Artificial intelligence is likely to undermine the anthropocentrism of humanism, the master narrative that undergirds the modern world. Humanity will need a new story to structure our beliefs and cooperation around. As different regions explore posthumanist alternatives through fiction, they bring with them distinct traditions of thought. The Swedish TV series Real Humans and its British remake, Humans, dramatize the challenge of freeing oneself from cultural presumptions. When negotiating personhood with humanoid robots, the Swedish protagonist family presupposes a social-democratic ethos, (...) which is a trace of Scandinavian humanism that carries into the family’s posthumanist beliefs. Using Heideggerian and related perspectives, I analyze these series to make a case for a dataist ontology with potential to re-enchant the modern world and bring forth a new epoch of being. Such a master narrative of algorithmic universality could be facilitated by a new level of interconnectedness made possible by AI. This ontology fulfills the requirements of Robbins and Horta who call for a cosmopolitanism of inclusivity with room for overlapping conceptions to remedy our present era’s international dysfunction. The Swedish and British TV series suggest that even if humanity’s uniting around a dataist master narrative were to be driven by intercultural competition, the decisive choice might be out of human hands. Paradoxically, such disempowering in terms of agency is portrayed as necessary for human re-enchantment. (shrink)

El escepticismo filosófico es identificado por varios signos o nombres: Aporētikoí, Ephektikoí, Pyrrhōneioi, Skeptikoí y Zētētikoí, con significantes todos ellos válidos y una cierta confusión en el significado. El objetivo de este trabajo es triple: primero, aclarar por qué alguno de estos nombres han tenido más éxito que otros, segundo, cuáles son las razones por las que uno de ellos ha quedado fijado como nombre, en general para todos los pertenecientes a este movimiento filosófico, y tercero a qué se debe (...) que reconociendo la tradición un iniciador claro, Pirrón de Elis, y siendo el nombre “Pirrónicos” uno de los más populares y uno de los más utilizados por los escritores que hablan sobre este movimiento, no haya sido el más exitoso, como sí ha sido tradicional en la mayoría de las demás doctrinas. (shrink)

Ortega trasladó sus ideas pedagógicas a su quehacer como profesor universitario. Muchos de sus discípulos y colaboradores han dejado constancia de ello, como aquí se refiere. Fue para ellos, sobre todo ejemplo, ejemplo de vida, de orientación vital, de sinceridad intelectual en su quehacer filosófico. En este artículo no analizamos la filosofía de Ortega, lo que hemos hecho en otros textos, sino el impacto que causó la «persona» Ortega en sus colaboradores y discípulos. Aunque es algo estudiando, nunca se ha (...) presentado de esta forma sintética que muestra la envergadura del impacto que Ortega produjo en el mundo intelectual de la Edad de Plata de la cultura española. (shrink)

Como dispositivo narrativo-imaginario, el milagro crea una configuración nueva del poder al restablecer una polarización simétrica entre el deseo soberano de gobernar y un cierto deseo voluntario de sumisión. La crítica de los milagros en el plano teórico no impide al espinosismo desarrollar, en el terreno de lo práctico, una reconstrucción imaginaria del poder basada en la analogía entre teología y política, como puede constatarse en el análisis que Spinoza lleva a cabo del Estado Hebreo. A partir de las dos (...) explicaciones que Spinoza da de la formación del Estado Hebreo, este artículo se propone mostrar cómo la operatividad del milagro, desarticulado en el plano teórico, se mantiene en el terreno de lo práctico y con ella la vigencia de un imaginario teológico cuya dimensión política continúa activa. (shrink)

