La critique sellarsienne du «mythe du donné» touche en son cœur le projet empiriste fondationnaliste, dont elle entend néanmoins sauvegarder les intuitions épistémologiques et ontologiques saines. Pour ce faire, les difficultés dirimantes soulevées par l’usage de la notion de donné doivent être d’abord clairement identifiées, puis désamorcées. Ceci aboutit à la fois à une redéfinition précautionneuse du donné comme un concept non épistémologique, et à une révision de la conception traditionnelle du rapport entre observation et théorie, connaissance directe et connaissance inférentielle.

The principle of causality (or, determinism) and the notion of cause are studied in light of recent results in the field of quantum mechanics. A definition of the concept of cause is proposed. Then the question “does every event have a cause?” is investigated. According to the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics, the answer is ‘no’ but I show that several scientifically valid counter-arguments against this point of view exist and that the question of determinism remains a philosophical issue and not a scientific one, as many scientists believe. Since the theme of this article is interdisciplinary, I use language that is comprehensible by generalists of both communities, philosophy and physics.

RÉSUMÉ : Les attitudes de se sont généralement considérées comme constituant une classe particulière d’attitudes de re. Cet article propose une analyse différente, qui s’appuie sur la notion d’attitude de objecto et qui évite un engagement ontologique envers le sujet. La proposition élabore l’idée de Hintikka d’une logique épistémique dite de seconde génération, qui introduit un marqueur syntaxique permettant d’exprimer des relations d’indépendance entre certaines constantes logiques. De cette sémantique résulte une conception du Moi, dénotation de «je», comme un objet simplement intentionnel.

In this paper, I argue that while supervenience accounts of mental causation in general have difficulty avoiding epiphenomenalism, the situation is particularly bad in the case of conscious experiences since the function-realizer relation, arguably present in the case of intentional properties, does not obtain, and thus, the metaphysical link between supervenient and subvenient properties is absent. I contend, however, that the identification of experiential types with their neural correlates dispels the spectre epiphenomenalism, squares nicely both with the phenomenology of embodiment and the subjectivity of experience, and does not conflict with the supposed multiple realizability of consciousness.

Don Berkich has argued that the so-called Trajectory Argument for the moral impermissibility of abortion falls short because it fails to establish that an embryo that never becomes a person has the same rights as an embryo that becomes a person. I argue that Berkich’s argument fails to be convincing, since (1) aborting a particular embryo itself causes the embryo not to become a person, and (2) the premise that abortion would be wrong if it were done with the intention of preventing a particular person’s existence assumes that arbitrary killings are somehow better than targeted ones, which is implausible.

ABSTRACT: I argue that Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority cannot convincingly account for the nature and source of democratic authority. It cannot explain (a) why decisions made democratically are more likely to be sound than decisions made non-democratically, and therefore, (b) why democratic decisions might be understood as constituting moral reasons for action and compliance independently of their instrumental dimensions. My argument is that democratic authority cannot be explained completely in terms of the truth or soundness of the outcomes it tends toward. A full account of democratic authority must involve non-instrumental values about the moral caliber of democratic procedures.

ABSTRACT: Neo-sentimentalism is the view that to judge that something has an evaluative property is to judge that some affective or emotional response is appropriate to it, but this view allows for radically different versions. My aim is to spell out what I take to be its most plausible version. Against its normative version, I argue that its descriptive version can best satisfy the normativity requirement that follows from Moore’s Open Question Argument while giving an answer to the Wrong Kind of Reason Objection. Finally, I argue that the circularity that is involved is not vicious: understood epistemically, neo-sentimentalism remains instructive.

ABSTRACT: It is not W.V. Quine’s aim in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” to prove against all-comers that the analytic/synthetic distinction is untenable or to provide a novel conception of our knowledge. He aims to undermine the empiricist’s appeal to the distinction and show what empiricism unencumbered by dogma comes to. Focusing on §§1-3 and §6, I argue that his treatment of analyticity is framed by important philosophical assumptions and the conception of knowledge he defends is one to which he had long been committed. “Two Dogmas” is less easily dismissed when read in the context of Quine’s early lectures on Carnap.

Qualia epiphenomenalism is the view that qualitative properties of events, such as the raw feel of tastes or painfulness, lack causal efficacy. One common objection to qualia epiphenomenalism is the epistemic argument, which states that this loss of causal efficacy undermines our capacity to know about these epiphenomenal qualitative properties (Sterjnberg, 1999; Watkins, 1989). A number of rejoinders have been offered up to insulate qualia epiphenomenalism from the epistemic argument. In this paper I consider and ultimately reject two such replies, namely, the common underlying cause reply and the appeal to physical-effect epiphenomenalism.

