rest of Eastern Europe theconceptual clock also tends to turn back to the 1930s, but at that time theconceptual frameworks were nationalist, anti-Western, and frequently fascist, or even Nazi.In Poland the situation is different. World War II opened with the Nazi invasion of the country—which Hitler (later joined by Stalin) subsequently occupied. After the war, the Soviet army controlled the country, which became a captive player in the Soviet sphere of influence (aptly denominated, "the Warsaw Pact"). Poland's pre-Communist thought patterns are nationalist, West-leaning, accepting of parliamentary structures, but also of authoritarian government. They are also Catholic.Catholicism to Poles is not merely a religion, it is a posture of opposition to their German (Nazi, antichristian) and Russian (Orthodox or atheist) occupiers. I toured Polish hospitals several times during the Communist period —always accompanied by one or more "tour guides." (Westerners were not allowed to roam Communist countries unescorted.) Almost all of my guides wore little pins adorned with the face of Lenin (not the hammer and sickle—a symbol of Soviet occupation). Most doctors and nurses, however, adorned themselves with Catholic icons—typically a crucifix. Their conspicuously displayed crosses symbolized less their embrace of Catholicism than their rejection of Communism. Catholicism, in the Polish context, was thus an affirmation of individual and national independence.De-Communizing Polish Medical Ethics: The Abortion ControversyIn Poland, de-Communization was initiated through a series of negotiations between Lech Walensa's Solidarity and the Communist Government. The Polish Code of Medical Ethics is an indirect consequence of these negotiations, which stipulated the dissolution of Communist medical organizations. They were to be replaced by a Polish Medical Chamber—a type of quasi-governmental body, common in Eastern Europe, which combines the functions of a governmental licensing agency with those of a national medical association. Medical chambers also set standards of professional conduct and (unlike... (shrink)

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This article asks under what circumstances controversial technologies would be considered seriously for remediation instead of being rejected out of hand. To address this question, the authors developed aconceptual framework called public acceptability of controversial technologies. PACT considers site-specific, decision-oriented dialogues among the individuals and groups involved in selecting or recommending hazardous waste remediation technologies. It distinguishes technology acceptability, that is, a willingness to consider seriously, from technology acceptance, the decision to deploy. The framework integrates four dimensions: an (...) acceptability continuum that underlies decision-oriented dialogues among individuals and constituency groups, the attributes of these individuals and groups, the attributes of the technology at issue, and the community context—social, institutional, and physical. This article describes and explores PACT as a tool for understanding and better predicting the acceptability of controversial technologies. (shrink)

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Day to day, we are used to living in a world of beings with well-defined edges. This world is ruled by dialectical modes of engagement that reinforce the individual being in the context of other beings. Concepts like the Freudian Other serve to confirm the place and the boundaries of a subject. Congruently, reaching beyond the reality, myths negotiate the relationship of the individual with the sublime. The dialectically conceived world does not provide a sufficiently complex conceptualization of our existence (...) today. In searching for an alternative ontology, I am looking at structures that place human and informational multiplicity at their core. The type of individuation arising from a complex system does not form a subject, but instead crystallizes as an entity akin to a demon. In order to interact with such forces, one turns to sorcerous methodologies, which facilitate the transgression into many. In exchanging the vertically conceived subject for a horizontally defined multiplicity, one enters into a pact with the demon. I am interested in artistic expressions of such alliance and the role of a network user as a sorcerer dealing with the demon. (shrink)

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In this article, we explore why solidarity has not worked according to expectation in EU migration and asylum law and why it is unlikely to work in the future. First, we consider discourses of burden-sharing and solidarity in EU law from the 1990s up to the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 to identify emergent path dependencies. This period saw the introduction of primary law provisions on solidarity, such as Article 80 TFEU, as French and Dutch electorates had rejected a European constitution. (...) Second, we perform an analysis of Article 80 through theconceptual history of solidarity, in particular, the dominant Roman law tradition of obligation in solidum and the French tradition of solidarism. We submit that the term ‘solidarity’ is actually a misnomer: already on structural grounds, Article 80 should be read as an alliance clause, countering a threat of irregular immigration. Third, we find that the practice under Article 80 as it develops during the period between 2015 and the 2020 European Commission Pact on Migration and Asylum corroborates this finding. Overall, we find that the concept of solidarity in EU asylum and migration law engenders outcome expectations that it cannot deliver as the defence alliance it is. (shrink)

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This article posits a number of theoretical pointers towards aconceptual clarification of the concept of non-violence, in particular in relation to notions of conflict, pact, mediation, compromise, strength, benevolence, and truth. It sets them against the concept of violence and the behaviours which are associated with it, and is based on the thought of M. K. Gandhi and E. Weil. Finally it presents some pointers towards a strategy for non-violence and explains the sense of the principle of non-cooperation.

