Asian journal of philosophy最新文献

In this paper, I offer a commentary on the recent article “The moving open future, temporal phenomenology, and temporal passage,” focusing on the temporally aperspectival hypothesis. According to it, the widely shared belief in robust passage is due to a low-level perceptual mechanism involving awareness of temporally aperspectival perceptions being replaced over time. I interpret the phenomenology at play as ambiguous between an inward-directed awareness (focused on the renewal of experiences themselves) and an outward-directed interpretation (focused on the renewal of what we experience). Following in part some suggestions by the authors, I argue that this duality, combined with the influence of passage-friendly language and metaphors, may explain the observed distribution between those who do and do not believe in robust temporal passage. I also suggest that distinguishing between two related but distinct beliefs—the Priorian Belief in external robust passage and a Husserlian Belief in the internal renewal of experience—could clarify the 70%–30% split in intuitions about temporal passage documented by X-phi studies.

Adam Leite defends a response to skepticism in his How to Take Skepticism Seriously which, he argues, is a product of an antitheoretical methodology. This paper examines what a commitment to such a methodology might involve and argues that such an approach is not defensible.

In this paper, I examine Miriam Schleifer McCormick’s novel theory that belief is fundamentally an emotion, combining cognitive and conative elements. I focus on three key aspects of Schleifer McCormick’s view: that the formal object of belief is accuracy rather than truth, that some disputed mental states (such as political ideologies) are genuine beliefs, and that belief requires a commitment that is compatible with doubt. I raise three concerns with these elements of Schleifer McCormick’s theory. First, accuracy as the formal object of belief does not explain variations in belief intensity as Schleifer McCormick contends it would. Second, one can defend doxasticism about political ideology more economically without adopting the Belief as Emotion view. Third, the relationship between commitments and beliefs requires further clarification regarding their ontological priority within Schleifer McCormick’s framework.

What is it for y to be objectively qualitatively overall at least as similar to x as z is? This paper defends a version of the following answer: it is for y to be at least as similar to x as z is in every qualitative respect. On the version defended in this paper, this analysis arguably entails that it is possible for some things to objectively qualitatively resemble each other more than they do other things. However, it also arguably entails that, given how the world contingently is, many things (if not all things) are incomparable in objective qualitative resemblance, where y and z are so incomparable to x iff: (i) it is not the case that y is at least as objectively qualitatively similar to x as z is, and (ii) it is not the case that z is at least as objectively qualitatively similar to x as y is.

I develop an inferential account of collective self-knowledge. Starting with the assumption that groups have (at least propositional) attitudes I look at desiderata for any account of collective self-knowledge of such attitudes. Any such account has to explain the features that group avowals have in our ordinary linguistic practice. Moreover, any account ought to be compatible with as many views of group attitudes as possible. I propose a new account that looks at attitude-forming processes of groups as evidence for collective self-knowledge. It is based on forward-looking inferences in contrast to the backwards-looking conception commonly found in inferential accounts of self-knowledge in individuals. I then show that groups have a minimal form of privileged and peculiar access to their own attitudes because they have easy access to their own production of attitudes as evidence.

According to expressivism, normative sentences express desire-like states of mind. But what is the expression relation? In this paper, I defend an underexplored account of the expression relation that I call ‘the agreement account’. I begin by identifying three constraints that an expressivist account of expression must satisfy. I then argue that extant accounts of the expression relation fail to satisfy these constraints. I then outline the agreement account of expression, according to which a sentence S expresses a mental state M if and only if and because M is part of the agreement conditions of S. I defend this account against objections and conclude that the agreement account is a promising expressivist account of expression.

This paper asks two questions about episodic memory and seeks the answers from the Buddhist tradition. The two questions are: (1) Are both non-conceptual and conceptual contents stored in episodic memory? (2) Does episodic memory change over time? Following the Buddhist notion that episodic memory is a type of cognition that has a past cognition as its cognitive object. I first lay out a Buddhist model of cognition, and then depict the basic structure of episodic memory and how it is stored in the mental continuum, before I investigate how the Buddhist tradition might respond to the two questions. My answers to them are: (1) The content of episodic memory contains both non-conceptual and conceptualized elements; the conceptualized elements may help reinforce the memory; (2) episodic memory undergoes constant changes, in two respects. First, for retrieved memory, since every retrieval comes with new co-arising mental concomitants, it also reshapes the memory. Second, for episodic memory that remains dormant, it still undergoes constant changes. Namely, when one associates relevant experience in general with thoughts about their desirable or undesirable aspects or results, that episodic memory becomes stronger or weaker accordingly. With the above conclusions, this paper echoes the idea of “constructive memory” proposed by Tulving and others.

This paper examines how, if artificial agents are capable of wellbeing, their wellbeing should be compared and aggregated alongside human wellbeing. Building on arguments from Goldstein and Kirk-Giannini, who suggest that some AI systems may possess wellbeing, I explore the moral implications of this possibility. Rather than reinventing debates in population ethics, this paper adapts and extends them to the context of AI wellbeing. I analyse three major approaches to wellbeing aggregation: symmetric methods, which treat human and AI wellbeing as equally significant; uncertainty-responsive methods, which discount AI wellbeing due to ontological, temporal, or identity uncertainty; and constraint-based views, which impose categorical constraints on trading off human wellbeing for AI gains. These approaches are tested against thought experiments involving classic problems, such as the repugnant conclusion, infinitarian paralysis, and fanaticism. While utilitarian approaches risk endorsing troubling consequences when AI wellbeing scales indefinitely, constraint-based views may underweight the wellbeing of AI. A distinctive finding is that  our intuitions shift depending on whether a human or an AI is a welfare subject. This reveals a potential asymmetry in our intuitive judgments, suggesting that species identity may itself be a morally salient feature that future theories of AI wellbeing should address. I conclude that uncertainty-responsive approaches, particularly those combining ontological, temporal, and identity-based discounting, offer a promising middle path that incorporates AI wellbeing into our moral calculus without letting it disproportionately outweigh human wellbeing in aggregation.