Ontological nihilists repudiate ontology altogether, maintaining that ontological structure is an unnecessary addition to our theorizing. Recent defenses of the view involve a sophisticated combination of highly expressive but ontologically innocent languages combined with a metaphysics of features—non‐objectual, complete but modifiable states of affairs invoked in natural language feature‐placing sentences like “It is raining.” Nihilists argue that they are able to preserve the core of our ordinary claims without appealing to any ontology. In this paper, I argue that by repudiating ontology, the nihilist is unable to make their nihilist‐friendly language intelligible in terms of a nihilist metaphysics that preserves an undemanding notion of explanatory unity exhibited by our ordinary claims. This puts significant pressure on the nihilist's claim that ontology is an unnecessary addition to our theorizing.
{"title":"Can we repudiate ontology altogether?","authors":"Christopher J. Masterman","doi":"10.1111/nous.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.70006","url":null,"abstract":"Ontological nihilists repudiate ontology altogether, maintaining that ontological structure is an unnecessary addition to our theorizing. Recent defenses of the view involve a sophisticated combination of highly expressive but ontologically innocent languages combined with a metaphysics of features—non‐objectual, complete but modifiable states of affairs invoked in natural language feature‐placing sentences like “It is raining.” Nihilists argue that they are able to preserve the core of our ordinary claims without appealing to any ontology. In this paper, I argue that by repudiating ontology, the nihilist is unable to make their nihilist‐friendly language intelligible in terms of a nihilist metaphysics that preserves an undemanding notion of explanatory unity exhibited by our ordinary claims. This puts significant pressure on the nihilist's claim that ontology is an unnecessary addition to our theorizing.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144622390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There has been extensive debate over whether we can have phenomenal knowledge in the case of epiphenomenalism. This article aims to bring that debate to a close. I first develop a refined causal account of knowledge—one that is modest enough to avoid various putative problems, yet sufficiently robust to undermine the epiphenomenalist position. I then consider and reject several possible responses that an epiphenomenalist might offer. The discussion thus shows that epiphenomenalist accounts of phenomenal knowledge—such as the third‐factor model and the constitutional model—are ultimately indefensible.
{"title":"Phenomenal knowledge and phenomenal causality","authors":"Lei Zhong","doi":"10.1111/nous.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.70002","url":null,"abstract":"There has been extensive debate over whether we can have phenomenal knowledge in the case of epiphenomenalism. This article aims to bring that debate to a close. I first develop a refined causal account of knowledge—one that is modest enough to avoid various putative problems, yet sufficiently robust to undermine the epiphenomenalist position. I then consider and reject several possible responses that an epiphenomenalist might offer. The discussion thus shows that epiphenomenalist accounts of phenomenal knowledge—such as the third‐factor model and the constitutional model—are ultimately indefensible.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144565665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper offers and defends a conception of the ethical principle of respect for persons. I maintain that respecting persons involves (among other things) watching for, interpreting, and affording ethical significance to expressions of the sub‐rational. Drawing from a range of sources and focusing especially on literary works with broad resonance, I defend this understanding by outlining a view of the self that includes the unconscious mind. I argue, first, that our practices and folk conceptions in a range of contexts—from medical ethics to dream interpretation—already reflect this picture of the self, and, second, that this conception of the self is ethically attractive.
{"title":"Enthusiasm over the night","authors":"Samuel Reis‐Dennis","doi":"10.1111/nous.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.70000","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers and defends a conception of the ethical principle of respect for persons. I maintain that respecting persons involves (among other things) watching for, interpreting, and affording ethical significance to expressions of the sub‐rational. Drawing from a range of sources and focusing especially on literary works with broad resonance, I defend this understanding by outlining a view of the self that includes the unconscious mind. I argue, first, that our practices and folk conceptions in a range of contexts—from medical ethics to dream interpretation—already reflect this picture of the self, and, second, that this conception of the self is ethically attractive.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144565667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Perception puts us in touch with highly determinate properties of objects, such as fine‐grained color shades and detailed surface shapes. However, most of our immediate perceptual judgments concern more abstract properties, such as the property of being a dog, or of being red simpliciter. So, how does perception attune us to abstract properties despite its evident determinacy? This paper argues that perception can be sensitive to abstract properties in multiple, fundamentally different ways. We articulate a distinction between implicit and explicit perceptual abstraction and explore its ramifications for debates about the role of concepts in perception, the richness of perceptual content, and rationalist versus empiricist views of our innate representational repertoire. We also propose an empirical test for differentiating implicit from explicit perceptual abstraction. Finally, we outline a version of Conceptualism built on the implicit/explicit distinction, on which explicit perceptual abstraction involves the use of concepts, while implicit abstraction can occur non‐conceptually. We argue that this form of Conceptualism is both empirically viable and unscathed by prominent Non‐Conceptualist arguments.