En 1723, quince años después de la muerte de Tschirnhaus, se publicó en Görlitz un Catálogo de su Biblioteca, que el 23 de agosto y días sucesivos iba a ser subastada al mejor postor. Ignoramos quién se hizo con ella y cuál fue su destino. Miguel Á. Granada encontró una mención de ese catálogo en un artículo de E. Winter y finalmente pudo localizar el Catálogo en la Sächsische Landesbibliothek –Staats– und Universitätsbibliothek de Dresde, donde se ofrece una copia digitalizada (...) del ejemplar conservado en la Biblioteca Albertina de Leipzig. Comentado el descubrimiento con Pablo Montosa, ambos coincideron en la importancia del Catálogo para la mejor evaluación de la cultura subyacente a la Medicina mentis y para la historia intelectual de Tschirnhaus. Dada la parquedad de los registros de las obras en el Catálogo, se hizo ver de inmediato la necesidad de proceder a la identificación y registro bibliográfico completo de los títulos del Catálogo, empresa que acometió Pablo Montosa con la ayuda puntual de Miguel Á. Granada. Ofrecemos al lector el resultado de esta tarea minuciosa en una transcripción del Catálogo que no ha conseguido identificar y describir todos los títulos, pero sí la gran mayoría y desde luego los más importantes. (shrink)

Con anterioridad a la paz de Westfalia el espacio filosófico alemán había estado dominado en gran medida por la teosofía, especialmente en el ámbito protestante y en regiones como Sajonia, Silesia y Württemberg. Con la Medicina mentis de E. W. von Tschirnhaus, noble sajón de estudios universitarios en Leiden, donde entra en contacto con Spinoza y su círculo, entramos en un nuevo mundo conceptual. Bajo la apariencia de una propuesta metodológica, de corte cartesiano, de conducir la razón al descubrimiento de (...) cuanto es posible conocer por la ‘luz natural’, Tschirnhaus propone una reforma moral del sujeto humano capaz de procurarle la perfección, la felicidad y la unión con Dios, donde la impronta de Spinoza es fuerte, aunque en ningún momento son nombrados estos dos filósofos. Tras estudiar la acusación de spinozismo por Christian Thomasius y el rechazo de la imputación por Tschirnhaus, el artículo se pronuncia sobre el sentido y función de ese rechazo. (shrink)

El dossier sobre Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, su obra y su tiempo que presentamos recoge algunas de las ponencias que se presentaron y discutieron en las sesiones de un Seminario que sobre «Tschirnhaus y la Medicina mentis» se desarrolló en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad de Barcelona en febrero de 2020. El Seminario, organizado por Pablo Montosa y Guillem Sales, continuaba una investigación sobre la obra de este filósofo y científico alemán que ambos habían iniciado tiempo atrás y (...) que habían presentado en una comunicación al V Congrés Català de Filosofía, ahora publicada con el título de «La crítica de E. W. von Tschirnhaus a la identificació cartesiana de consciència i coneixement» en las Actas de dicho congreso. (shrink)

El presente artículo explora algunas afinidades filosóficas entre el confucianismo y el averroísmo. Se analizan ambas corrientes en su incompatibilidad con la antropología filosófica moderna y, más concretamente, con la noción cristiano–liberal de individuo. Dicha incompatibilidad se examina en tres dimensiones distintas, a saber: una dimensión historiográfica, una filosófica y una genealógica. Se concluye que ambas tradiciones intelectuales ofrecen herramientas conceptuales y hermenéuticas para pensar nuestro presente más allá de las categorías filosóficas modernas.

Un nuevo y espléndido libro de José Luis Villacañas ha aparecido recientemente para el lector culto de lengua española. El libro, publicado por Taurus-Penguin Random House a inicios de 2021, pretende hacer justicia a la figura egregia de Luis Vives, el gran humanista español, menos conocido en España de lo que ciertamente merece.

