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Articles 1 - 30 of 68
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Generative Ai And Photographic Transparency, P.D. Magnus
Generative Ai And Photographic Transparency, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
There is a history of thinking that photographs provide a special kind of access to the objects depicted in them, beyond the access that would be provided by a painting or drawing. What is included in the photograph does not depend on the photographer’s beliefs about what is in front of the camera. This feature leads Kendall Walton to argue that photographs literally allow us to see the objects which appear in them. Current generative algorithms produce images in response to users’ text prompts. Depending on the parameters, the output can resemble specific people or things which are named in …
Does Art Pluralism Lead To Eliminativism?, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Does Art Pluralism Lead To Eliminativism?, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word “art” in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word “art”, if one wants it, but only …
Early Response To False Claims In Wikipedia, 15 Years Later, P.D. Magnus
Early Response To False Claims In Wikipedia, 15 Years Later, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Fifteen years ago, I conducted a small study testing the error-correction tendency of Wikipedia. Not only is Wikipedia different now than it was then, the community that maintains it is different. Despite the crudity of that study’s methods, it is natural to wonder what the result would be now. So I repeated the earlier study and found surprisingly similar results.
Scurvy And The Ontology Of Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Scurvy And The Ontology Of Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being.
Appreciating Covers, Cristyn Magnus, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir, Ron Mcclamrock
Appreciating Covers, Cristyn Magnus, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir, Ron Mcclamrock
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
A recording or performance of a song is a cover if there is an earlier, canonical recording of the song. It can seem intuitive to think that properly appreciating the cover requires considering it in relation to the original, or at least that doing so will yield a deeper appreciation. This intuition is supported by some philosophical accounts of covers. And it is complicated by the possibility of hearing in, whereby one hears elements of the original version in the cover. We argue that it can nevertheless be just as legitimate to consider a cover version on its own …
The Scope Of Inductive Risk, P.D. Magnus
The Scope Of Inductive Risk, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive …
Art Concept Pluralism Undermines The Definitional Project, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Art Concept Pluralism Undermines The Definitional Project, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
This discussion note addresses Caleb Hazelwood’s ‘Practice-Centered Pluralism and a Disjunctive Theory of Art.’ Hazelwood advances a disjunctive definition of art on the basis of an analogy with species concept pluralism in the philosophy of biology. We recognize the analogy between species and art, we applaud attention to practice, and we are bullish on pluralism— but it is a mistake to take these as the basis for a disjunctive definition.
Inductive Risk, Science, And Values: A Reply To Macgillivray, Daniel J. Hicks, P.D. Magnus, Jessey Wright
Inductive Risk, Science, And Values: A Reply To Macgillivray, Daniel J. Hicks, P.D. Magnus, Jessey Wright
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is perhaps the most common argument against the value-free ideal of science. Brian MacGillivray (2019) rejects the AIR (at least as it would apply to risk assessment) and embraces the value-free ideal. We clarify the issues at stake and argue that MacGillivray’s criticisms, although effective against some formulations of the AIR, fail to overcome the essential concerns which motivate the AIR. There are inevitable tradeoffs in scientific enquiry which cannot be resolved with any formal methods or general rules. Choices must be made, and values will be involved. It is best to recognize this …
How To Be A Realist About Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
How To Be A Realist About Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Although some authors hold that natural kinds are necessarily relative to disciplinary domains, many authors presume that natural kinds must be absolute, categorical features of the reality— often assuming that without even mentioning the alternative. Recognizing both possibilities, one may ask whether the difference especially matters. I argue that it does. Looking at recent arguments about natural kind realism, I argue that we can best make sense of the realism question by thinking of natural kindness as a relation that holds between a category and a domain.
