Synthese

Artifacts and affordances Abstract What are the affordances of artifacts? One view is that the affordances of artifacts, just as the affordances of natural objects, pertain to possible ways in which they can be manipulated (e.g., a computer keyboard affords grasping). Another view maintains that, given that artifacts are sociocultural objects, their affordances pertain primarily to their culturally-derived function (e.g., a computer keyboard affords typing). Whereas some have tried to provide a unifying notion of affordance to capture both aspects, here I argue that they should be kept separate. In this paper, I introduce a distinction between standard affordances, which concern the function of artifacts, and ad-hoc affordances, which refer to how artifacts are manipulated. I then argue for the neuropsychological plausibility of such a distinction, linking it to the dissociation between function knowledge and manipulation knowledge. Finally, I defend the equal status of these forms of knowledge and, hence, of standard and ad-hoc affordances, and I show that this has some implications for the debate on the role of motor processes in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts.

No work for a theory of epistemic dispositions Abstract Externalists about epistemic justification have long emphasized the connection between truth and justification, with this coupling finding explicit expression in process reliabilism. Process reliabilism, however, faces a number of severe difficulties, leading disenchanted process reliabilists to find a new theoretical home. The conceptual flag under which such epistemologists have preferred to gather is that of dispositions. Just as reliabilism is determined by the frequency of a particular outcome, making it possible to characterize justification in terms of a particular relationship to truth, dispositions are accompanied by concrete, worldly manifestations. By taking true beliefs as the result, not of certain processes but of particular dispositions, these epistemologists have attempted to respond to the numerous obstacles to reliabilism. Yet all this work has proceeded without regard to the wealth of contemporary work on the metaphysics of dispositions, making the new hope premature at best, ill-founded at worst. Combining contemporary dispositional accounts of justification with extant analyses of dispositions reveals that the latter is the case. The structural differences between epistemic justification and dispositions make it clear that not only should process reliabilism be abandoned, but the subsequent appeal to dispositions along with it.

Affective representation and affective attitudes Abstract Many philosophers have understood the representational dimension of affective states along the model of perceptual experiences. This paper argues affective experiences involve a kind of personal level affective representation disanalogous from the representational character of perceptual experiences. The positive thesis is that affective representation is a non-transparent, non-sensory form of evaluative representation, whereby a felt valenced attitude represents the object of the experience as minimally good or bad, and one experiences that evaluative standing as having the power to causally motivate the relevant attitude. I show how this view can make sense of distinctive features of affective experiences, such as their valence and connection to value in a way which moves beyond current evaluativist views of affect.

Correction to: Happily entangled: prediction, emotion, and the embodied mind In the original publication, funding information was missing: Andy Clark was supported by ERC Advanced Grant 692739 (XSPECT—Expecting Ourselves—Embodied Prediction and the Construction of Conscious Experience).

Linguistics and the explanatory economy Abstract I present a novel, collaborative, methodology for linguistics: what I call the 'explanatory economy'. According to this picture, multiple models/theories are evaluated based on the extent to which they complement one another with respect to data coverage. I show how this model can resolve a long-standing worry about the methodology of generative linguistics: that by creating too much distance between data and theory, the empirical credentials of this research program are tarnished. I provide justifications of such methodologically central distinctions as the competence/performance and core/periphery distinction, and then show how we can understand the push for simplicity in the history of generative grammar in this light.

In the quagmire of quibbles: a dialectical exploration Abstract Criticism may degenerate into quibbling or nitpicking. How can discussants keep quibblers under control? In the paper we investigate cases in which a battle about words replaces a discussion of the matters that are actually at issue as well as cases in which a battle about minor objections replaces a discussion of the major issues. We survey some lines of discussion dealing with these situations in profiles of dialogue.

Can Church's thesis be viewed as a Carnapian explication? Abstract Turing and Church formulated two different formal accounts of computability that turned out to be extensionally equivalent. Since the accounts refer to different properties they cannot both be adequate conceptual analysesof the concept of computability. This insight has led to a discussion concerning which account is adequate. Some authors have suggested that this philosophical debate—which shows few signs of converging on one view—can be circumvented by regarding Church's and Turing's theses as explications. This move opens up the possibility that both accounts could be adequate, albeit in their own different ways. In this paper, I focus on the question of whether Church's thesis can be seen as an explication in the precise Carnapian sense. Most importantly, I address an additional constraint that Carnap puts on the explicative power of axiomatic systems—an axiomatisation explicates when it is clear which mathematical entities form the theory's intended model—and that implicitly applies to axiomatisations of recursion theory used in Church's account of computability. To overcome this difficulty, I propose two possible clarifications of the pre-systematic concept of "computability" that can both be captured in recursion theory, and I show how both clarifications avoid an objection arising from Carnap's constraint.

Word choice in mathematical practice: a case study in polyhedra Abstract We examine the influence of word choices on mathematical practice, i.e. in developing definitions, theorems, and proofs. As a case study, we consider Euclid's and Euler's word choices in their influential developments of geometry and, in particular, their use of the term 'polyhedron'. Then, jumping to the twentieth century, we look at word choices surrounding the use of the term 'polyhedron' in the work of Coxeter and of Grünbaum. We also consider a recent and explicit conflict of approach between Grünbaum and Shephard on the one hand and that of Hilton and Pedersen on the other, elucidating that the conflict was engendered by disagreement over the proper conceptualization, and so also the appropriate word choices, in the study of polyhedra.

Ground-theoretic equivalence Abstract Say that two sentences are ground-theoretically equivalent iff they are interchangeable salva veritate in grounding contexts. Notoriously, ground-theoretic equivalence is a hyperintensional matter: even logically equivalent sentences may fail to be interchangeable in grounding contexts. Still, there seem to be some substantive, general principles of ground-theoretic equivalence. For example, it seems plausible that any sentences of the form \(A \wedge B\) and \(B \wedge A\) are ground-theoretically equivalent. What, then, are in general the conditions for two sentences to stand in the relation of ground-theoretic equivalence, and what are the logical features of that relation? This paper develops and defends an answer to these questions based on the mode-ified truthmaker theory of content presented in my recent paper 'Towards a theory of ground-theoretic content' (Krämer in Synthese 195(2):785–814, 2018).

On radical solutions in the philosophy of biology: What does "individuals thinking" actually solve? Abstract The philosophy of biology is witnessing an increasing enthusiasm for what can be called "individuals thinking". Individuals thinking is a perspective on the metaphysics of biological entities according to which conceiving of them as individuals rather than kinds enables us to expose ongoing metaphysical debates as focusing on the wrong question, and to achieve better accounts of the metaphysics of biological entities. In this paper, I examine two cases of individuals thinking, the claim that species are individuals and the claim that life on Earth is an individual. I argue that these claims fail to do the metaphysical work that one would want them to do. I highlight problems with the specific claims as well as with the general notion of 'individual', and argue that naturalistic metaphysicians of biology should think of the metaphysical status of theoretical entities, such as species and life, as fundamentally theory-dependent. This implies a metaphysical pluralism, that allows that in some theories species, life, and other such entities may feature as individuals, whereas in others they may feature as kinds.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
Anapafseos 5 . Agios Nikolaos
Crete.Greece.72100
2841026182

6948891480

alsfakia@gmail.com