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Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’.Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political (...) philosophy. In this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

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Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world, and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’.Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political (...) philosophy. In this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

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In this paper, we aim to show that the framework of embedded, distributed, or extended cognition offers new perspectives on social cognition by applying it to one specific domain: the psychology of memory. In making our case, first we specify some key social dimensions of cognitive distribution and some basic distinctions between memory cases, and then describe stronger and weaker versions of distributed remembering in the general distributed cognition framework. Next, we examine studies of social influences on memory in cognitive (...) psychology, and identify the valuable concepts and methods to be extended and embedded in our framework; we focus in particular on three related paradigms: transactive memory, collaborative recall, and social contagion. Finally, we sketch our own early studies of individual and group memory developed within our framework of distributed cognition, on social contagion of autobiographical memories, collaborative flashbulb memories, and memories of high school at a high school reunion. We see two reciprocal benefits of thisconceptual and empirical framework to social memory phenomena: that ideas about distributed cognition can be honed against and tested with the help of sophisticated methods in the social cognitive psychology of memory; and conversely, that a range of social memory phenomena that are as yet poorly understood can be approached afresh with theoretically motivated extensions of existing empirical paradigms. (shrink)

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From reviews of the hardback edition: a deep study of 20th century field ... of theconceptual origins and development of twentieth century field theories, ...

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The paper defends the view that that a significant part of metaphysics should be understood asconceptual engineering, and explores its epistemological advantages and metaphysical implications. It discusses the challenge raised by moderate modal skepticism, which points out the lack of reliable methods for verifying modal statements through thought experiments. As I argue, a normative stance on metaphysical methodology, understanding it as engaging inconceptual engineering project, justifies the use of this method. By adopting an approach where the (...) method of cases offers reasons for adopting specific normative constraints on concept usage, the method becomes justifiable. Consequently, it can be employed to justify the revision ofconceptual schemes and, in turn, validate certain modal claims about entities falling under the scrutinized concepts. The paper explores how this approach can methodologically enrichconceptual engineering-focused perspectives in metaphysics and examines its metaphysical consequences. In particular, it demonstrates that despite the mind-dependency of the method of cases results, it still leaves room for a metaphysically realistic viewpoint. (shrink)

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If ethical reflection on which concepts to use has an avatar, it must be Nietzsche, who took more seriously than most the question of what concepts one should live by, and regarded many of our inherited concepts as deeply problematic. Moreover, his eschewal of traditional attempts to derive the one right set of concepts from timeless rational foundations renders hisconceptual ethics strikingly modern, raising the prospect of a Nietzschean alternative to Wittgensteinian non-foundationalism. Yet Nietzsche appears to engage in (...) two seemingly contrary modes of concept evaluation: one looks to concepts’ effects, the other to what concepts express. I offer an account of the expressive character of concepts which unifies these two modes and accounts for Nietzsche’s seemingly bifurcating interests. His fundamental concern is with the effects concepts are likely to have going forward, and it is precisely this concern that motivates his preoccupation with what concepts express. He evaluates concepts by asking for whom they have a point, working back from a concept via the need it fills to the conditions that engender that need and thereby render the concept pointful. For a concept to be pointful is for it to serve the concerns of its users through its effects. But even when it is not pointful, a concept expresses the presuppositions of its pointfulness, which we can work back to by asking who would have need of such a concept. What emerges is a powerful approach toconceptual ethics that looks beyond the formal virtues and vices of concepts at the presuppositions we buy into by using them. (shrink)

