Join The Discussion

Randy Everist over at his blog Possible Worlds recently posted a bit on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The post initiated an interesting discussion and the following exchange. I hope some find the exchange of some interest, but be mindful the discussion is casual and much detail has been omitted. Also, I mention epistemic iteration towards the end, so if one wants to acquaint oneself with the idea, they can read the blog post.

Randy,

Generally, I hold no brief for metaphysical speculations as I find them to be more reports of one’s own psychology than any deep insight into the so called ‘nature of things’.

That said, that *something* exists necessarily hardly seems to be a logical truth. It would seem entirely possible that there should be nothing rather than something- the domain of quantification (that which our particular and universal quantifiers range over) is empty.

Essentially, why there exists something rather than nothing is an open area of inquiry in physics, not philosophy, and there have been some interesting conjectures from that quarter.

Fitelson on Fallacies

Get some learning here.

Florida Undergraduate Research Conference

Please note the deadlines, and contact information, listed below for participation in Florida’s 2^nd Annual Undergraduate Research Conference. 

 

 

 

REMINDER

2^nd Annual Florida Undergraduate Research Conference

at Stetson University on March 16^th & 17^th

Deadline for Abstract Submission: February 15^th

Deadline for Registration: March 8^th

 

Stetson University in Deland will be hosting the 2^nd Annual Florida Undergraduate Research Conference on March 16 & 17, 2012. This conference is ideal for students to present their research and scholarly projects in an environment that promotes professional development and models professional conferences. This conference will also offer faculty the opportunity to network and develop collaborative relationships with faculty from other institutions. The UNF Office of Undergraduate Research will provide group transportation and hotel accommodations for as many students and faculty as possible. Please contact LouAnne Hawkins in the Office of Undergraduate Research if you are interested in assistance with travel and accommodations.Registration is $35 and the deadline for registration is March 8, 2012.

 

Students: Undergraduates are invited to submit abstracts for posters from faculty mentored research and scholarly projects. An undergraduate must be the first author on the poster, but graduate students and faculty members may also be included as authors. Undergraduates interested in submitting an abstract should discuss their intentions with their faculty mentor and obtain editorial feedback on their abstracts before submission. Abstracts are due by February 15, 2012.

Philosophy Blogging

It’s been a little quiet over here.  Here are some links to some interesting philosophical blog discussions.

Here is a post on Frege’s Puzzle and belief at Splintered Mind.

Here is a post critiquing evidentialism at Think Tonk.

And here is a post on colour at NewAPPs.

Enjoy!

Update: 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference

University of North Florida Philosophy

Call for Papers

 UNF’s Department of Philosophy invites paper submissions from undergraduate or graduate students for the 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference:

“Philosophy and Media”

March 31^st, 2012
Jacksonville, Florida

Plenary Speakers:

Christopher Grau (Clemson)

Vance Ricks (Guilford College)

Theism (and atheism) and Morality

Discussed here by Louis Anthony (UMass).

On the Moral Error Theory: The Argument from Evolution

“Morality is a collective illusion foisted upon us by our genes”—Michael Ruse

[The following was presented to the UNF Philosophy Club on December 9, 2011. By no means is it complete and it is my intention to develop a more coherent paper arguing against the Moral Error Theory. I am open to any comments and criticisms]

As we approach the 35^th year anniversary of John Mackie’s, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, it has become an appropriate time to commemorate the arguments put forth along with more recent ones, as well as some criticisms of his argument. Though, to begin outright with the arguments discussed may create some confusion. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid this confusion, it is essential that a brief account of the origins of the Moral Error Theory be given.

Philosophy in the NYT

Here is a piece by Simon Blackburn on Hume.

Here is a piece on Plantinga’s new book on science and God.

Enjoy!

Philosophy Department Rankings

Here is the 2011 Philosophical Gourmet Report which ranks PhD programs in Philosophy both by specialty and by overall rankings.

New Volume of International Journal for the Study of Skepticism

Available here.  Looks like a lot of interesting stuff (especially on circularity).

Free Will, Decisions & Brain Scanners

This  might be of interest to some of you.

Robin Ince on Intelligent Design Creationism

 

 

Neuroscience and Free Will

A nice and interesting piece here.

Plantinga, Naturalism, and Epistemic Iteration

In ‘Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism,’ Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism excludes the means to validating our cognitive faculties. In a nutshell, Plantinga argues that if the reliability of our cognitive faculties is under question, one cannot answer the question whether they are reliable by pointing out that these faculties themselves deliver the belief that they are reliable; one needs more, one needs good, independent reason to believe our cognitive faculties are reliable. Crudely, Plantinga criticisizes empiricists / naturalists for failing to provide a logically satisfactory argument for asserting that our cognitive faculties are reliable.