Durante su intercambio epistolar con Spinoza, Tschirnhaus defiende la imposibilidad de deducir la naturaleza de los cuerpos particulares a partir de la sola extensión. El motivo de esta objeción reside en su dificultad para desmarcarse de la concepción sustancial de los cuerpos como partes finitas de la extensión sostenida por Descartes. Esta dificultad inicial, sin embargo, queda ensombrecida por la intervención de Leibniz en un momento clave de la correspondencia que convertirá la disputa de carácter físico en una controversia teológica. (...) Este artículo demuestra que el problema metafísico detectado por Leibniz consiste en la afirmación radical del principio de plenitud contenida en la proposición 16 de la primera parte de la Ética y las consecuencias heréticas que de ésta se desprenden. El examen del papel que la crítica de Leibniz jugó en el desarrollo de la discusión permitirá leer bajo una nueva luz tanto la paradójica actitud de Tschirnhaus como las enigmáticas y elusivas respuestas de Spinoza. (shrink)

Se abordan las tres cuestiones principales que aparecen en la correspondencia entre Tschirnhaus y Spinoza: la libertad; la producción de los cuerpos a partir del atributo extensión; la relación entre los modos del atributo pensamiento y los modos de los demás atributos. Se analizan las dificultades que Tschirnhaus detecta y el valor y alcance de las respuestas de Spinoza.

La Philosophia Prima de Avicena ocupa un lugar relevante en la historia de la metafísica. En sus primeros cuatro capítulos encontramos una definición de la metafísica como sabiduría y filosofía ciertísima. Avicena busca con todo ello destaca el carácter científico que Avicena busca darle a la metafísica. En este mismo sentido, la elucidación del objeto propio de esta disciplina se inserta en el debate entre sus fuentes árabes, pero a su vez se extiende en la discusión histórica sobre el lugar (...) de Dios y el ser en la metafísica. En este artículo se presenta la definición de la metafísica como ciencia primera, y el establecimiento del ente como el objeto propio de la metafísica, y Dios como aquello buscado. (shrink)

Based on proposition 28 of Part I of Spinoza's Ethics, I argue that the idea of interdetermination set out there is formed by excluding indetermination and finalism. Spinoza conceives reality as an infinite network of singular interdeterminations without hierarchies or outside. From interdetermination itself the problem arises of what it means to be a finite mode of God. This problem, however, is more fully resolved through the notion of 'absolute necessity of relation'. Once we have these conceptual tools, we can (...) understand the way in which finitude and absoluteness merge in singular things, making them cognizable with objectivity. But just because all things are knowable, it does not mean that we can know them all. For the power of our understanding is also limited. Affirming the knowability of all things and the limitation of our capacity to know, Spinoza challenged both irrationalistic scepticism and the mistake of human thought for the infinite understanding of God. (shrink)

Durante prácticamente toda su carrera filosófica, Étienne Gilson sostuvo que las cinco vías se apoyaban en la original doctrina tomasiana del esse. En cambio, hacia el final de su carrera, cayó en la cuenta de que esta tesis acarreaba graves problemas de fundamento, lo que le llevó a desecharla y defender lo contrario, que el esse está ausente en todas ellas. Por su parte, A. L. González, en su estudio de la cuarta vía, puso en entredicho este argumento. En el (...) presente estudio pretendo confrontar ambas posturas y justificar la validez de la posición gilsoniana. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se argumenta que la Medicina mentis de E. W. von Tschirnhaus participa del alejamiento respecto a la Metafísica escolástica ejemplificado tanto por la Logica vetus et nova de Johannes Clauberg de modo moderado y conciliador como por la Einleitung zur Vernunft-Lehre de Christian Thomasius con mayor radicalidad. Para ello, el artículo consta de tres partes. En la primera, se bosqueja el proceso por el que la Schulmetaphysik adquiere presencia y relevancia en las universidades germanas del siglo (...) XVII. A continuación, se analizan las mencionadas obras de Clauberg y Thomasius para descubrir en qué medida ambos pensadores dialogan críticamente con la tradición susodicha. Finalmente, se culmina el trabajo con una reflexión sobre los vínculos existentes entre la obra de Tschirnhaus y las Lógicas de Clauberg y Thomasius. (shrink)

