Ioannis G. Ntagkas

One conception of the Principle of Sufficient Reason maintains that every fact is metaphysically explained. There are different ways to challenge this version of the PSR; one type of challenge involves pinpointing a specific set of facts that resist metaphysical explanation. Certain identity and distinctness facts seem to constitute such a set. For example, we can imagine a scenario in which we have two qualitatively identical spheres, Castor and Pollux. Castor is distinct from Pollux but it is unclear what could metaphysically explain this distinctness fact. In this paper, I argue that we should not treat identity and distinctness facts as metaphysically fundamental. As such, identity and distinctness facts do not challenge the PSR. We can metaphysically explain them.

This paper offers a metaphysical explanation of the identity and distinctness of concrete objects. It is tempting to try to distinguish concrete objects on the basis of their possessing different qualitative features, where qualitative features are ones that do not involve identity. Yet, this criterion for object identity faces counterexamples: distinct objects can share all of their qualitative features. This paper suggests that in order to distinguish concrete objects we need to look not only at which properties and relations objects instantiate but also how they instantiate these properties and relations. I propose that objects are identical when they stand in certain qualitative relations in virtue of their existence. And concrete objects are distinct when they do not stand in the same kinds of relations to one another in virtue of their existence.

In the _Meditations_ and related texts from the early 1640s, Descartes argues that the self can be correctly considered as either a mind or a human being, and that the self’s properties vary accordingly. For example, the self is simple considered as a mind, whereas the self is composite considered as a human being. Someone might object that it is unclear how merely considering the self in different ways blocks the conclusion that a single subject of predication—the self—is both simple and composite, which is contradictory. In response to this objection, this paper develops a reading of Descartes’s various ways of considering the self. I argue that the best reading of Descartes’s qualified claims about the self, i.e., about the self _qua_ mind or the self qua human being, presupposes an account of the unqualified self, that is, of the self _simpliciter_. I argue that the self _simpliciter_ is not a mind, and that it is not a human being either. This result might suggest the pessimistic conclusion that Descartes’s view of the self is incoherent. To avoid this result, I introduce a new metaphysical account of the Cartesian self. On my view, the self is individuated by a unified mental life. The self is constituted by the beings that jointly produce this mental life, and derives its unity from it.

Divided into four parts, this treatise begins with well-known criticisms of nonreligious ethics and then develops an atheistic metaethics. In Part 2, Martin criticizes the Christian foundation of ethics, specifically the ’divine command theory’ and the idea of imitating the life of Jesus as the basis of Christian morality. Part 3 demonstrates that life can be meaningful in the absence of religious belief. Part 4 criticizes the theistic point of view in general terms as well as the specific Christian doctrines of the atonement, salvation, and the resurrection. (publisher, edited)

The disjunctive theory of perception claims that we should understand statements about how things appear to a perceiver to be equivalent to statements of a disjunction that either one is perceiving such and such or one is suffering an illusion (or hallucination); and that such statements are not to be viewed as introducing a report of a distinctive mental event or state common to these various disjoint situations. When Michael Hinton first introduced the idea, he suggested that the burden of proof or disproof lay with his opponent, that what was needed was to show that our talk of how things look or appear to one..

Many philosophers have held that we cannot say what it is like to be a bat as they present a fundamentally alien form of life. Another view held by some philosophers, bat scientists, and even many laypersons is that echolocation is, somehow, at least in part, a kind of visual experience. Either way, bat echolocation is taken to be something very mysterious and exotic. I utilize empirical and intuitive considerations to support an alternative view making a much more mundane contention about bat phenomenology: echolocatory experience probably just has an auditory character. These points also call for further reflection on our intuitions about animal consciousness and standard arguments for the explanatory gap.

I examine Popper’s claims about Newton’s use of induction in Principia with the actual contents of Principia and draw two conclusions. Firstly, in common with most other philosophers of his generation, it appears that Popper had very little acquaintance with the contents and methodological complexities of Principia beyond what was in the famous General Scholium. Secondly Popper’s ideas about induction were less sophisticated than those of Newton, who recognised that it did not provide logical proofs of the results obtained using it, because of the possibilities of later, contrary evidence. I also trace the historical background to commonplace misconceptions about Newton’s method.Author Keywords: Newton; Popper; Induction; Principia; Kepler’s laws.

This article examines the text of Principia Mathematica to discover the extent to which Newton's claims about his own contribution to it were justified. It is argued that for polemical reasons the General Scholium, written twenty-six years after the first edition, substantially misrepresented the methodology of the main body of the text. The article discusses papers of Wallis, Wren and Huygens that use the third law of motion as set out by Newton in Book 1. It also argues that Newton's use of induction is quite different from and subtler than the ‘logical’ and ‘probabilistic’ notions of induction discussed and then rejected by a number of twentieth-century philosophers.

