4,348 research outputs found
Qualitativism and Radical Underdetermination
No full textQualitativism is sometimes be understood as the thesis that qualitative facts ground all
other facts. This understanding of qualitativism leads to a view on which there are non-
qualitative high-level facts. However, qualitative facts seem unable to modally fix all non-
qualitative facts. One way to deal with this is to uphold that non-qualitative facts are met-
aphysically indeterminate in the sense that the world does not settle which non-qualitative
states of affairs obtain. I argue that conventional ways to model this indeterminacy lead to
a problem for proponents of grounding-qualitativism, namely that it requires that the iden-
tities of all objects whose existence is possibly grounded in the qualitative base have to be
fixed. As a way out I consider the view that the world is radically under-determined in the
sense that it is metaphysically underspecified without there being any candidate-specifica-
tions. A way to connect indeterminacy and radical underdetermination is proposed: Certain
cases of radical underdetermination present themselves as cases of indeterminacy when
considered from the perspective of richer worlds in which more identities are fixed. From
its own perspective, however, the world is radically underspecifie
Wrong Good Guesses
No full textThe practice of guessing has found some attention in the recent literature and rules that
govern good guesses have been proposed. One of the main ideas is that good guesses strike
the perfect balance between informativeness and accuracy. This leads to the result that
sometimes good guesses can be such that one’s credence in the truth of one’s guess is relatively low. In particular, it is acceptable to guess the most likely of a selection of unlikely
options. In my talk I tease out normative implications of such guesses. I argue that there
can be cases of harmful and morally wrong guesses that meet the non-normative criteria
for goodness. In particular, I argue that in many mundane contexts giving the only answer
that meets the non-normative criteria for a good guess is giving an answer that is harmful
and wrong. I use this result to show that there can be a particular way of harmful speech-
acts that take the form of presupposition- and implicature-free questions
Braekevelt (Jonas). Pieter Bladelin, de Rijselse Rekenkamer en de stichting van Middelburg-in-Vlaanderen (ca. 1444-1472). De ambities van een opgeklommen hofambtenaar versus de bescherming van het vorstelijke domein, 2012
No full textParavicini Werner. Braekevelt (Jonas). Pieter Bladelin, de Rijselse Rekenkamer en de stichting van Middelburg-in-Vlaanderen (ca. 1444-1472). De ambities van een opgeklommen hofambtenaar versus de bescherming van het vorstelijke domein, 2012. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 91, fasc. 4, 2013. Histoire médiévale, moderne et contemporaine Middeleeuwse, moderne en hedendaagse geschiedenis. pp. 1331-1333
The Modalities of Essence and Ground
No full textIt is not a coincidence that every red rose is coloured. No rose can be red without being coloured. A red rose is coloured in virtue of its being red, its being coloured is metaphysically explained by its being red. This is, at least in part, underwritten by what it is for the rose to be coloured, by the nature – or essence – of its being coloured. If this is right, then questions concerning possibility and necessity, questions concerning metaphysical explanation, and questions concerning essence are systematically connected. This book proposes a unified account of metaphysical modality, grounding, and essence. It develops a semantic way to model essences as localised necessities that rule out worlds as impossible and uses it to account for grounding and metaphysical modality
Accentuation of Jonas Rėza's Psalter of 1625
No full textStraipsnyje trumpai apžvelgiama dabartinių kalbų kirčio ženklų istorija – nuo Antikos kalbininko Aristofano Bizantiečio žymėtų akūto, gravio ir cirkumflekso iki Mažvydo Katekizme pažymėto į riestinį cirkumfleksą panašaus ženklo, Baltramiejaus Vilento raštų, D. Kleino gramatikos, J. Rėzos psalmyno ,,Psalteras Dowido“ kirčio ženklų. Išsamiau straipsnyje analizuojamas 1625 m. J. Rėzos psalmyno kirčiavimas, iš graikų perimti kirčio ženklai, paties autoriaus įsivestas kirčio ženklas. Straipsnyje taip pat aptariama Rėzos psalmyne vartotų kirčio ženklų funkcijos, kirčio ženklų vartojimo įvairavimas, sąsajos tarp psalmyno kirčiavimo ir D. Kleino gramatikos Reikšminiai žodžiai: Akūtas; Gravis; Cirkumfleksas; Psalmynas; Lietuvių kalbos istorija; KirčiavimasThis article gives a brief overview of the history of the accent marks of languages from Antiquity linguist Aristophanes of Byzantium marked the acute accent, grave accent and circumflex accent until the sign similar to a tilde-shaped circumflex marked in Mažvydas’ Catechism, and accent signs of Baltramiejus Vilentas’ writings, Daniel Klein‘s grammer, and Jonas Rhesa’s Psalter of David. The article gives a comprehensive analysis of the accentuation made by Jonas Rhesa in the psalter, accent marks taken from Greek, and an accent mark developed by the author himself. The article also discusses the functions of the accent marks used in Rhesa’s psalter, the variation of the usage of accent marks and the interaction between the accentuation of the psalter and D. Klein’s grammer
A Note on von Neumann Ordinals and Dependence
No full textThis note defends the reduction of ordinals to pure sets against an argument put
forward by Beau Madison Mount. In the first part I will defend the claim that
dependence simpliciter can be reduced to immediate dependence and define a
notion of predecessor dependence. In the second part I will provide and defend
a way to model the dependence profile of ordinals akin to Mount’s proposal
in terms of immediate dependence and predecessor dependence. I furthermore
show that my alternative dependence profile allows us to single out the reduction
of ordinals to von Neumann ordinals as the only viable set-theoretic reduction
Potentialism and S5
No full textModal potentialism as proposed by Barbara Vetter (2015) is the view that every possibility is grounded in
something having a potentiality. Drawing from work by Jessica Leech (2017), Samuel Kimpton-Nye (2021)
argues that potentialists can have an S5 modal logic. I present a novel argument to the conclusion that the
most straightforward way of spelling out modal potentialism cannot validate an S5 modal logic. Then I will
propose a slightly tweaked version of modal potentialism that can validate an S5 modal logic and still does
justice to the core claim of potentialism
Inside Maine dining piece on Azure Cafe in Freeport, owned by Jonas and Kate W
No full textInside Maine dining piece on Azure Cafe in Freeport, owned by Jonas and Kate Werner. They serve Italian food with a Maine twist, changing the menu every three months to suit the seasons and local availability
Plenitude and Self-Identification
No full textMany people are happy to say that some of their social properties are central to their identity and definitional of who they are. They take these properties to belong to their core and sometimes claim their having of them to hence deserve special protection. It is tempting to hold that the distinction between such identity-constituting properties and other less central properties can be captured in terms of essence: Proponents of essence being a central metaphysical posit often elucidate the notion of essence in terms of identity and (real) definition. However, there seem to be weighty reasons to not claim that persons essentially belong to social categories. First, some if not all of the aforementioned features, like membership in a religious community, can be lost and gained over a lifetime. Secondly, no person’s existence seems to be dependent on there being some social category like womanhood or blackness.
In my talk I argue that one can model the centrality of certain features to persons identities in terms of essence without giving these features any special metaphysical weight or taking them to be immutable in any way other properties are not. The proposed account is based on the assumption that wherever there is an object, there is a plenitude of co-located objects; every coherent modal profile for an object located at a particular location is such that there is an object at the given location that instantiates this profile.
Plenitude has it that wherever there is a person, there are myriads of entities (slightly or massively) differing in their modal profile. The account I defend is based on the idea that it is a matter of context which of these objects is relevant in social interactions and should be identified as the speaker in conversations. Considerations of charity are argued to play a major role in identifying the speaker, which allows for a practice of contextual self-identification that enables speakers to truthfully say of themselves that they instantiate social properties essentially
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