Plantinga’s argument, though, does not immediately commend itself to acceptance: Essentially, the empiricist / naturalist must provide an argument for the foundational reliability of our cognitive faculties only if she first accepts a foundationalist epistemology. However, empiricists / naturalists need not accept a foundationalist epistemology. Indeed, the empiricist / naturalist should instead reject the premise that knowledge requires an Archimedean foundation. (I guess Plantinga could assert that the empiricist / naturalist is somehow committed to a foundationalist epistemology, but I would like to see the argument for that. In any case, I have little confidence the argument would work.)

Rather, pace Hasok Chang (epistemic iteration), C.S. Peirce (pragmatism) or W.V.O. Quine (coherentism), the empiricist / naturalist can take other routes. Though I have significant misgivings about coherentism, it remains a viable option. However, a more promising route, I believe, would be Chang’s idea of epistemic iteration, which is a thoroughly proper empiricist epistemology (situated within a largely Peircean pragmatist framework). To see this, let us look at Chang’s analysis of the historical problem of the reliability of thermometry in early and mid 19^th science. Though crude and without the requisite scholarly detail, the synopsis should suffice to give the rough view.

Marriage Discussed on Philosophy TV

Here.  A brief description of the discussion:

As same-sex marriage gains acceptance, a greater number of caring relationships enjoy legal recognition. But what about polygamous and polyamorous relationships? What about non-romantic relationships, such as friendships? In this episode, Brake and May discuss Brake’s controversial view that individuals should be allowed to assign the rights and privileges of marriage to whomever they want, so long as the purpose is to support a caring relationship. They also discuss the case for same-sex marriage (11:56), whether legal marriage should be abolished (33:48), caring relationships as Rawlsian primary goods (45:40), and May’s objection to polygamy (54:49).

Call For Papers: Georgia State University’s 10th Annual Student Philosophy Symposium.

Date: Saturday, March 17, 2012

Keynote Speaker:  Professor Valerie Tiberius  -  University of
Minnesota: “To Be or Not To Be (A Parent):  How interdisciplinary
research on well-being can help us with the big questions.”

Location: Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

Topics: Original, high quality submissions in any area of philosophy
are welcomed from undergraduate or graduate students.

Notes: Papers must be no longer than 3750 words and should be
presented in approximately 25 minutes. All papers should be prepared
for blind review: papers should be free of identifying information,
and accompanied by a brief abstract (not to exceed 250 words).
Notifications of acceptance will be emailed by February 21, 2012. Only
one submission per person will be considered.

Deadline for Submissions: January 20, 2012

Submissions: To submit a paper, please email Noel Martin at
nmartin11@student.gsu.edu. All submissions will be acknowledged within
72 hours of receipt.

For further inquiries, contact Claire Murata Kooy at kkooy@gsu.edu.

For full details, see the conference website: www.gsu.edu/ethics
(select link to Philosophy Symposium).

A Natural History of Rape Revisited

Tim Dacey

In a recent class discussion a debate brewed over the topic of Randy Thornhill’s and Craig Palmer’s A Natural History of Rape. The arguments proposed in their book have been widely criticized and rejected by much of the scientific and philosophical community (for good and bad reasons). What follows is some general thoughts; perhaps though, a formal paper will emerge for this topic if a good discussion results.  It seems there are some important flaws that can be revealed in the assumptions Thornhill and Palmer use to make their argument.  I am inclined to use an example from the history of evolutionary biology, namely, Stephen Jay Gould’s criticism of the assumptions underlying the adaptation of antlers in “Irish Elk.” Similar to Gould,  I will reveal a similar ‘bad’ assumption that Thornhill and Palmer use and then present an alternative argument that may prove more convincing.

 

Recall that the assumptions the adaptationist program was using to explain the immense antlers (and bodies) of the Megloceros, or “Irish Elk,” focused on combating predation where antlers served as weapons. However, the largest predator that this creature would ever face in the late Irish Pleistocene was a wolf pack. In fact, these massive antlers could be harmful to the survival of the Elk. That the antlers were often detrimental to the survival of the Elk seemed to present and anomaly for Darwin’s theory of natural selection, as a trait was being selected for that was harmful to the individual. It was Gould who pointed to the faulty assumption that antlers were weapons combating predators and that this was the only way large antlers would emerge. Gould challenged this assumption and insisted that competition for females may have led to large bodies. That is, Elk with larger body size would tend to triumph over those males who were smaller ultimately leading them to pass their genes on to offspring. A consequence of this, of course, are larger antlers; this follows a principle of allometry.

 

Likewise, it is my contention that Thornhill and Palmer use a faulty evolutionary assumption, that rape is intended for procreation. There are at least two general categories that we can place rape in: (1) genetically predisposed (I am not suggesting a ‘rape gene’, rather just that there could exist genes that when malfunctioning or ‘overly present’ may create an anxious and violent drive for sex leading to something such as rape) and (2) conditionally predisposed (e.g., watching violent pornography may construct an anxious and violent cognitive drive for sex). (1) is where Thornhill and Palmer would need to focus there argument, as individuals regarding (2) could not pass their traits on to their offspring, or at least not genetically. Further, the argument that Thornhill and Palmer would need to insist upon would be similar to Gould’s—that rape isn’t being selected for per se. Rather, genes correlated with behaviors of dominance (perhaps testosterone genes) are selected for via sexual selection. Suppose that in early hominins males with higher levels of testosterone are selected for because they can dominant their opponents for mates (not a surprising behavior among apes). These individuals will pass their genes on to their offspring who in turn compete for mates and pass their genes on. What tends to emerge are males with aggressive behavior causing genes. Since these genes will also correlate with sex drives, then a by-product—an unfortunate one in this case—emerges where individuals with increased aggressive and sexual drives may ‘rape’ other members in the population. That “rape is selectively advantageous for procreation” can be rejected in the same fashion that the original argument used in Megaloceros’ antlers was rejected.

