•  18
    A Buddhist approach to moral knowledge without god
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1-16. forthcoming.
    Noah McKay provides a novel argument for theism over naturalism. The argument is novel because it connects metaphysical issues to issues regarding moral epistemology. The connection concerns the power of theism and naturalism, respectively, to explain the human capacity to obtain correct beliefs about the domain of morality. The gist of McKay’s argument is that theism provides a much more plausible account of this capacity than naturalism. The reason for this superiority, according to McKay, is …Read more
  •  9
    Standard views about metaphysical structure presume that if metaphysical structure is hierarchical, any priority ordering of individuals is rigid or situationally invariant. This paper challenges this presumption. The challenge derives from an effort to interpret the kind of metaphysical structure implicit in writings central to the Huayan tradition of Chinese Buddhism. The Huayan tradition views reality as a realm of thoroughgoing interdependence. Close attention to primary sources indicates th…Read more
  •  6
    Aang is unwilling to kill Ozai in order to secure peace. The Lion Turtle's remark indicates that Aang's alternative strategy involves bending Ozai's energy, and that Aang is victorious because his spirit is unbendable while Ozai's presumably is bendable. Buddhist teachings identify five fundamental hindrances that foster duhkha. Aang struggles with all five hindrances, but he ultimately overcomes them and has a true heart. The first hindrance concerns sensory desire, longing for pleasure through…Read more
  •  475
    Idealizing, Abstracting, and Semantic Dispositionalism
    European Journal of Philosophy 20 (1): 166-178. 2010.
    Abstract: According to certain dispositional accounts of meaning, an agent's meaning is determined by the dispositions that an idealized version of this agent has in optimal conditions. We argue that such attempts cannot properly fix meaning. For even if there is a way to determine which features of an agent should be idealized without appealing to what the agent means, there is no non-circular way to determine how those features should be idealized. We sketch an alternative dispositional accoun…Read more
  •  7
    Fazang’s arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra’s rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang’s central arguments in that treatise, namely, his argument that mutually reliant dharmas are mutually identical. The chapter presents the background context for Fazang’s argument, reconstructs the argument’s logical structure, interprets the central concepts appearing therein, and explains why Fazang mi…Read more
  •  25
    Soteriological Mereology in the Pāli Discourses, Buddhaghosa, and Huayan Buddhism
    Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (1): 117-143. 2023.
    Extant discussions of Buddhist mereology give minimal attention to the soteriological significance of denying the reality of wholes. This is unfortunate, because the connection between mereology and soteriological is both significant and problematic. The connection is significant, because it supports an argument for the unreality of composite wholes that does not depend upon any claim about the nature of wholes. The connection is also problematic, because some Buddhists endorse the soteriologica…Read more
  •  9
    According to many experiments in cross-cultural psychology, East Asians exhibit holistic cognitive style typified by use of resemblance heuristics, field dependence, external sources of causation, intuitive forms of reasoning, and interdependent forms of social thinking. Holistic cognitive style contrasts with analytic cognitive style, which is common to Westerners. Section 1 presents information on the background of Buddhism’s entry into and treatment by China. Section 2 discusses experimental …Read more
  •  504
    During Aang's intermingling with Fire Lord Ozai, the voice of a Lion Turtle hints at the reason why Aang prevails. “In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable or you will be corrupted and destroyed.” We use ideas from Buddhist philosophy to answer four questions about the world of Avatar: (1) What is it for a spirit to be unbendable? (2) What is it to bend another's energy? (3) Does Aang's …Read more
  •  58
    Interpreting Interdependence in Fazang's Metaphysics
    Journal of East Asian Philosophy 2 35-52. 2022.
    This paper examines the metaphysics of interdependence in the work of the Chinese Buddhist Fazang. The dominant approach of this metaphysics interprets it as a species of metaphysical coherentism wherein everything depends upon everything else, no individual is more fundamental than any other, and so reality itself is non-well-founded in the sense that chains of dependence never terminate. I argue, to the contrary, that Fazang's metaphysics is better interpreted as a novel variety of foundationa…Read more
  •  420
    Mereological Composition in Analytic and Buddhist Perspective
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (2): 173-194. 2021.
    Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be probative in justifying those answers, and the value of mereological inquiry. I develop these dissimilarities by examining three questions relevant to those who deny the existence of composite wholes. The first is a question of justification: What justifies deny…Read more
  •  366
    An Account of Generous Action and Esteem in Pāli Buddhism
    International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 30 (2): 195-225. 2020.
    I propose an account of generous action in the Pāli Buddhist tradition, whereby generous actions are instances of giving in which the donor has esteem for the recipient of their giving. The account differs from recent Anglophone accounts of generous action. These tend to construe generous actions as instances of a donor freely offering a gift to the recipient for the sake of benefiting the recipient. Unlike the Buddhist account I propose, these accounts do not require donors to esteem their reci…Read more
  •  1072
    Race, Technology, and Posthumanism
    with Holly Flint Jones
    In Mads Rosenthal Thomsen & Jacob Wamberg (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Posthumanism, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 161-170. 2020.
    This chapter briefly reviews the role of race (as a concept) in the history of theorizing the posthuman, engages with existing discussions of race as technology, and explores the significance of understanding race as technology for the field of posthumanism. Our aim is to engage existing literature that posits racialized individuals as posthumans and to consider how studying race might inform theories of the posthuman.
  •  71
    A Russellian Analysis of Buddhist Catuskoti
    Comparative Philosophy 11 (2): 63-89. 2020.
    Names name, but there are no individuals who are named by names. This is the key to an elegant and ideologically parsimonious strategy for analyzing the Buddhist catuṣkoṭi. The strategy is ideologically parsimonious, because it appeals to no analytic resources beyond those of standard predicate logic. The strategy is elegant, because it is, in effect, an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions to Buddhist contexts. The strategy imposes some minor adjustments upon Russel…Read more
  •  62
    The architecture of Fazang’s six characteristics
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (3): 468-491. 2019.
    This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang's account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist atte…Read more
  •  24
    Huayan Numismatics as Metaphysics: Explicating Fazang's Coin-Counting Metaphor
    Philosophy East and West 68 (4): 1155-1177. 2019.
    This paper explicates the counting ten coins metaphor as it appears in Fazang’s Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang’s inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, presenting Fazang’s version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka sutra; second, providing textual evidence to suppor…Read more
  •  320
    Strategies of Explanatory Abstraction in Molecular Systems Biology
    Philosophy of Science 85 (5): 955-968. 2018.
    I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives the second; mathematical theorems from control engineering drive the third. I also distinguish three abstraction types: aggregations, which simplify by condensing information; generalizations, which simplify by generalizing information; and structurations, which…Read more
  •  53
    Critical Epistemology for Analysis of Competing Hypotheses
    Intelligence and National Security 33 (2): 273-289. 2018.
    Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) promises a relatively objective and tractable methodology for ranking the plausibility of competing hypotheses. Unlike Bayesianism, it is computationally modest. Unlike explanationism, it appeals to minimally subjective judgments about relations between hypotheses and evidence. Yet the canonical procedures for ACH allow a certain kind of instability in applications of the methodology, by virtue of supporting competing rankings despite common evidential base…Read more
  •  825
    Race as Technology: From Posthuman Cyborg to Human Industry
    with Holly Jones
    Ilha Do Desterro 70 (2): 39-51. 2017.
    Cyborg and prosthetic technologies frame prominent posthumanist approaches to understanding the nature of race. But these frameworks struggle to accommodate the phenomena of racial passing and racial travel, and their posthumanist orientation blurs useful distinctions between racialized humans and their social contexts. We advocate, instead, a humanist approach to race, understanding racial hierarchy as an industrial technology. Our approach accommodates racial passing and travel. It integrates …Read more
  •  17
  •  85
    When do data provide good evidence for a hypothesis, evidence that warrants an inference to the hypothesis? Standard answers either reject the legitimacy of induction or else allow warranted inference from data to hypothesis when there are suitable relationships between and among the data and hypotheses. The severity account rejects all of these, maintaining instead that the good evidence relation concerns not only relations between data and hypotheses but also the methods for obtaining the data…Read more
  •  66
    Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to impose formal constraints on a search space for possible hypotheses and thereby guide the search for plausible causal models. Formal constraints are, however, not only tools for biological expla…Read more
  •  106
    Inference to the More Robust Explanation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (1): 75-102. 2018.