Science, Values, And The Priority Of Evidence, P.D. Magnus
Science, Values, And The Priority Of Evidence, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which have obvious practical consequences, thus suggesting or at least leaving open the possibility that abstruse sciences without such a connection could be value-free. Third, many arguments concern the role values play in inferring from evidence, thus taking evidence as given. This paper argues …
Cautious Realism And Middle Range Ontology, P.D. Magnus
Cautious Realism And Middle Range Ontology, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Anjan Chakravartty's book Scientific Ontology is centrally about how metaphysics is embrangled with epistemology. I begin by discussing the broader literature in science and values, where arguments akin to Chakravartty's have been much-discussed. Then I talk about my own preferred approach, middle range ontology, which does not fit neatly into any of the three stances Chakravartty discusses. Finally, I use these considerations to pose a dilemma.
That Some Of Sol Lewitt’S Later Wall Drawings Aren’T Wall Drawings, P.D. Magnus
That Some Of Sol Lewitt’S Later Wall Drawings Aren’T Wall Drawings, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
What Kind Of Is-Ought Gap Is There And What Kind Ought There Be?, P.D. Magnus, Jon Mandle
What Kind Of Is-Ought Gap Is There And What Kind Ought There Be?, P.D. Magnus, Jon Mandle
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Some philosophers think that there is a gap between is and ought which necessarily makes normative enquiry a different kind of thing than empirical science. This position gains support from our ability to explicate our inferential practices in a way that makes it impermissible to move from descriptive premises to a normative conclusion. But we can also explicate them in a way that allows such moves. So there is no categorical answer as to whether there is or is not a gap. The question of an is-ought gap is a practical and strategic matter rather than a logical one, and …
Natural Philosophy, Geometry, And Deduction In The Hobbes-Boyle Debate, Marcus P. Adams
Natural Philosophy, Geometry, And Deduction In The Hobbes-Boyle Debate, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines Hobbes’s criticisms of Robert Boyle’s air-pump experiments in light of Hobbes’s account in De Corpore and De Homine of the relationship of natural philosophy to geometry. I argue that Hobbes’s criticisms rely upon his understanding of what counts as “true physics.” Instead of seeing Hobbes as defending natural philosophy as “a causal enterprise ... [that] as such, secured total and irrevocable assent,”2 I argue that, in his disagreement with Boyle, Hobbes relied upon his understanding of natural philosophy as a mixed mathematical science. In a mixed mathematical science one can mix facts from experience (the ‘that’) with …
Kind Of Borrowed, Kind Of Blue, P.D. Magnus
Kind Of Borrowed, Kind Of Blue, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In late 2014, the jazz combo Mostly Other People Do the Killing released "Blue", an album which is a note-for-note remake of Miles Davis' 1959 landmark album "Kind of Blue". MOPDtK (to abbreviate the band's cumbersome name) transcribed all of the solos and performed them with meticulous care so as to produce a recorded album that replicates, as much as they could, the sound of the original. This is a thought experiment made actual, the kind of doppelgänger which philosophers routinely just imagine. I explore some of the ontological and aesthetic puzzles which the album poses. I argue that what …
Hobbes On Natural Philosophy As “True Physics” And Mixed Mathematics, Marcus P. Adams
Hobbes On Natural Philosophy As “True Physics” And Mixed Mathematics, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In this paper, I offer an alternative account of the relationship of Hobbesian geometry to natural philosophy by arguing that mixed mathematics provided Hobbes with a model for thinking about it. In mixed mathematics, one may borrow causal principles from one science and use them in another science without there being a deductive relationship between those two sciences. Natural philosophy for Hobbes is mixed because an explanation may combine observations from experience (the ‘that’) with causal principles from geometry (the ‘why’). My argument shows that Hobbesian natural philosophy relies upon suppositions that bodies plausibly behave according to these borrowed causal …
Visual Perception As Patterning: Cavendish Against Hobbes On Sensation, Marcus P. Adams
Visual Perception As Patterning: Cavendish Against Hobbes On Sensation, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In Margaret Cavendish's view, her Philosophical Letters are the "building" (1664, preface; hereafter Letters) that rests upon the foundation already laid in her Philosophical and Physical Opinions (first edition 1655; second edition 1663; hereafter Opinions). In the Letters, she criticizes Descartes, Hobbes, More, van Helmont, and others by arguing for the superiority of her philosophical system in its ability to explain various phenomena and to avoid the objections she highlights.