In this paper, I argue that social psychologism is the most philosophically appealing form of psychologism. I present two arguments in support of social psychologism. The first is that this form of psychologism allows philosophers to justify normative claims about human reasoning. In the second part of this paper I argue that social psychologism ameliorates historical concerns with psychologism in general. The conclusion I draw from this discussion is that a need to outline and justify a normative system for deductive reasoning requires some discussion of how formal systems and human minds connect to one another.

ABSTRACT: Confronted with the “wrong kind of reason problem”, several proponents of the fitting attitude analysis of emotional values have argued in favor of an epistemic approach. In such a view, an emotion fits its object because the emotion is correct. However, I argue that we should reorient our search towards a practical approach because only practical considerations can provide a satisfying explanation of the fittingness of emotional responses. This practical approach is partially revisionist, particularly because it is no longer an analysis of final value and because it is relativistic.

ABSTRACT: Are there justified emotions? Can they justify evaluative judgements? We first explain the need for an account of justified emotions by emphasizing that emotions are states for which we have or lack reasons. We then observe that emotions are explained by their cognitive and motivational bases. Considering cognitive bases first, we argue that an emotion is justified if and only if the properties the subject is aware of constitute an instance of the relevant evaluative property. We then investigate the roles of motivational bases. Finally, we argue that justified emotions are sufficient for justified evaluative judgements.

Berkeley in his Introduction to the Principles of Human knowledge uses geometrical examples to illustrate a way of generating “universal ideas,” which allegedly account for the existence of general terms. In doing proofs we might, for example, selectively attend to the triangular shape of a diagram. Presumably what we prove using just that property applies to all triangles.

I contend, rather, that given Berkeley’s view of extension, no Euclidean triangles exist to attend to. Rather proof, as Berkeley would normally assume, requires idealizing diagrams; treating them as if they obeyed Euclidean constraints. This convention solves the problem of representative generalization.

I argue that failing to fulfill the Kantian obligation to protect one’s rational nature might actually vitiate future instances of this obligation. To avoid this conclusion, I argue that, contrary to the received view among Kant scholars, the feature in virtue of which someone has unconditional and incomparable value is not the same feature in virtue of which she is owed the respect that constrains how she may be treated. Even though someone who fails to attempt to protect her rational nature fails to respect herself, and even though this moral failing does make her lose a certain kind of value, her obligations to respect herself remain.

RÉSUMÉ : La gauche et l’égalité de Jean-Michel Salanskis cherche à faire le bilan des principes traditionnels de la gauche afin de la guérir de certaines illusions et de renouveler ce qui est, pour lui, son pilier central : la quête de l’égalité. Mais pour ce faire, il déploie un concept de possibilité ambigu et problématique qui pourrait mettre en péril la cohérence de son projet. La présente étude analyse le texte de Salanskis en décortiquant son concept de possibilité, et propose quelques ajustements afin d’éviter certains écueils classiques dans l’histoire de la pensée dialectique.

I maintain that among the main views concerning the central questions of epistemology (in particular, the question of justified belief) are evidentialism, (Pyrrhonian) scepticism and fideism. In this paper, I first present the arguments in favour of a form of evidentialism, according to which no false belief can be epistemically justified on the basis of evidence. Second, I consider the historical emergence of evidentialism during the period of the early Enlightenment. In particular, I explore the disagreement between Pierre Bayle and Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, which demonstrates the emergence of the modern opposition between evidentialism and fideism.

ABSTRACT: This article examines the possibility of an ethical treatment of plants grounded in empathy. Upon considering whether an empathetic approach to vegetal life is compatible with the crucial features of plant ontology, it is concluded that the feeling of empathy with plants disregards their mode of being and projects the constructs and expectations of the human empathizer onto the object of empathy. Vegetal life, thus, reveals the limits of empathy, as well as its anthropocentric and potentially unethical underpinnings.

ABSTRACT: In the first part of this paper, I criticize the indexical interpretation of meta-ethical relativism. According to the indexical interpretation, the content of a moral statement varies with the context of its utterance. I argue that such an interpretation is not empirically plausible, and that it cannot explain the seriousness of radical moral disagreements. In the constructive part of the paper, I offer an alternative, minimalist interpretation of moral relativism, which is based upon an analogy with the case of the relativity of motion.

In “The Pecking Order,” Dalton Conley argues that inequalities between siblings are larger than inequalities at the level of the overall society. Our article discusses the normative implications for institutions of this observation. We show that the question of state intervention for curbing intra-family inequality reveals an internal tension within liberalism between autonomy and toleration, which bears on the forms that the intervention of institutions may take. Despite the pros and cons of both commitments, autonomy-based liberalism appears more compatible with the involvement of the state for egalitarian reasons within the family than toleration-based liberalism.