Cover of Thought: A Journal of Philosophy
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1. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
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2. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Andreas Kapsner Removing the Oddity in First Degree Entailment
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I discuss an old problem with first degree entailment (FDE), namely the unintuitive way disjunctions and conjunctions between statements with values B and N are defined. I supply a solution to this problem that involves a modification of FDE that leaves the philosophical motivation for the logic unharmed. Furthermore, I argue that this modification allows us to incorporate the philosophical core idea of exactly true logic without leading to the unusual inferential behavior of that logic.
3. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Roberto Loss How to Make a Gunky Spritz
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In its simplest form, a Spritz is an aperitif made with (sparkling) water and (white) wine. A ‘gunky Spritz’, as I will call it, is a Spritz in which the water and the wine are mixed through and through, so that every proper part of the Spritz has a proper part containing both water and wine. In the literature on the notion of location the possibility of mixtures like a gunky Spritz has been thought of as either threatening seemingly intuitive locative principles, or as requiring the position of multiple primitive locative relations. In this paper I present a new theory of location which assumes as primitive only the notion of pervasive location and show that it can account for the possibility of gunky Spritz in an intuitive and adequate way.
4. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Daniel Molto Relativizing Identity
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In this paper, I defend Peter Geach’s theory of Relative Identity against the charge that it cannot make sense of basic semantic notions.
5. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Kenneth Silver Habitual Weakness
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The standard case of weakness of will involves a strong temptation leading us to reconsider or act against our judgments. Here, however, I consider cases of what I call ‘habitual weakness’, where we resolve to do one thing yet do another not to satisfy any grand desire, but out of habit. After giving several examples, I suggest that habitual weakness has been under-discussed in the literature and explore why. These cases are worth highlighting for their ubiquity, and I show three further advantages of appreciating habitual weakness as a kind of weakness: It challenges purportedly necessary conditions on akrasia, it side-steps outstanding skeptical concerns, and it provides a new model for considering the weak-willed behavior of group agents. I conclude by arguing that cases of habitual weakness are genuine cases of akrasia and weakness of will. Rather than lacking strength of will, habitual weakness involves lacking diligence, vigilance, or fortitude.
6. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
T. Ryan Byerly Epistemic Subjectivism in the Theory of Character
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Several contributors to the burgeoning literature on individual character traits have recently given their attention to a contrast between so-called objective and subjective accounts of salient features of these traits. In this paper, I tease apart two different kinds of subjectivism which have not clearly been distinguished from one another thus far in the literature: doxastic subjectivism and epistemic subjectivism. I then argue that epistemic subjectivism marks an attractivemiddle position between objectivism and doxastic subjectivism, as it is less vulnerable to some of the most significant objections facing each of these alternative approaches. On this basis, I recommend that virtue theorists consider adopting epistemically subjective accounts of the features of character traits they theorize about.
7. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Umut Baysan Quidditism and Contingent Laws
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According to contingentism, laws of nature hold contingently. An objection to contingentism is that it implies quidditism, and therefore inherits its implausible consequences. This paper argues that this objection is misguided. Understood one way, quidditism is not an implication of contingentism, hence even if it has implausible consequences, these are not relevant to contingentism. Understood another way, quidditism is implied by contingentism, but it is less clear if this version of quidditism has the same implausible consequences. Whatever the merits of contingentism, the argument from anti-quidditism is not successful in showing that it is false.
8. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Yang Liu Two Tales of Epistemic Models
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This short paper has two parts. First,we prove a generalisation of Aumann’s surprising impossibility result in the context of rational decision making. We then move, in the second part, to discuss the interpretational meaning of some formal setups of epistemic models, and we do so by means of presenting an interesting puzzle in epistemic logic. The aim is to highlight certain problematic aspects of these epistemic systems concerning first/third-person asymmetry which underlies both parts of the story. This asymmetry, we argue, reveals certain limits of what epistemic models can be.
discussion note
9. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Donnchadh O’Conaill Attention and Consciousness: A Comment on Watzl’s Structuring Mind
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Sebastian Watzl has recently presented an attentional account of consciousness, on which it essentially involves subjects attending to the world as it appears to them. On this conception, consciousness has three structural features: unity, subjectivity and perspectivity. Watzl argues that the attentional account provides the best explanation of these features, and thus of consciousness conceived in this way. I outline problems with Watzl’s proposed explanation of each of these structural features, and argue that these undermine his attentional theory of consciousness.