Xiaoyang Wang

Pascal’s Wager has generated persistent decision-theoretic objections—many-gods symmetry, policy indeterminacy, prior arbitrariness, and infinite-utility pathologies—that resist resolution despite sophisticated refinements. This article diagnoses these objections as symptoms of a shared presupposition: the _neutral calculator_, a supposed context-transcendent standpoint from which all religious options can be compared on a single decision matrix. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s forms of life, Austin’s felicity conditions, and Ryle’s category-mistake analysis, I argue that positing such a standpoint constitutes a category mistake. Religious evaluation necessarily occurs within practices that give determinate meaning to concepts like salvation, belief, and infinite reward. From this diagnosis, I develop the principle of _Background-Conditioned Rationality_ (BCR), which holds that rational assessment must be conducted within the background that confers sense on its evaluative tokens. Applying BCR dissolves the standard objections by showing they demand an impossible standpoint. The article clarifies Pascal’s original project as situated pastoral counsel rather than neutral arbitration, and indicates how inter-religious dialogue can proceed without the mythical _neutral calculator_. This diagnosis explains why technical solutions generate endless counter-objections. They attempt to solve practice-constituted problems from a practice-transcendent standpoint.

Jeagwon Kim's exclusion argument is a well-known argument against non-reductive physicalism in the contemporary debate on mental causation. In this essay, we will first discuss two versions of the exclusion argument: the simple version and the sophisticated version. Secondly, we will take a conservative strategy to defend the kind of non-reductive physicalism initiated by Donald Davidson: the Token Identity Theory. Namely, we will explain where Kim failed to appropriately understand Davidson's work and argue that the simple version and the sophisticated version of the exclusion argument won't work against the clarified token identity theory at all. Lastly, Since much of Kim's inappropriate interpretation of Davidson's work is rooted in their difference in metaphysics, there is reason to believe the proper understanding and evaluation on contemplation as such on mental causation, non-reductive physicalism, and other related problems can't be achieved without finding an appropriate metaphysical frame.