Preserving The Autographic/Allographic Distinction, P.D. Magnus, Jason R. D'Cruz
Preserving The Autographic/Allographic Distinction, P.D. Magnus, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In his study of forms of representation, Nel- son Goodman sought to explain why some representations, like words or musical scores, are considered replicable while others, such as paintings, are not. He named the replicable rep- resentations allographic and the ones we consider nonreplicable autographic (Goodman 1976, 113). His explanation of what grounds this distinction is in his theory of notations (chaps. IV–V). That theory essentially seeks to secure the possibility of identity for representations, as well as the possibility of knowing such identity, by setting out a number of requirements. Unless a repre- sentational practice satisfies the requirements (is …
John Stuart Mill On Taxonomy And Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
John Stuart Mill On Taxonomy And Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The accepted narrative treats John Stuart Mill's Kinds as the historical prototype for our natural kinds, but Mill actually employs two separate notions: Kinds and natural groups. Considering these, along with the accounts of Mill's 19th-century interlocutors, forces us to recognize two distinct questions. First, what marks a natural kind as worthy of inclusion in taxonomy? Second, what exists in the world that makes a category meet that criterion? Mill's two notions offer separate answers to the two questions: natural groups for taxonomy, and Kinds for ontology. This distinction is ignored in many contemporary debates about natural kinds and is …
Promising To Try, Jason R. D'Cruz, Justin Kalef
Promising To Try, Jason R. D'Cruz, Justin Kalef
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
We maintain that in many contexts promising to try is expressive of responsibility as a promiser. This morally significant application of promising to try speaks in favor of the view that responsible promisers favor evidentialism about promises. Contra Berislav Marusˇic´, we contend that responsible promisers typically withdraw from promising to act and instead promise to try, in circumstances in which they recognize that there is a significant chance that they will not succeed.
Trust, Trustworthiness, And The Moral Consequence Of Consistency, Jason R. D'Cruz
Trust, Trustworthiness, And The Moral Consequence Of Consistency, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Situationists such as John Doris, Gilbert Harman, and Maria Merritt suppose that appeal to reliable behavioral dispositions can be dispensed with without radical revision to morality as we know it. This paper challenges this supposition, arguing that abandoning hope in reliable dispositions rules out genuine trust and forces us to suspend core reactive attitudes of gratitude and resentment, esteem and indignation. By examining situationism through the lens of trust we learn something about situationism (in particular, the radically revisionary moral implications of its adoption) as well as something about trust (in particular, that the conditions necessary for genuine trust include …
Demarcating Aristotelian Rhetoric: Rhetoric, The Subalternate Sciences, And Boundary Crossing, Marcus P. Adams
Demarcating Aristotelian Rhetoric: Rhetoric, The Subalternate Sciences, And Boundary Crossing, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The ways in which the Aristotelian sciences are related to each other has been discussed in the literature, with some focus on the subalternate sciences. While it is acknowledged that Aristotle, and Plato as well, was concerned as well with how the arts were related to one another, less attention has been paid to Aristotle’s views on relationships among the arts. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle’s account of the subalternate sciences helps shed light on how Aristotle saw the art of rhetoric relating to dialectic and politics. Initial motivation for comparing rhetoric with the subalternate sciences is Aristotle’s …
Epistemic Categories And Causal Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Epistemic Categories And Causal Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Within philosophy of science, debates about realism often turn on whether posited entities exist or whether scientific claims are true. Natural kinds tend to be investigated by philosophers of language or metaphysicians, for whom semantic or ontological considerations can overshadow scientific ones. Since science crucially involves dividing the world up into categories of things, however, issues concerning classification ought to be central for philosophy of science. Muhammad Ali Khalidi's book fills that gap, and I commend it to readers with an interest in scientific taxonomy and natural kinds. He works through general issues to craft a useful philosophical conception and …
Science And Rationality For One And All, P.D. Magnus
Science And Rationality For One And All, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
