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Volume 16 - Autumn 2017

Contents

Page 2 of 2

Research Article

  • REPLY TO LOXTERKAMP

  • Steven M. Cahn, Christine Vitrano
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2017, pp. 51-52

  • Max Loxterkamp correctly attributes to us the view that people are living well if they act morally and find long-term satisfaction, regardless of the pursuits they choose. He disagrees with us, however, and suggests that lives are better if they benefit society, and he offers as examples a charity worker, a courageous soldier, and a philosopher of genius.

  • A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: OUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE ECONOMY

  • Adrian Brockless
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2017, pp. 53-65

  • The topics of education and the role of educational institutions in society are seldom far from the headlines, the lips of politicians, schoolteachers and parents. Discussion of education (and its associated institutions) within these forums tends to assume uncritically that its ultimate point is to benefit the economy and, by extension, empower the individual through increased prestige and material wealth. This article argues that such a conception of education is misguided and, indeed dangerous, as it estranges us from forms of thought that are frequently united with our conception of what it means to be human, alongside damaging prospects of long-term economic welfare. It is, therefore, the responsibility of our educational institutions to maintain a critical resistance to the culture of the times by ensuring that they do not merely become factories that train their students in ways purely designed to maximize economic impact and increased personal wealth.

  • IS THE VISUAL SYSTEM A BULL-SHITTER?

  • Daniel Tippens
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. 79-92

  • In this essay I survey some recent empirical findings in vision science and show how they matter for philosophical issues in the epistemology of perception. First, I draw on some data which suggest that our visual system is a bull-shitter. Typically we call someone a bull-shitter when they don't care about whether what they say is true or false, they just care about some other goal – such as winning the argument. The bull-shitter will say some true things and some false things as long as they satisfy a truth-irrelevant end. Similarly, some empirical work suggests that the visual system, for truth-irrelevant evolutionary purposes, presents us with mostly illusory experiences which, while accurately conveying to us that an object is present, inaccurately attribute some properties to an object. Like the bull-shitter, the visual system presents us with partially accurate and partially inaccurate experiences for truth-irrelevant reasons. I then discuss what we would be justified in believing on the basis of our perceptual experiences, if our visual system is a bull-shitter.

  • CUT TO THE CHEESE – REPLY TO SPIEGEL'S ‘WHY FLATULENCE IS FUNNY’

  • Steffen Steinert
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2017, pp. 67-75

  • In number 35 of Think, James Spiegel presents reasons for why flatulence is funny. In this article I will address five issues that I find problematic in his account:

    1. (1) His claim that laughter always results from a pleasant psychological shift is false.

    2. (2) His argumentative move from what makes paradigm cases funny to what makes flatulence funny is unwarranted.

    3. (3) His notion of a psychological shift is not specific enough and lacks explanatory power.

    4. (4) The claim that funniness of flatulence involves superiority is doubtful.

    5. (5) His talk about ‘nervous energy’ is questionable and has implausible implications.

  • A GUIDE TO LOGICAL PLURALISM FOR NON-LOGICIANS

  • Zach Weber
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. 93-114

  • There exists today an infinite variety (literally) of formal logics, different systems with incompatible properties. One way to explain the existence of many logics is to posit logical pluralism: to suppose that there is in fact more than one correct logic. In this selective guide – designed for non-logicians – we look at some examples of how different logics come into apparent conflict with each other. Then we look at different ways of understanding the idea of logical pluralism. Our question throughout will be a basic one: does logical pluralism have any limits?

  • MODELLING SEX/GENDER

  • Helen L. Daly
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2017, pp. 79-92

  • People often assume that everyone can be divided by sex/gender (that is, by physical and social characteristics having to do with maleness and femaleness) into two tidy categories: male and female. Careful thought, however, leads us to reject that simple ‘binary’ picture, since not all people fall precisely into one group or the other. But if we do not think of sex/gender in terms of those two categories, how else might we think of it? Here I consider four distinct models; each model correctly captures some features of sex/gender, and so each is appropriate in some contexts. But the first three models are inadequate when tough questions arise, like whether trans women should be admitted as students at a women's college or when it is appropriate for intersex athletes to compete in women's athletic events. (‘Trans’ refers to the wide range of people who have an atypical gender identity for someone of their birth-assigned sex, and ‘intersex’ refers to people whose bodies naturally develop with markedly different physical sex characteristics than are paradigmatic of either men or women.) Such questions of inclusion and exclusion matter enormously to the people whose lives are affected by them, but ordinary notions of sex/gender offer few answers. The fourth model I describe is especially designed to make those hard decisions easier by providing a process to clarify what matters.

  • NOTHING IS ALIVE (WE ONLY SAY SO)

  • Jiri Benovsky
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. 115-125

  • Finding an adequate definition of ‘life’ has proven to be a tricky affair. In this article, I discuss the idea that nothing is really alive: we only say so. I shall argue that ‘being alive’ is not a genuine property of things, and that it only reflects the way we think and talk about things. An eliminativist strategy will then allow us to free ourselves from the burden of having to find a definition of life, and will allow us to focus on the genuinely interesting properties of living (and non-living) entities.

  • THE FINE-TUNING ARGUMENT AND THE SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS

  • Moti Mizrahi
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2017, pp. 93-102

  • In this article, I propose that, in addition to the multiverse hypothesis, which is commonly taken to be an alternative explanation for fine-tuning, other than the design hypothesis, the simulation hypothesis is another explanation for fine-tuning. I then argue that the simulation hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘designer’ and ‘supernatural designer of immense power and knowledge’ in much the same way that the multiverse hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘fine-tuning’ and ‘fine-tuner’ (or ‘designer’). If this is correct, then the fine-tuning argument is a weak argument for the existence of God.

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • THI volume 16 issue 46 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2017, pp. f1-f4
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Research Article

  • THE INCOHERENCE OF SOFT NIHILISM

  • David Matheson
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. 127-135

  • As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a ‘soft’ nihilism that appears more palatable than its ‘hard’ counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is incoherent.

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • THI volume 16 issue 45 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2017, pp. f1-f4
    • Article
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

Back Cover (IBC, OBC) and matter

  • THI volume 16 issue 46 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    06 April 2017, pp. b1-b4
    • Article
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

  • THI volume 16 issue 45 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2017, pp. b1-b4
    • Article
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • THI volume 16 issue 47 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. f1-f4
    • Article
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

Back Cover (IBC, OBC) and matter

  • THI volume 16 issue 47 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    30 October 2017, pp. b1-b3
    • Article
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Page 2 of 2