In his new book "The Importance of Being Rational", Errol Lord aims to give a real definition of the property of rationality in terms of normative reasons. If he can do so, his work is an important step towards a defense of ‘reasons fundamentalism’ – the thesis that all complex normative properties can be analyzed in terms of normative reasons. I focus on his analysis of epistemic rationality, which says that your doxastic attitudes are rational just in case they are correct responses to the objective normative reasons you possess. For some fact to be an objective normative reason to do something that you possess, you have to be in a position to know this fact and be able to competently use it as a reason to do that thing. Lord’s view is thus a knowledge-first view about possessing normative reasons. Throughout the book, Lord conceptualizes belief in the traditional tripartite way – if you take any attitude at all towards a proposition, then you either believe it, or disbelieve it, or you suspend judgment about it. Lord doesn’t discuss cases in which we’re uncertain. Yet, those cases are ubiquitous. I explore how his view can be extended to them. I first discuss whether his strategy for vindicating coherence requirements in terms of normative reasons can be applied to credences. I then ask how Lord can conceive of the doxastic attitudes that encode uncertainty .

In the on-going debate between scientific realism and its various opponents, a crucial role in challenging the realist claim that success of scientific theories must be attributed to their approximate truth is played by the so-called pessimistic meta-induction: Arguing that the history of science boils down to a succession of theories which, though successful at a time, were eventually discarded only to be replaced by alternative theories which in turn met with the same fate, it purports to show that the empirical success of scientific theories cannot have any bearing on claims about their truth-likeness. Yet, the same historical record suggests a possible strategy to counter this argument. Far from being a barren wasteland, it contains cases which point to the need of adopting a selective attitude when passing judgments about truth-likeness of theories. In this vein, Psillos has proposed the so-called divide et impera move. It consists in pointing out that responsibility for the success of a theory should be attributed to an indispensable core element in it, acting in unison with other elements reflecting the concrete historical conditions under which the theory was formulated. In what follows it is argued that the discovery of Kepler's first two laws and the transition to Newtonian mechanics provides a notable case to exhibit the divide et impera move. All the more so, since—as will be shown—Kepler himself employs a variant of this move, a fact that sheds light on the philosophical implications of his theories. As a result, it will be argued that the appropriate selective attitude towards theories becomes solidly warranted if wedded to the diachronic element in the process of a theory's development.

This book presents a thoroughly documented, comprehensive overview of perhaps the most urgent issue closely associated with global warming, namely sea level rise.Although evidence from the geologic past points to considerable variation of the average height of the world’s oceans, sea level rise has accelerated since the late nineteenth century, and is climbing even faster during the last 20 years, paralleling the rise in global temperatures.Could future greenhouse gas-induced global warming push the Earth’s climate into an unstable mode, triggering a catastrophic meltdown of the polar ice sheets and threatening the livelihood of tens of millions of inhabitants of the world’s shorelines and low elevation islands? To broach this question, Vivien Gornitz turns to a detailed examination of the historical record, the causes, and the implications of sea level rise.After an introductory chapter providing background knowledge about the oceans and the complex phenomena associated with them, the ..

This is an exposition of what the author calls ‘non-classical epistemology’ in close relationship with the emergence and development of quantum mechanics. Guiding the reader along the meandering routes taken by the theory’s founders, Plotnitsky unfolds a nuanced presentation of the so-called ‘Copenhagen spirit’ or, more precisely, of the ideas of his central hero, Niels Bohr, taken to their logical conclusion. Bohr’s inception and elaboration of his concept of complementarity, in conflict with his nemesis, Einstein, and alongside the other pioneers of the quantum revolution is meticulously laid out in a thought-provoking narrative, punctuated with references to philosophers ranging from Aristotle and Hegel to Nietzsche and Deleuze, and to modern ground-breaking mathematical approaches to quantum mechanics. Plotnitsky repeatedly stresses that he offers only ‘an’ interpretation, one among many, and a minority view at that. Nevertheless, it can arguably be said to constitute a most coherent ...

How can we be certain of what a physics theory is talking about and, at the same time, not have a clue what the theory is about? Yet, this seemingly nonsensical question lurks in the background since the advent of quantum physics and is intimately entangled with the cluster of issues constituting the raw material for philosophers of science striving to negotiate the so-called classical to quantum divide.The discourse of theoretical physics unfolds on two levels: the experimental and the mathematical. It is based on the competent use of everyday language, significantly enriched with sharply defined concepts, in order to deploy necessary resources, to set up and faithfully describe an experimental procedure, and to unambiguously communicate its results. And it expresses in mathematical form properties, states, their interrelations and transformations in the context of an overall conceptual framework.The synthesis of the two levels of discourse, established through the co-evolution of phy ..

ABSTRACT: The article examines the controversial relation of scientific realism with quantum mechanics. To this end, two distinct discussions are invoked: the discussion about ‘realism’ in the context of quantum mechanics and the discussion about ‘scientific realism’ in the context of the general philosophy of science. The aim is to distinguish them in order, first, to argue that the former—revolving around ‘local realism’ and the theorems of Bell and Kochen–Specker—unjustifiably identifies realism with features of a particular worldview, and thereby fosters the impression that the failure of ‘local realism’ in quantum experiments constitutes a failure of scientific realism too; and, second, in light of the latter discussion, to claim that scientific realism and quantum mechanics can be compatible—there is ground for dealing with quantum measurement simply as a physical mind-independent interaction. Therefore, a realist approach to the theory is possible despite its notorious measurement problem, even if th...