A successful scientific community might require different scientists to form different beliefs even when faced with the same evidence. The standard line is that this would create a conflict between the demands of collective rationality which scientists face as members of the community and the demands of individual rationality which they face as epistemic agents. This is expressed both by philosophers of science (working on the distribution of cognitive labor) and by epistemologists (working on the epistemology of disagreement). The standard line fails to take into account the relation between rational belief and various epistemic risks, values of which are …
Are Digital Pictures Allographic?, Jason R. D'Cruz, P.D. Magnus
Are Digital Pictures Allographic?, Jason R. D'Cruz, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Nelson Goodman's distinction between autographic and allographic arts is appealing, we suggest, because it promises to resolve several prima facie puzzles. We consider and rebut a recent argument that alleges that digital images explode the autographic/allographic distinction. Regardless, there is another familiar problem with the distinction, especially as Goodman formulates it: it seems to entirely ignore an important sense in which all artworks are historical. We note in reply that some artworks can be considered both as historical products and as formal structures. Talk about such works is ambiguous between the two conceptions. This allows us to recover Goodman's distinction: …
Nk≠Hpc, P.D. Magnus
Nk≠Hpc, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken to define natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds.
The Wax And The Mechanical Mind: Reexamining Hobbes’S Objections To Descartes’S Meditations, Marcus P. Adams
The Wax And The Mechanical Mind: Reexamining Hobbes’S Objections To Descartes’S Meditations, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Many critics, Descartes himself included, have seen Hobbes as uncharitable or even incoherent in his Objections to the Meditations on First Philosophy. I argue that when understood within the wider context of his views of the late 1630s and early 1640s, Hobbes's Objections are coherent and reflect his goal of providing an epistemology consistent with a mechanical philosophy. I demonstrate the importance of this epistemology for understanding his Fourth Objection concerning the nature of the wax and contend that Hobbes's brief claims in that Objection are best understood as a summary of the mechanism for scientific knowledge found in his …
Gratitude And Displacement: The Political Obligations Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Gratitude And Displacement: The Political Obligations Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
On what basis, and to what extent, are refugees obligated to obey the laws of their host countries? Consideration of the specific case of asylum-seekers generates, I think, two competing intuitions: (1) the refugee has a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of her host country and (2) none of the popularly canvassed substrates of political obligation—consent, tacit consent, fairness, or social role—is at all apt to explain the presence of this obligation. I contend that the unfashionable gratitude account of political obligation does the best job of accounting for the intuitions. As has been noticed by other commentators, …
Displacement And Gratitude: Accounting For The Political Obligation Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Displacement And Gratitude: Accounting For The Political Obligation Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
On what basis, and to what extent, are refugees obligated to obey the laws of their host countries? Consideration of the specific case of asylum-seekers generates, I think, two competing intuitions: (1) the refugee has a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of her host country and (2) none of the popularly canvassed substrates of political obligation*consent, tacit consent, fairness, or social role*is at all apt to explain the presence of this obligation. I contend that the unfashionable gratitude account of political obligation does the best job of accounting for the intuitions. As has been noticed by other commentators, …
Hobbes, Definitions, And Simplest Conceptions, Marcus P. Adams
Hobbes, Definitions, And Simplest Conceptions, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Several recent commentators argue that Thomas Hobbes’s account of the nature of science is conventionalist. Engaging in scientific practice on a conventionalist account is more a matter of making sure one connects one term to another properly rather than checking one’s claims, e.g., by experiment. In this paper, I argue that the conventionalist interpretation of Hobbesian science accords neither with Hobbes’s theoretical account in De corpore and Leviathan nor with Hobbes’s scientific practice in De homine and elsewhere. Closely tied to the conventionalist interpretation is the deductivist interpretation, on which it is claimed that Hobbes believed sciences such as optics …