This text was prompted by a forum discussing the legacy of Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, twenty-five years after its publication. In this short essay, I explore the book’s influence on the fields of Marxism, post-Marxism, and beyond. With the problematic of heritage and legacy in mind, I raise the questions of sexual difference and dissemination as that which comes to interrupt the genealogical logic of inheritance understood as filiation and reproduction. I show that Derrida’s book, besides questioning reception and (...) influence, yet remains to be read, especially in light of ongoing archival research on Derrida’s numerous engagements with Marx and Marxist thought in a series of unpublished seminars from the 1970s. This is done more specifically through a reading of an unpublished seminar from 1974-1975, dealing with the Marxian concepts of ideology and division of labor – which Derrida interrogates more particularly in relation to sex, sexuality, and sexual differences. This text was published in the section "Ambivalent Promises—Reproductions of the Subject: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part IV", Contexto Internacional, 42 (1), pp. 125-148. (shrink)

Moving from simple to increasingly sophisticated candidate cases, I argue against the idea that there can be cases in which, due to no fault of the agent or to any ambiguity regarding how things will go depending on which option is selected, all the options available to an agent are rationally impermissible. Whether there are cases that fit this bill—qualifying as what I will label no-fault-or-ambiguity rational dilemmas—depends on the characteristics of conclusive reasons. My reasoning leads me to the view (...) that a key feature of conclusive reasons is that they capture or ground overall assessments that are relationally significant. I then argue that, while this view does not itself conflict with the most sophisticated candidate cases of purported dilemmas of the relevant sort, following the spirit of the view does lead to a conclusion that blocks counting even these cases as ones in which there is a conclusive reason against every available option. My conclusion is that there is no solid basis for the view that there are cases of no-fault-or-ambiguity rational dilemmas. (shrink)

Typically, public discussions of questions of social import exhibit two important properties: they are influenced by conformity bias, and the influence of conformity is expressed via social networks. We examine how social learning on networks proceeds under the influence of conformity bias. In our model, heterogeneous agents express public opinions where those expressions are driven by the competing priorities of accuracy and of conformity to one’s peers. Agents learn, by Bayesian conditionalization, from private evidence from nature, and from the public (...) declarations of other agents. Our key findings are that networks that produce configurations of social relationships that sustain a diversity of opinions empower honest communication and reliable acquisition of true beliefs, and that the networks that do this best turn out to be those which are both less centralized and less connected. (shrink)

The paper addresses a prima facie tension between two popular views about concepts. The first is the doctrine that some concepts are constitutively perceptual/experiential, so that they can be possessed only by suitably experienced subjects. This is a classic empiricist theme, but its most conspicuous recent appearance is in literature on phenomenal concepts. The second view is anti-individualism: here, the view that concept possession depends not only on a thinker’s internal states and relations to the concepts’ referents, but also on (...) certain of her relations to sociolinguistic peers. In recent works, Derek Ball and Michael Tye have in effect argued that the doctrines are incompatible, and their conclusion is that no concepts depend on experience. In reply, Bénédicte Veillet endorses those authors’ incompatibilism, but argues that it is anti-individualism that we should reject. I develop an approach to reconciliation that is more promising than any considered by these theorists. Against Veillet, I defend a version of anti-individualism about phenomenal concepts, but against Ball and Tye, I argue that they can be possessed only by suitably experienced thinkers. (shrink)