{"title":"Perceptual abstraction","authors":"Mason Westfall, E. J. Green","doi":"10.1111/nous.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.70001","url":null,"abstract":"Perception puts us in touch with highly determinate properties of objects, such as fine‐grained color shades and detailed surface shapes. However, most of our immediate perceptual judgments concern more abstract properties, such as the property of being a dog, or of being red <jats:italic>simpliciter</jats:italic>. So, how does perception attune us to abstract properties despite its evident determinacy? This paper argues that perception can be sensitive to abstract properties in multiple, fundamentally different ways. We articulate a distinction between <jats:italic>implicit</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>explicit</jats:italic> perceptual abstraction and explore its ramifications for debates about the role of concepts in perception, the richness of perceptual content, and rationalist versus empiricist views of our innate representational repertoire. We also propose an empirical test for differentiating implicit from explicit perceptual abstraction. Finally, we outline a version of Conceptualism built on the implicit/explicit distinction, on which explicit perceptual abstraction involves the use of concepts, while implicit abstraction can occur non‐conceptually. We argue that this form of Conceptualism is both empirically viable and unscathed by prominent Non‐Conceptualist arguments.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144515145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is well‐recognized in the sciences that a multitude of nonequivalent models are used by researchers to fulfill a range of goals, even for the same target system, a result known broadly as model pluralism. The possibility of the same form of pluralism occurring in logic, however, has not been adequately considered. This is a surprise, given that both logical pluralism and methodological anti‐exceptionalism about logic (AEL), the view that the methods of theory‐choice in logic are similar to those in the sciences, are now prominent topics. This paper makes the case for four distinct forms of model pluralism in logic, each widely found in the sciences, based upon logical practice. The result is not only interesting in itself but also serves to further support the claims of both methodological AEL and the logic‐as‐modeling view that we should understand the role of logics (at least sometimes) as akin to scientific models.
{"title":"Model pluralism for logic","authors":"Ben Martin","doi":"10.1111/nous.12554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12554","url":null,"abstract":"It is well‐recognized in the sciences that a multitude of nonequivalent models are used by researchers to fulfill a range of goals, even for the same target system, a result known broadly as <jats:italic>model pluralism</jats:italic>. The possibility of the same form of pluralism occurring in logic, however, has not been adequately considered. This is a surprise, given that both logical pluralism and methodological anti‐exceptionalism about logic (AEL), the view that the methods of theory‐choice in logic are similar to those in the sciences, are now prominent topics. This paper makes the case for four distinct forms of <jats:italic>model pluralism</jats:italic> in logic, each widely found in the sciences, based upon logical practice. The result is not only interesting in itself but also serves to further support the claims of both <jats:italic>methodological</jats:italic> AEL and the logic‐as‐modeling view that we should understand the role of logics (at least sometimes) as akin to scientific models.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144311296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is overwhelmingly plausible that part of what gives individuals their particular legal or institutional statuses is the fact that there are general laws or other policies in place that specify the conditions under which something is to have those statuses. For instance, particular acts are illegal partly in virtue of the existence and content of applicable law. But problems for this apparently plausible view have recently come to light. The problems afflict both attempts to ground legal statuses in general laws and an analogous view concerning the role of general moral principles in grounding moral statuses. Here I argue that these problems can be solved. The solution in the legal case is to recognize an element of self‐reference in the law's specification of what gives things their legal statuses. The relevant kind of self‐reference is a familiar part of the legal and procedural world. It is immanent in at least some familiar legal or broadly conventional, procedural practices. The lessons of this discussion of legal statuses can then be applied to the meta‐ethical debate over moral statuses, yielding a view on which moral principles also incorporate an element of self‐reference.