Some Consequences of Perdurantism

“Not everything with banana-shaped, banana-tasting temporal parts can be a banana, however. The first month-long temporal part of the banana is not itself a banana, even though it has suitable temporal parts. It is not a banana because it is itself a proper temporal part of a banana. For perdurance theorists, sortal predicates are temporally maximal. That is to say, nothing can satisfy a given sortal predicate if it is a proper temporal part of something which satisfies that predicate — no proper temporal part of a banana can be a banana. In this respect, sortal predicates contrast with non-sortal predicates like ‘is green.’ Something can be green even if it is a proper part of a green thing.” – Katherine Hawley, How Things Persist, pg.40

Is it really true that “nothing can satisfy a given sortal predicate if it is a proper temporal part of something which satisfies that predicate — no proper temporal part of a banana can be a banana”? I don’t think so.

Darwin the Economist

Here is a link to a recent article in the LA times comparing Adam Smith and Charles Darwin by Robert H. Frank. Frank recently appeared on NPR to talk about his new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-frank-darwin-economics-20111018,0,5949996.story

An Elicitation of Opinions

Must an omnipotent and omniscient supernatural agency also be morally perfect?

Theistic Explanatory Models Are Not Explanatory

Too many people take the so-called theory of intelligent design seriously, which is unfortunate since nobody who takes a scientific view of the world should, and everyone ought to take a scientific view of the world. As many have argued, ID theory is not, properly, a theistic explanatory model. However, I am not convinced that this is the case, and for two primary reasons. (Though, I find that insofar as ID theories are not theistic models, they actually suffer from more problems, so they really ought to welcome theistic interpretations. But this we may skip for now.) First, the correlation between theism and ID theory is too great for it to be an accident of honest inquiry. The overwhelming majority of ID theory proponents are theists, and theistic conceptions of god are, not surprisingly, suitable candidates for the intelligent designer. Second, the Discovery Institute, the main intellectual impetus behind ID theory in the English speaking world, published The Wedge, wherein they explicitly advocate for a theistic interpretation of ID theory. (FYI: One may read the document here: The Wedge.)

In any case, what is to follow is a rough and ready argument against theistic explanatory models.

15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference CFP

University of North Florida Philosophy

Call for Papers

 UNF’s Department of Philosophy invites paper submissions from undergraduate or graduate students for the 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference:

“Philosophy and Media”

March 31^st, 2012
Jacksonville, Florida

Plenary Speakers:
Christopher Grau (Clemson)

Vance Ricks (Guilford College)

To the (un)Happy Nihilist

Dearest unhappy nihilist,

You do not know me, but I write to you as a brother. (Excuse me if I have mistaken your gender. Remember, I do not know you.) I know that, in your current place, the brotherhood relationship can have no value, but I invoke the relationship as a way to tell you this: We are from the same philosophical family, which is just to say that you and I have lived under the same roof with that bastard of a father, Nihilism.

You and I have suffered together the presence of his absence. He abandoned us because that is his character. That is how he shows himself. If we were wiser, we would have expected nothing more, or shall I say nothing less? We have suffered his present-absence on those quiet nights when we have looked up at the cold and uncaring sky, when we have contemplated the vastness of the earth and our next-to-thing-ness among it all, when we have come to that same breathtaking truth Solomon discovered many years ago: Everything is nothing. All is vanity, a chasing after the wind.

I am sorry, dear brother, to stab you again with those words. The wound I inflict here, however, is necessary. “Necessary for what?”, you ask. You are both angry and suspicious with your question. Angry, because you have been mildly successful at forgetting the present-absentness of our father. (Be not excessively angry, dear Brother, for you and I know that forgetfulness of this kind can be rekindled as easily as it is disturbed.) You are suspicious because the phrase “Necessary for” hints at some goal for one’s actions, and if we really are brothers, then neither of us can have such goals. Your suspicion is correct, and this is the purpose of my letter to you.

10 Minute Philosophy Puzzles

This is a great idea!

“The 10-Minute Puzzle is a podcast series dedicated to presenting in a clear, concise, and accessible manner central problems that engage contemporary philosophy. Podcasts are freely available for download and will be uploaded every three weeks.” You can even make suggestions for topics and sign up for alerts.  9 podcasts are already up, and they have great topics!  Check it out.

Liberal Arts under attack

Here is a story and here might be promise of help.