Asian journal of philosophy最新文献

In my contribution to this book symposium on Emma Gordon’s book Human Enhancement and Well-Being, I discuss and respond to Gordon’s extensive discussion and criticisms of a skeptical argument regarding the desirability of love enhancements that I presented in a 2015 paper. I start by first explaining the overall project of Gordon’s book, make a general comment about her overall approach (which I am broadly sympathetic with), and then proceed to a detailed discussion of Gordon’s critical engagement with my 2015 argument. I defend my argument against Gordon’s interesting criticisms and argue that Gordon has not defused my skeptical challenge to the desirability of love enhancements, but I also end by identifying key points of agreement between me and Gordon. Specific topics discussed include the distinction between ways of loving and causes of loving, the value of ways of loving and the value of the causes of loving, and whether or not the ideal of robust love attachments can be seen as compatible attachments causally dependent on love enhancements.

In this article, we offer a précis of Appearance & Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology. We explain the central features of our theory of epistemic justification, Phenomenal Explanationism (PE). Further, we describe how PE applies to justification of various kinds and how it solves problems that plague its closest rival, Phenomenal Conservatism (PC).

While I find Huaping Lu-Adler’s excavation of Kant’s long-overlooked linguistic Orientalism both enlightening and thought-provoking, I disagree with her diagnosis of its theoretical and practical relevance. On the one hand, while I agree that Kant’s positionality renders all his writings and teachings presumptively impactful, there is reason to doubt that his peculiar construction of the linguistic Oriental Other had much actual impact on his disciples. On the other hand, while I agree that the Kantian ideal of public reason is inapt for rectifying the linguistic-epistemic injustices of global knowledge production, I disagree on why it is so. In particular, I argue for a shift in theoretical and practical focuses, from linguistic biases and prejudices, to the structural epistemic constraints of linguistic diversity, as well as to other political-structural conditions shaping global knowledge production.

The article discusses certain limitations of the “McDowellian language game” and its approach to naturalism, arguing that it remains too detached from contemporary scientific insights on mind and life. I question the relevance of McDowell’s conceptual framework—focusing on concepts like “second nature”, “Bildung”, and “reason” — for addressing empirical, scientifically grounded theories about human nature. As an alternative, I discuss my own interdisciplinary approach, which seeks (among others) to integrate findings from primate studies on gaze following and proto-referential gestures to shed light on the evolution of reason-giving capacities. This approach, situated at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science, provides a more empirically grounded model for understanding responsiveness to reasons as well as other McDowellian themes.

Otsuka (2023) argues for a correspondence between data science and traditional epistemology: Bayesian statistics is internalist; classical (frequentist) statistics is externalist, owing to its reliabilist nature; model selection is pragmatist; and machine learning is a version of virtue epistemology. Where he sees diversity, I see an opportunity for unity. In this article, I argue that classical statistics, model selection, and machine learning share a foundation that is reliabilist in an unconventional sense that aligns with internalism. Hence a unification under internalist reliabilism.

In a much-discussed article, Gillian Russell claimed that “logic isn’t normative”: according to her, the usual bridge principles for logic are just derived from general principles for truth and falsity, such as “believe the truth” or “avoid falsity.” For example, we ought to believe tautologies just because we ought to believe the truth. Russell argues that this rejection of logical normativity can avoid the collapse objection for logical pluralism, which typically presupposes the normativity. In the last part of his new book Logical Pluralism and Logical Consequence, Erik Stei responds that even if logic is normative in this weak derivative sense, the collapse objection re-emerges. His main point is that the collapse argument can still work even if the bridge principles are derivative (they just need to be true). In this paper I will argue against Stei’s point. I will show that there is a possible strategy which maintains the derivative normativity of logic and provides a non-trivial logical pluralism. The key to my approach is the possibility of having different normative sources for different logics. I will argue that the distinction between classical and relevant logic can be understood in this way.

In this paper, I critically examine the monist interpretation of the logic-as-model view that Erik Stei puts forth in Logical Pluralism and Logical Consequence. I will argue that, in addition to the three dimensions presented in the book, there is a fourth dimension on which pluralism in logic could arise, namely epistemological pluralism. An example of such a form of pluralism is model pluralism, being the idea that we need multiple models to fully account for the subject matter of logic. Such a form of pluralism is well-recognized and widely acknowledged in (model-based) science. I argue that if we endorse the logic-as-model view, then we should also recognize such a form of model pluralism in logic. While model pluralism is consistent with metaphysical monism — the idea that there is ultimately only one extra-systemic logical consequence relation — it does put pressure on the idea that there is one uniquely best model that fully captures that phenomenon.