{"title":"Legal grounds","authors":"Louis deRosset","doi":"10.1111/nous.12553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12553","url":null,"abstract":"It is overwhelmingly plausible that part of what gives individuals their particular legal or institutional statuses is the fact that there are general laws or other policies in place that specify the conditions under which something is to have those statuses. For instance, particular acts are illegal partly in virtue of the existence and content of applicable law. But problems for this apparently plausible view have recently come to light. The problems afflict both attempts to ground legal statuses in general laws and an analogous view concerning the role of general moral principles in grounding moral statuses. Here I argue that these problems can be solved. The solution in the legal case is to recognize an element of self‐reference in the law's specification of what gives things their legal statuses. The relevant kind of self‐reference is a familiar part of the legal and procedural world. It is immanent in at least some familiar legal or broadly conventional, procedural practices. The lessons of this discussion of legal statuses can then be applied to the meta‐ethical debate over moral statuses, yielding a view on which moral principles also incorporate an element of self‐reference.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144236788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The popular predictive processing (PP) framework posits prediction error minimization (PEM) as the sole mechanism in the brain that can account for all mental phenomena, including consciousness. I first highlight three ambitions associated with major presentations of PP: (1) Completeness (PP aims for a comprehensive account of mental phenomena), (2) Bayesian realism (PP claims that PEM is implemented in the brain rather than providing only a model), and (3) Naturalism (PP is typically presented as yielding a naturalistic view of the mind). Then I demonstrate that many proponents of PP also endorse a form of Kantian transcendental idealism (TI), based on a characterization of experiential content as the brain's currently best hypothesis about the world. I argue that endorsing this claim (4), that is, that we only experience the world as it appears, but not the world itself, sabotages achieving the three ambitions. The argument proceeds by discussing the prospects of each ambition in turn, drawing on discussions in the philosophy of science about realism and its alternatives, about the motivation and features of computational models, and about the foundational role of consciousness for science.
{"title":"Predictive processing's flirt with transcendental idealism","authors":"Tobias Schlicht","doi":"10.1111/nous.12552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12552","url":null,"abstract":"The popular predictive processing (PP) framework posits prediction error minimization (PEM) as the sole mechanism in the brain that can account for all mental phenomena, including consciousness. I first highlight three ambitions associated with major presentations of PP: (1) Completeness (PP aims for a comprehensive account of mental phenomena), (2) Bayesian realism (PP claims that PEM is implemented in the brain rather than providing only a model), and (3) Naturalism (PP is typically presented as yielding a naturalistic view of the mind). Then I demonstrate that many proponents of PP also endorse a form of Kantian transcendental idealism (TI), based on a characterization of experiential content as the brain's currently best hypothesis about the world. I argue that endorsing this claim (4), that is, that we only experience the world as it appears, but not the world itself, sabotages achieving the three ambitions. The argument proceeds by discussing the prospects of each ambition in turn, drawing on discussions in the philosophy of science about realism and its alternatives, about the motivation and features of computational models, and about the foundational role of consciousness for science.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"76 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144066094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How is it that individuals who deny experiencing visual imagery nonetheless perform normally on tasks which seem to require it? This puzzle of aphantasia has perplexed philosophers and scientists since the late nineteenth century. Contemporary responses include: (i) idiosyncratic reporting, (ii) faulty introspection, (iii) unconscious imagery, and (iv) complete lack of imagery combined with the use of alternative strategies. None offers a satisfying explanation of the full range of first‐person, behavioural and physiological data. Here, I diagnose the puzzle of aphantasia as arising from the mistaken assumption that variation in imagery is well‐captured by a single ‘vividness’ scale. Breaking with this assumption, I defend an alternative account which elegantly accommodates all the data. Crucial to this account is a fundamental distinction between visual‐object and spatial imagery. Armed with this distinction, I argue that subjective reports and objective measures only testify to the absence of visual‐object imagery, whereas imagery task performance is explained by preserved spatial imagery which goes unreported on standard ‘vividness’ questionnaires. More generally, I propose that aphantasia be thought of on analogy with agnosia, as a generic label for a range of imagery deficits with corresponding sparing.
{"title":"Aphantasia reimagined","authors":"Ian Phillips","doi":"10.1111/nous.12551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12551","url":null,"abstract":"How is it that individuals who deny experiencing visual imagery nonetheless perform normally on tasks which seem to require it? This puzzle of aphantasia has perplexed philosophers and scientists since the late nineteenth century. Contemporary responses include: (i) idiosyncratic reporting, (ii) faulty introspection, (iii) unconscious imagery, and (iv) complete lack of imagery combined with the use of alternative strategies. None offers a satisfying explanation of the full range of first‐person, behavioural and physiological data. Here, I diagnose the puzzle of aphantasia as arising from the mistaken assumption that variation in imagery is well‐captured by a single ‘vividness’ scale. Breaking with this assumption, I defend an alternative account which elegantly accommodates all the data. Crucial to this account is a fundamental distinction between <jats:italic>visual‐object</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>spatial</jats:italic> imagery. Armed with this distinction, I argue that subjective reports and objective measures only testify to the absence of visual‐object imagery, whereas imagery task performance is explained by preserved spatial imagery which goes unreported on standard ‘vividness’ questionnaires. More generally, I propose that aphantasia be thought of on analogy with agnosia, as a generic label for a range of imagery deficits with corresponding sparing.","PeriodicalId":501006,"journal":{"name":"Noûs","volume":"266 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143842126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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