Gregor Flock

Is a universal meaning of life (MoL) possible? In this paper I argue for an affirmative answer: Starting out from the MoL's initial definition as "the active and successful pursuit of the ultimate end in life (UEiL)" and another initial definition of the UEiL, I first introduce four UEiL and MoL categories. In the context of their discussion, I add the elements of non-physical relation and universal scope to the definitions of UEiL and MoL (sect. 2). After those more general aspects, the discussion turns to the specifics of mental evolution and evolvedness. In this respect, the concept of traditional organic or physicalistic evolution is expanded to one of 'holistic evolution,' a distinction between holistic evolutionary process, the UEiL of mental evolution and the virtue of mental evolvedness is established, and the definition of as well as the chain of arguments for this paper's universalistic 'mental evolution account' of the MoL is rounded off (sect. 3).

There is virtually universal agreement in the scientific community that religion does not meet the requirements of science and that its contents can consequently be largely ignored. Yet what exactly is wrong with religion from a scientific point of view and why is religion still so widely spread around the globe? This article, which is strongly influenced by Harris 2005, identifies three items - widespread ignorance of the empirical (2.1), rational (2.2), and fallibilist attitude (2.3) - as religion's primary epistemological or methodological faults. It is then attempted to show that philosophy and science, due to adhering to this "Holy Trinity of Science," do an equal or much better job than religion at satisfying five deep-seated and knowledge-related human needs - the meaning of life (3.1), the origin of morals and ethics (3.2), stopping the infinite regress (3.3), comfort and security (3.4), spirituality (3.5) - for whose satisfaction many people still (incorrectly) turn to religion. The article concludes with an attempt to reconcile science and religion by adopting a decidedly nonphysicalist position, by making a near death experience based case for the natural immortality of the soul/consciousness, and by generally putting spirituality on a scientific and epistemologically sound footing.

In this paper it will be attempted to dissolve the lottery problem based on fallibilism, probabilism and the introduction of a so far widely neglected second context of knowledge. First, it will be argued that the lottery problem is actually an exemplification of the much wider Humean "future knowledge problem" (ch. 1). Two types of inferences and arguments will be examined, compared and evaluated in respect to their ability to fittingly describe the thought processes behind lottery/future knowledge propositions (ch. 2). A second context of knowledge that underlines the importance of fallibilism and probabilism in a somewhat different manner will be introduced (ch. 3) and, based on that "two-context probabilism," the lottery/future knowledge problem will be dissolved (ch. 4). Lastly, it will be hinted at the necessity of adopting not just fallibilism including and two context minding probabilism, but, beyond that, also the even more encompassing position of both ontological and epistemological "gradualism" (ch. 5).

In his well-known Mind and World and in line with Wilfrid Sellars (1991) or “that great foe of ‘immediacy’” (ibid., 127) Hegel, McDowell claims that “when Evans argues that judgments of experience are based on non-conceptual content, he is falling into a version of the Myth of the Given” (1996, 114). In this talk and on the basis of a Berkeleyio-Kantian ‘realist idealist’ world view (sect. 1) and an explication of Kant’s concept of the “given manifold” (CPR, e.g. B138; sect. 2), I will argue that Kant and Evans (1982, chs. 5.1–5.2) were indeed mistaken in their versions of the given (sect. 3), but that Sellars and his student McDowell were even more mistaken (sects. 4–5) and that, in the end, there would appear to be a non-conceptual and (thus) non-propositional and essentially (Kantio-)Schopenhauerian given (1816, ch. 1) in perceptual experience from which we unconsciously (Helmholtz 1867, ch. 26) and automatically infer to our first perceptual beliefs.

Luck has become an increasingly important factor in epistemology during recent years as either a preventor of knowledge (Pritchard 2013) or even as one of the conditions of knowledge (Zagzebski 1994, Hetherington 2013), thus begging the question of its definition. Following the probabilistic and degree-minding "new paradigm psychology of reasoning" (Evans 2012, Elqayam & Over 2012, Pfeifer & Douven 2014) and renouncing the "old paradigm" of bivalence, the first main feature of this article lies in the introduction of "gradualism" according to which vast parts of reality comes in degrees (=metaphysical or ontological gradualism) and, given that theoretical constructs are supposed to accurately correspond to reality, according to which gradualistic or degree-minding frameworks need to be established in all of philosophy or science (=theoretical gradualism). As the second and more central feature of this article, and building on gradualism and Riggs' (2007) pivotal idea that "luck comes in degrees", I will then develop my own gradualistic account of luck with two always necessary gradual conditions (low enough chance and high enough significance) and one sometimes necessary gradual condition (low enough control or high enough lack of control). During the presentation of this new account of luck, I will also deliver decisive arguments against prominent luck philosopher Duncan Pritchard's latest version of the modal account of luck (forthcoming) which contains major mistakes in respect to all three conditions of luck.