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In this paper, I clarify the relation between two types of grounding: metaphysical andconceptual. Metaphysical grounding relates entities at more and less fundamental ontological levels.Conceptual grounding relates semantically primitive sentences and semantically derivative sentences. It is important to distinguish these relations given that both types of grounding can underwrite non-causal “in-virtue-of” claims. In this paper, I argue thatconceptual and metaphysical grounding are exclusive: if a given in-virtue-of claim involvesconceptual grounding, then it does (...) not involve metaphysical grounding. I then present two heuristics for deciding which type of grounding is relevant to a given case. These heuristics suggest that certain proposed cases of metaphysical grounding may not actually involve metaphysical grounding at all. (shrink)

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Mark Wilson explores our strategies for understanding the world. We frequently cannot reason about nature in the straightforward manner we anticipate, but must use alternative thought processes that reach useful answers in opaque and roundabout ways ; and philosophy must find better descriptive tools to reflect this.

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In recent years, there has been growing discussion amongst philosophers about “conceptual engineering”. Put roughly,conceptual engineering concerns the assessment and improvement of concepts, or of other devices we use in thought and talk (e.g., words). This often involves attempts to modify our existing concepts (or other representational devices), and/or our practices of using them. This paper explores the relation betweenconceptual engineering andconceptual ethics, whereconceptual ethics is taken to encompass normative and evaluative (...) questions about concepts, words, and other broadly “representational” and/or “inferential” devices we use in thought and talk. We take some of the central questions inconceptual ethics to concern which concepts we should use and what words should mean, and why. We put forward a view ofconceptual engineering in terms of the following three activities:conceptual ethics,conceptual innovation, andconceptual implementation. On our view,conceptual engineering can be defined in terms of these three activities, but not in a straightforward, Boolean way.Conceptual engineering, we argue, is made up of mereologically complex activities whose parts fall into the categories associated with each of these three different activities. (shrink)

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Theconceptual spaces approach has recently emerged as a novel account of concepts. Its guiding idea is that concepts can be represented geometrically, by means of metrical spaces. While it is generally recognized that many of our concepts are vague, the question of how to model vagueness in theconceptual spaces approach has not been addressed so far, even though the answer is far from straightforward. The present paper aims to fill this lacuna.

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Conceptual analysis is undergoing a revival in philosophy, and much of the credit goes to Frank Jackson. Jackson argues thatconceptual analysis is needed as an integral component of so-called serious metaphysics and that it also does explanatory work in accounting for such phenomena as categorization, meaning change, communication, and linguistic understanding. He even goes so far as to argue that opponents ofconceptual analysis are implicitly committed to it in practice. We show that he is wrong (...) on all of these points and that his case forconceptual analysis doesn't succeed. At the same time, we argue that the sorts of intuitions that figure inconceptual analysis may still have a significant role to play in philosophy. So naturalists needn't disregard intuitions altogether. (shrink)

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It is often assumed that how we talk about the world matters a great deal. This is one reason whyconceptual engineers seek to improve our linguistic practices by advocating novel uses of our words, or by inventing new ones altogether. A core idea shared byconceptual engineers is that by changing our language in this way, we can reap all sorts of cognitive and practical benefits, such as improving our theorizing, combating hermeneutical injustice, or promoting social emancipation. (...) But how do changes at the linguistic level translate into any of these worthwhile benefits? In this paper, we propose the nameability account as a novel answer to this question. More specifically, we argue that what linguistic resources are readily available to us directly affects our cognitive performance on various categorization‐related tasks. Consequently, our performance on such tasks can be improved by making controlled changes to our linguistic resources. We argue that this account supports and extends recent motivations forconceptual engineering, as categorization plays an important role in both theoretical and practical contexts. (shrink)

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Conceptual analysis of health and disease is portrayed as consisting in the confrontation of a set of criteria—a “definition”—with a set of cases, called instances of either “health” or “ disease.” Apart from logical counter-arguments, there is no other way to refute an opponent’s definition than by providing counter-cases. As resorting to intensional stipulation is not forbidden, several contenders can therefore be deemed to have succeeded. This implies thatconceptual analysis alone is not likely to decide between naturalism (...) and normativism. An alternative to this approach would be to examine whether the concept of disease can be naturalized. (shrink)