According to one form of epistemic contrastivism, due to Jonathan Schaffer, knowledge is not a binary relation between an agent and a proposition, but a ternary relation between an agent, a proposition, and a context-basing question. In a slogan: to know is to know the answer to a question. I argue, first, that Schaffer-style epistemic contrastivism can be semantically represented in inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic, a recent implementation of inquisitive semantics in the framework of dynamic epistemic logic; second, that within (...) inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic, the contrastive ternary knowledge operator is reducible to the standard binary one. The reduction shows, I argue, that Schaffer’s argument in favor of contrastivism is compatible with a binary picture of knowledge. This undercuts the force of the argument in favor of contrastivism. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem’s influential argument for holism relies on a view of the role that background theory plays in testing: according to this still common account of “auxiliary hypotheses,” elements of background theory serve as truth-apt premises in arguments for or against a hypothesis. I argue that this view is mistaken. Rather than serving as truth-apt premises in arguments, auxiliary hypotheses are employed as “epistemic tools”: instruments that perform specific tasks in connecting our theoretical questions with the world but that are (...) not premises in arguments. On the resulting picture, the acceptability of an auxiliary hypothesis depends not on its truth but on contextual factors such as the task or purpose it is put to and the other tools employed alongside it. (shrink)

Criteria of acceptability for mathematical proofs are field-dependent. In topology, though not in most other domains, it is sometimes acceptable to appeal to visual intuition to support inferential steps. In previous work :829–842, 2014; Lolli, Panza, Venturi From logic to practice, Springer, Berlin, 2015; Larvor Mathematical cultures, Springer, Berlin, 2016) my co-author and I aimed at spelling out how topological proofs work on their own terms, without appealing to formal proofs which might be associated with them. In this article, I (...) address two criticisms that have been raised in Tatton-Brown against our approach: that it leads to a form of relativism according to which validity is equated with social agreement and that it implies an antiformalizability thesis according to which it is not the case that all rigorous mathematical proofs can be formalized. I reject both criticisms and suggest that our previous case studies provide insight into the plausibility of two related but quite different theses. (shrink)

Michael Devitt tells us that metaphysical realism has a kind of immunity from considerations concerning the nature of truth. Part of this immunity comes from Devitt’s insistence that realism is a metaphysical issue, not a semantic one. Most of Devitt’s critics have focused on this point, arguing that a proper understanding of the realism question necessarily involves semantic considerations :65–74, 1991; Miller in Synthese 136:191–217, 2003; Putnam in Comments on Michael Devitt’s ‘Hilary and Me’, in: Baghramian Reading Putnam. Taylor and (...) Francis, Hoboken, 2012; Taylor in Models, truth, and realism. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006). But Devitt also argues at length that semantic considerations should not lead us to give up on realism regardless of whether we admit that the correct characterization of realism is metaphysical in character or not. Devitt’s view hinges on the viability of a strategy which he calls Putting Metaphysics First, which essentially involves giving “a certain temporal and explanatory priority to metaphysical concerns”. Fully explicated, Devitt’s strategy is seen to be based on an epistemological naturalism in the vein of Quine. The main idea is that if we assume a naturalism according to which the only way to know anything is empirically through experience, then we will be able to establish a version of metaphysical realism early on in our investigations. According to Devitt, the empirical evidence for this realism is much stronger than the empirical evidence for the numerous semantical and epistemological views which are put forward in favor of antirealism. So, Devitt argues, we should hold on to the realism that we establish first and build our other theories on top of it. After detailing Devitt’s approach, I offer two objections. The first problem for Devitt is that in the process of putting metaphysics first, he puts epistemological naturalism first. This fact is in tension with his claim that epistemology is a weak starting place and a poor basis of theoretical revision. The second problem is that while our experiences of objects give us evidence that those objects exist, our experiences do not tell us that the objects exist mind-independently in all the ways required for metaphysical realism, or so I contend. Thus, I argue, even if we do put naturalized metaphysics first as Devitt recommends, realism is not secured as a starting point. (shrink)

The paper surveys different notions of implicit definition. In particular, we offer an examination of a kind of definition commonly used in formal axiomatics, which in general terms is understood as providing a definition of the primitive terminology of an axiomatic theory. We argue that such “structural definitions” can be semantically understood in two different ways, namely as specifications of the meaning of the primitive terms of a theory and as definitions of higher-order mathematical concepts or structures. We analyze these (...) two conceptions of structural definition both in the history of modern axiomatics and in contemporary philosophical debates. Based on that, we give a systematic assessment of the underlying semantics of these two ways of understanding the definiens of such definitions, by considering alternative model-theoretic and inferential accounts of meaning. (shrink)