    ABSTRACT There is a new argument form within theoretical biology. This form takes as input competing explanatory models; it yields as output the conclusion that one of these models is more plausible than the others. The driving force for this argument form is an analysis showing that one model exhibits more parametric robustness than its competitors. This article examines these inferences to the more robust explanation, analysing them as variants of inference to the best explanation. The article…Read more
  •  444
    Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology
    with Olaf Wolkenhauer
    Biology and Philosophy 27 (5): 705-721. 2012.
    Using as case studies two early diagrams that represent mechanisms of the cell division cycle, we aim to extend prior philosophical analyses of the roles of diagrams in scientific reasoning, and specifically their role in biological reasoning. The diagrams we discuss are, in practice, integral and indispensible elements of reasoning from experimental data about the cell division cycle to mathematical models of the cycle’s molecular mechanisms. In accordance with prior analyses, the diagrams prov…Read more
  •  438
    According to conciliatory views about the epistemology of disagreement, when epistemic peers have conflicting doxastic attitudes toward a proposition and fully disclose to one another the reasons for their attitudes toward that proposition (and neither has independent reason to believe the other to be mistaken), each peer should always change his attitude toward that proposition to one that is closer to the attitudes of those peers with which there is disagreement. According to pure higher-ord…Read more
  •  98
    The logic of soku in the kyoto school
    Philosophy East and West 54 (3): 302-321. 2004.
    Can contradictions be meaningful? How can one assert 'P soku not-P' or 'P and yet not-P' without sacrificing intelligibility? Expanding on previous attempts, mainly by Dilworth and Heisig, to demystify the soku connective, a formal system is presented here for the logic of soku. Through a formal distinction between internal and external negation, grammatical features of the soku connective are shown to be logically irrelevant, and the principle of non-contradiction is preserved. Disparities with…Read more
  •  125
    General relativity and the standard model: Why evidence for one does not disconfirm the other
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2): 124-132. 2008.
    General Relativity and the Standard Model often are touted as the most rigorously and extensively confirmed scientific hypotheses of all time. Nonetheless, these theories appear to have consequences that are inconsistent with evidence about phenomena for which, respectively, quantum effects and gravity matter. This paper suggests an explanation for why the theories are not disconfirmed by such evidence. The key to this explanation is an approach to scientific hypotheses that allows their actual …Read more
  •  87
    The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an extension of or in conflict with mechanistic research strategies? When and how can network and mechanistic approaches interact in productive ways? In this paper we address these questions by focusing on how biological networks are represented and analyzed in a …Read more
  •  89
    Mereological heuristics for huayan buddhism
    Philosophy East and West 60 (3): 355-368. 2010.
    This is an attempt to explain, in a way familiar to contemporary ways of thinking about mereology, why someone might accept some prima facie puzzling remarks by Fazang, such as his claims that the eye of a lion is its ear and that a rafter of a building is identical to the building itself. These claims are corollaries of the Huayan Buddhist thesis that everything is part of everything else, and it is intended here to show that there is a rational basis for this thesis that involves a nonstandard…Read more
  •  439
    Don’t Blame the Idealizations
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (1): 85-100. 2013.
    Idealizing conditions are scapegoats for scientific hypotheses, too often blamed for falsehood better attributed to less obvious sources. But while the tendency to blame idealizations is common among both philosophers of science and scientists themselves, the blame is misplaced. Attention to the nature of idealizing conditions, the content of idealized hypotheses, and scientists’ attitudes toward those hypotheses shows that idealizing conditions are blameless when hypotheses misrepresent. These …Read more
  •  192
    A Principles-based Model of Ethical Considerations in Military Decision Making
    with Gregory Reed, Mikel Petty, Anthony Morris, John Ballenger, and Harry Delugach
    Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation 13 (2): 195-211. 2016.
    When comparing alternative courses of action, modern military decision makers often must consider both the military effectiveness and the ethical consequences of the available alternatives. The basis, design, calibration, and performance of a principles-based computational model of ethical considerations in military decision making are reported in this article. The relative ethical violation (REV) model comparatively evaluates alternative military actions based upon the degree to which they viol…Read more