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Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens have recently articulated the Idea Idea, the thesis that “inconceptual art, there is no physical medium: the medium is the idea.” But what is an idea, and in the case of works such as Duchamp's Fountain, how does the idea relate to the urinal? In answering these questions, it becomes apparent that the Idea Idea should be rejected. After showing this, I offer a new ontology ofconceptual art, according to which such (...) artworks are not ideas but artifacts imbued with ideas. After defending this view from objections, I briefly discuss some implications it has for the ontology of art in general. (shrink)

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Ascriptions of truth give rise to an explanatory asymmetry. For instance, we accept ‘ is true because Rex is barking’ but reject ‘Rex is barking because is true’. Benjamin Schnieder and other philosophers have recently proposed a fresh explanation of this asymmetry : they have suggested that the asymmetry has aconceptual rather than a metaphysical source. The main business of this paper is to assess this proposal, both on its own terms and as an option for deflationists. I (...) offer a pair of objections to the proposal and defend them from counter-objections. To conclude, I discuss how else to explain the asymmetry, and set out the implications for deflationism and correspondence theories of truth. (shrink)

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A computational theory of induction must be able to identify the projectible predicates, that is to distinguish between which predicates can be used in inductive inferences and which cannot. The problems of projectibility are introduced by reviewing some of the stumbling blocks for the theory of induction that was developed by the logical empiricists. My diagnosis of these problems is that the traditional theory of induction, which started from a given (observational) language in relation to which all inductive rules are (...) formulated, does not go deep enough in representing the kind of information used in inductive inferences. As an interlude, I argue that the problem of induction, like so many other problems within AI, is a problem of knowledge representation. To the extent that AI-systems are based on linguistic representations of knowledge, these systems will face basically the same problems as did the logical empiricists over induction. In a more constructive mode, I then outline a non-linguistic knowledge representation based onconceptual spaces. The fundamental units of these spaces are "quality dimensions". In relation to such a representation it is possible to define "natural" properties which can be used for inductive projections. I argue that this approach evades most of the traditional problems. (shrink)

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Arguments for attributing non-conceptual content to experience have predominantly been motivated by aspects of the visual perception of empirical properties. In this article, I pursue a different strategy, arguing that a specific class of affective-evaluative experiences have non-conceptual content. The examples drawn on are affective-evaluative experiences of first exposure, in which the subject has a felt valenced intentional attitude towards evaluative properties of the object of their experience, but lacks any powers ofconceptual discrimination regarding those evaluative (...) properties. I also show that by accepting this thesis we can explain relevant features of evaluative understanding. (shrink)

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ABSTRACT In Habgood-Coote : 1033–1065) I argued that we should abandon ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’, on the grounds that these terms do not have stable public meanings, are unnecessary, and function as vehicles for propaganda. Jessica Pepp, Eliot Michaelson, and Rachel Sterken and Étienne Brown : 144–154) have raised worries about my case for abandonment, recommending that we continue using ‘fake news’. In this paper, I respond to these worries. I distinguish more clearly between theoretical and political reasons for abandoning (...) a term, assemble more evidence that ‘fake news’ is a nonsense term, and respond to the worries raised by Pepp, Michaelson and Sterken, and Brown. I close by considering the prospects for anti-fascist and anti-authoritarianconceptual engineering. (shrink)

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Generic sentences (e.g., bare plural sentences such as “dogs have four legs” and “mosquitoes carry malaria”) are used to talk about kinds of things. Three experiments investigated theconceptual foundations of generics as well as claims within the formal semantic approaches to generics concerning the roles of prevalence, cue validity and normalcy in licensing generics. Two classes of generic sentences that pose challenges to both the conceptually based and formal semantic approaches to generics were investigated. Striking property generics (e.g. (...) “sharks bite swimmers”) are true even though only a tiny minority of instances have the property and thus pose obvious problems for quantificational approaches, and they also do not seem to characterize kinds in terms of the principled or statistical connections investigated in previous research ( Prasada and Dillingham, 2006 ; Prasada and Dillingham, 2009). The second class — minority characteristic generics (e.g. “ducks lay eggs”) — also poses serious problems for quantificational accounts, and appears to involve principled connections even though fewer than half of its instances have the relevant property. The experiments revealed three principal discoveries: first, striking generics involve neither principled nor statistical connections. Instead, they involve a causal connection between a kind and a property. Second, minority characteristic generics exhibit the characteristics of principled connections, which suggests that principled connections license the expectation that most instances will have the property, but do not require it. Finally, the experiments also provided evidence that prevalence and the acceptability of generics may be dissociated and provided data that are problematic for normalcy approaches to generics, and for the idea that cue validity licenses low prevalence generics. As such, the studies provided evidence in favor of a conceptually based approach to the semantics of generics ( Leslie, 2007 ; Leslie, 2008; see also Carlson, 2009). (shrink)

