Asian journal of philosophy最新文献

Since at least the nineteenth century, Singapore has hosted a multicultural society and so inherited several philosophical traditions. Philosophical activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included discussions of the Straits Philosophical Society and in the Straits Chinese Magazine. Academic philosophy began with the founding of the University of Malaya in 1949, where the Department of Philosophy was established in 1952, under the influence of the school of ordinary language philosophy then dominant in England. It was joined in 1956 by Nanyang University, which hosted courses in Chinese philosophy, as well as some Western philosophy. During the transition to independence from Britain and Malaysia, the University of Malaya was renamed the University of Singapore. Philosophers there continued to be influenced by international trends in analytic philosophy but also pursued their own interests in Chinese philosophy and instigated a debate over liberalism culminating in the inception of the Asian-values debate in the 1970s. Philosophy in Singapore since 1980 will be taken up in a sequel to this paper.

The doctrine of double effect (DDE) states that if an action is permissible, then any resulting evil is merely foreseen, not intended. However, DDE sometimes classifies actions as permissible contrary to our intuitions. This is the “closeness problem.” Although various solutions have been proposed, none has conclusively succeeded. I propose and defend a care solution, inspired by H. G. Frankfurt’s notion of caring: If an action which causes an evil effect is permissible, then the agent cares about avoiding harm to the victim who suffers from the evil effect. I argue that the closeness problem arises when an agent does not care about this. In such cases, the action which causes the evil effect is not permissible.

Dogmatists or phenomenal conservatists about epistemic justification hold that if an agent S is in possession of a seeming with the content p, then S has at least prima facie justification to believe p. Dogmatism or phenomenal conservatism is often adopted due to its explanatory power. However, there are cases that dogmatism fails to accommodate, the most famous ones resulting from “bad” cognitive penetration. In this paper, I propose a novel augmented form of dogmatism. The view I recommend maintains that only seemings that result from actually reliable belief-forming processes are apt to confer prima facie justification on a belief. The view proposed here not only escapes the main counterexamples to dogmatism but also possesses additional advantages in comparison to dogmatism or alternative qualified versions of this view.

The exegetical methodology of Filippo Casati’s Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being: An Analytic Interpretation of the Late Heidegger could be seen as exemplary not just in studies on Heidegger’s philosophy of logic but more broadly for the wider field that studies the non-classical reasoning of any continental philosopher. Like Casati’s book, many of these other studies argue for a non-trivial dialetheic interpretation of a continental philosopher and thus for the aptness of a paraconsistent formalization of their theories. One way that Casati’s method goes beyond these others is with its exegetical test for non-trivialism, which could possibly serve as a model for these other studies to strengthen their case for paraconsistency. Yet, some have argued that other continental philosophers are logical pluralists, which could raise questions about how to apply Casati’s techniques in such cases.

This paper argues that meaning pluralism, the thesis that there can be alternative, inconsistent yet legitimate ways of applying a concept, can be reconciled with the thesis of the rigidity of referring expressions. Taken together, these two theses open the possibility of substantial, radical disagreements between speakers and between communities of speakers. Such disagreements occur when parties apply a concept legitimately yet differently, rendering the conflict rationally and empirically irremediable. This puzzling result arises when a single language evolves into separate branches, giving rise to substantial cross-linguistic disagreements grounded solely in differences between the languages used.

James Dominic Rooney defends a hylomorphic view where composite material objects, by possessing form, are substances without further substances as proper parts. I challenge both this claim and his argument that such hylomorphism is “inevitable” for mereological restrictivists —those accepting composite objects but rejecting universal composition. I then discuss the value of developing hylomorphic theories (theories of composite objects as bearers of matter and form) with the help of the Confucian notions of pattern (li) and material nature (qì zhì zhī xìng). Putting these notions to work in a hylomorphic theory requires rigorous conceptual clarification—for instance, specifying what possessing a nature entails and how it relates to possessing a form. Properly clarified even untenable proposals can counter charges that describing composite objects as form-bearers is too generic or unintelligible. This is because the clarifications reveal new ways to understand form-possession.

I discuss Rooney’s criticisms of structural hylomorphism and defend the later form of hylomorphism. I argue that the problems raised by Rooney are not unique to structural hylomorphism but also affect other forms of hylomorphism that treat forms as non-structural and non-relational entities. A plausible solution lies in understanding structures as external relational modes, which avoids the problematic regresses. I then challenge Rooney’s identitarian hylomorphism, arguing that material substances cannot be numerically identical with composites of a form and matter. This position, which I label "active nihilism," holds that material substances are simple entities, yet still assigns crucial roles to composites of form and matter.

This paper puts forth two claims. First, cancel culture accusations of censorship are components of a practice that embodies a flawed ideology. Second, as components of a practice that embodies a flawed ideology, these accusations contribute to cultivating a hostile epistemic environment. I spell out the first claim with the help of Jason Stanley’s research on flawed ideology. I highlight how a characterization of cancellation that the conservative, right-leaning demographic finds problematic in terms of amounting to a form of censorship preserves desirable outcomes for the privileged group. Drawing on the work of C. Thi Nguyen on hostile epistemology, I spell out the second claim by showing how these accusations exploit our epistemic trust mechanism such that they undermine the uptake of epistemic goods. If the flawed ideology constrains the intelligibility of our actions, then the concept of cancellation becomes problematic. I close by offering a suggestive approach inspired by work in non-ideal epistemology to counteract the flawed ideology.

Bernard Williams’s famous phrase ‘one thought too many’ has been variously interpreted. But Susan Wolf (2012) thinks that even the most sympathetic interpretation misunderstands its full implications. She argues that Williams and herself are sceptical about morality’s ability to provide determinate answers and its claim to supreme precedence. That is what this phrase implies. However, according to Wolf, even the most sympathetic interpretation of Williams’s claim surreptitiously smuggles in such an unconditional commitment to morality. I argue that we can save a version of the standard sympathetic view which does not smuggle in any such commitment. By preserving this version of the standard sympathetic view, we can preserve space for moral ruminations, sans any unconditional commitment to morality.

In their paper “AI Wellbeing,” Simon Goldstein and Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini argue that some language agents plausibly possess the capacity for wellbeing and moral standing even if they lack consciousness. My response is ambivalent. On the one hand, I am skeptical of theories of wellbeing and moral standing that lack a consciousness requirement. On the other hand, I agree with Goldstein and Kirk-Giannini (2025) that several leading theories of wellbeing and moral standing jointly imply that some language agents may be welfare subjects and moral patients and that this implication should be taken seriously. In fact, I argue that if we fully account for moral and descriptive uncertainty, we may need to lower the bar for moral standing even further, to include entities with only minimal forms of goal-orientedness or information processing. The question of whether and how to account for uncertainty might thus determine whether the arguments in “AI Wellbeing” go too far — or not far enough.