It is usual to identify initial conditions of classical dynamical systems with mathematical real numbers. However, almost all real numbers contain an infinite amount of information. I argue that a finite volume of space can’t contain more than a finite amount of information, hence that the mathematical real numbers are not physically relevant. Moreover, a better terminology for the so-called real numbers is “random numbers”, as their series of bits are truly random. I propose an alternative classical mechanics, which is (...) empirically equivalent to classical mechanics, but uses only finite-information numbers. This alternative classical mechanics is non-deterministic, despite the use of deterministic equations, in a way similar to quantum theory. Interestingly, both alternative classical mechanics and quantum theories can be supplemented by additional variables in such a way that the supplemented theory is deterministic. Most physicists straightforwardly supplement classical theory with real numbers to which they attribute physical existence, while most physicists reject Bohmian mechanics as supplemented quantum theory, arguing that Bohmian positions have no physical reality. (shrink)

I argue there are some objects which do not respect the Law of the Excluded Middle, i.e., which are such that, for some property F, the disjunction Fo v ~Fo fails to be true. I call such objects “odd objects” and present three examples—fictional objects, nonsort objects, and quantum objects. I argue that each of these objects is best understood as violating LEM. I, then, discuss Jessica Wilson’s account of metaphysical indeterminacy. I show how the indeterminacy which arises with odd (...) objects can be accounted for on Wilson’s account. I, then, argue that my Wilson-inspired, but non-LEM-respecting, account of metaphysical indeterminacy is superior to Wilson’s in terms of costs and benefits. (shrink)

Presentations of the extended mind thesis are often ambiguous between two versions of that thesis. According to the first, the extension of mind consists in the supervenience base of human individuals’ mental states extending beyond the skull and into artifacts in the outside world. According to a second interpretation, human individuals sometimes participate in broader cognitive systems that are themselves the subjects of extended mental states. This ambiguity, I suggest, contributes to several of the most serious criticisms of the extended (...) mind thesis, for these criticisms only apply to the first interpretation of the thesis. In what follows, I argue that several significant objections to the extended mind thesis fail to undermine the latter interpretation of that thesis. Having defended the second interpretation, I argue that the extension of mind does not involve the extension of self. Consequently, the subject of extended mental states is not the same individual whose causal coupling with external artifacts gives rise to extended mentality. (shrink)

There are two main accounts of what it is for external objects to be presented in visual experience. According to particularism, particular objects are built into the representational contents of experiences. Existentialism is a quite different view. According to existentialism, the representational contents of perceptual experiences are general rather than particular, in the sense that the contents can be fully captured by existentially quantified statements. The present paper is a defense of existentialism. It argues that existentialism is much better equipped (...) than particularism to explain the contents of hallucinations, and it defends existentialism against three objections. (shrink)

What kinds of norms constrain mechanistic discovery and explanation? In the mechanistic literature, the norms for good explanations are directly derived from answers to the metaphysical question of what explanations are. Prominent mechanistic accounts thus emphasize either ontic Explanation in the special sciences: the case of biology and history, Springer, Dordrecht, pp 27–52, 2014) or epistemic norms. Still, mechanistic philosophers on both sides agree that there is no sharp distinction between the processes of discovery and explanation. Thus, it seems reasonable (...) to expect that ontic and epistemic accounts of explanation will be accompanied by ontic and epistemic accounts of discovery, respectively. As we will show here, however, recent discovery accounts implicitly rely on both ontic and epistemic norms to characterize the discovery process. In this paper, we develop an account that makes explicit that, and how, ontic and epistemic norms work together throughout the discovery process. By describing mechanism discovery as a process of pattern recognition we demonstrate that scientists have to develop epistemic activities to distinguish a pattern from its background. Furthermore, they have to determine which epistemic activities successfully describe how the pattern is implemented by identifying the pattern’s components. Our approach reveals that ontic and epistemic norms are equally important in mechanism discovery. (shrink)

Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether it can work as an epistemic source of understanding is a matter of dispute. However, testimony certainly plays a pivotal role in the proliferation of understanding in the epistemic community. But how exactly do we learn, and how do we make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words? And what can we do to maximize the probability that the process of acquiring understanding from (...) one another succeeds? These are very important questions in our current epistemological landscape, especially in light of the attention that has been paid to understanding as an epistemic achievement of purely epistemic value. Somewhat surprisingly, the recent literature in social epistemology does not offer much on the topic. The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a tentative model of understanding that goes in-depth enough to safely address the question of how understanding and testimony are related to one another. The hope is to contribute, in some measure, to the effort to understand understanding, and to explain two facts about our epistemic practices: the fact that knowledge and understanding relate differently to testimony, and the fact that some pieces of testimonial information are better than others for the sake of providing one with understanding and of yielding advancements in one’s epistemic standing. (shrink)

Some philosophers defend the possibility of synchronic multilocation, and have even used it to defend other substantive metaphysical theses. But just how strong is the case for the possibility of synchronic multilocation? The answer to this question depends in part on whether synchronic multilocation is wedded to other controversial metaphysical notions. In this paper, I consider whether the possibility of synchronic multilocation depends on the possibility of time travel, and I conclude that the answer hinges on the nature of time (...) and persistence. (shrink)

Disagreement plays an important role in several philosophical debates, with intuitions about ordinary or exotic cases of agreement and disagreement being invoked to support or undermine competing semantic, epistemological and metaphysical views. In this paper we discuss cases of interworld doxastic disagreement, that is to say, cases of doxastic disagreement supposedly obtaining between individuals inhabiting different possible worlds, in particular between an individual inhabiting the actual world and his/her counterpart in another possible world. We draw a distinction between propositional and (...) attitudinal disagreement, bring it to bear on the issue of the conditions of this kind of disagreement, and raise some metaphysical and epistemological worries about the claim that an individual inhabiting the actual world can disagree with an attitude or a speech act of his/her own counterpart, or of another individual, in a different possible world. (shrink)

We examine arguments for distinguishing between ontological and epistemological concepts of fundamentality, focusing in particular on the role that scale plays in these concepts. Using the fractional quantum Hall effect as a case study, we show that we can draw a distinction between ontologically fundamental and non-fundamental theories without insisting that it is only the fundamental theories that get the ontology right: there are cases where non-fundamental theories involve distinct ontologies that better characterize real systems than fundamental ones do. In (...) order to reconcile these distinct ontologies between fundamental and non-fundamental theories, we suggest that ontology must be understood as scale-dependent. (shrink)

This paper sketches an account of the standard of acceptable proof in mathematics—rigour—arguing that the key requirement of rigour in mathematics is that nontrivial inferences be provable in greater detail. This account is contrasted with a recent perspective put forward by De Toffoli and Giardino, who base their claims on a case study of an argument from knot theory. I argue that De Toffoli and Giardino’s conclusions are not supported by the case study they present, which instead is a very (...) good illustration of the kind of view of proof defended here. (shrink)

This paper sketches an account of the standard of acceptable proof in mathematics—rigour—arguing that the key requirement of rigour in mathematics is that nontrivial inferences be provable in greater detail. This account is contrasted with a recent perspective put forward by De Toffoli and Giardino, who base their claims on a case study of an argument from knot theory. I argue that De Toffoli and Giardino’s conclusions are not supported by the case study they present, which instead is a very (...) good illustration of the kind of view of proof defended here. (shrink)