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Emotional experiences are often described in metaphoric language. A major question in linguistics and cognitive science is whether such metaphoric linguistic expressions reflect a deeper principle of cognition. Are abstract concepts structured by the embodied, sensorimotor domains that we use to describe them? This review presents the argument forconceptual metaphors of affect and summarizes recent findings from empirical studies. These findings show that, consistent with theconceptual metaphor account, the associations between affect and physical domains such as (...) spatial position, musical pitch, brightness, and size which are captured in linguistic metaphors also influence performance on attention, memory and judgment tasks. Despite this evidence, a number of concerns with metaphor as an account of affect representation are considered. (shrink)

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This essay continues my investigation of `syntactic semantics': the theory that, pace Searle's Chinese-Room Argument, syntax does suffice for semantics (in particular, for the semantics needed for a computational cognitive theory of natural-language understanding). Here, I argue that syntactic semantics (which is internal and first-person) is what has been called aconceptual-role semantics: The meaning of any expression is the role that it plays in the complete system of expressions. Such a `narrow',conceptual-role semantics is the appropriate sort (...) of semantics to account (from an `internal', or first-person perspective) for how a cognitive agent understands language. Some have argued for the primacy of external, or `wide', semantics, while others have argued for a two-factor analysis. But, although two factors can be specified–-one internal and first-person, the other only specifiable in an external, third-person way–-only the internal, first-person one is needed for understanding how someone understands. A truth-conditional semantics can still be provided, but only from a third-person perspective. (shrink)

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This paper discusses the integrated approach to the semantics and pragmatics of language developed in my Making It Explicit . The core claim is that there are six consequential relations among commitments and entitlements that are sufficient for a practice exhibiting them to qualify as discursive, that is, as a practice of giving and asking for reasons, hence as one conferring genuinelyconceptual content on the expressions, performances, and statuses that have scorekeeping significances in those practices. I divide the (...) six consequential relations into two groups, the fundamental-semantic and the social-pragmatic, and I characterise the complex interactions between them. The bold and potentially falsifiable overall claim is that any practice that exhibits this full six-fold structure will be interpretable in a broadly Davidsonian sense: roughly, mappable onto ours in a way that makes conversation with us possible. (shrink)

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What exactly doesconceptual analysis consist in? Is it empirical or a priori? How does it support philosophical theses? and What kinds of thesis are these? There is no consensus on these questions in contemporary philosophy. This study aims to defendconceptual analysis by showing that it comprises a number of different methods and by explaining their importance in philosophy. After setting out an initial dilemma forconceptual analysis, the study outlines a minimal ecumenical account of concepts, (...) as well as an account of concept possession and concept employment. On the basis of these accounts, the study then argues that there are both empirical and a priori forms ofconceptual analysis, and that each can be defended as legitimate methods. The philosophical interest ofconceptual analysis, however, resides in relying on all three types of method in the service of answering philosophical concerns. This is illustrated by three sample cases. (shrink)

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The Acquaintance Principle has been the subject of extensive debate in philosophical aesthetics. In one of the most recent developments, it has become popular to claim that some works ofconceptual art are counterexamples to it. It is further claimed that this is a genuinely new problem in the sense that it is a problem even for versions of the Acquaintance Principle modified to deal with previous objections. I argue that this is essentially correct; however, the claim as it (...) stands needs some work. I draw attention to, and defend, two assumptions on which the claim rests but which have so far gone unrecognized. I also address an objection that has recently been made to the claim and threatens to raise further complications for it. In doing this, we arrive at a fuller, more robust version of the initial claim. (shrink)

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