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In her seminal essay ‘Causality and Determination’, Elizabeth Anscombe very decidedly announced that “physical indeterminism” is “indispensable if we are to make anything of the claim to freedom”. But it is clear from that same essay that she extends the scope of that claim beyond freedom–she suggests that indeterminism is required already for animal self-movement (a position recently called ‘agency incompatibilism’ by Helen Steward). Building on Anscombe’s conception of causality and (in)determinism, I will suggest that it extends even further: life as such already requires physical indeterminism. Furthermore, I show that we can, on this basis, arrive at the idea of varieties of (in)determinism, along with a corresponding variety of incompatibilist theses. From this Anscombean vantage point, the free will discussion takes on a quite different outlook. The question whether free agency can coexist with determinism on the level of blind physical forces, which preoccupies the philosopher of free will, turns out to conflate a whole series of compatibility questions: not just whether life is compatible with physical determinism, but also whether animal self-movement is compatible with ‘biological determinism’, and whether free agency is compatible with ‘animal determinism’.

MSO and MHE are grateful to Annemarie Kalis, Josephine Pascoe, Eline de Groot, Rebecca Zeilstra, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. MSO's research for this article was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project "Mind in Skilled Performance" (DP170102987) and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek VIDI Research Project "Shaping our action space: A situated perspective on self-control" (VI.VIDI.195.116). MHE has written this paper thanks to a 2018 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (The Foundation accepts no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents included in the project and/or the results thereof, which are entirely the responsibility of the authors), and the research projects FFI2016-80088-P and PID2019-109764RB-I00 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, and the FiloLab Group of Excellence, University of Granada (Spain)., A widely shared assumption in the literature about skilled motor behavior is that any action that is not blindly automatic and mechanical must be the product of computational processes upon mental representations. To counter this assumption, in this paper we offer a radical embodied (non-representational) account of skilled action that combines ecological psychology and the Deweyan theory of habits. According to our proposal, skilful performance can be understood as composed of sequences of mutually coherent, task-specific perceptual-motor habits. Such habits play a crucial role in simplifying both our exploration of the perceptual environment and our decision- making. However, we argue that what keeps habits situated, precluding them from becoming rote and automatic, are not mental representations but the agent’s conscious attention to the affordances of the environment. It is because the agent is not acting on autopilot but constantly searching for new information for affordances that she can control her behavior, adapting previously learned habits to the current circumstances. We defend that our account provides the resources needed to understand how skilled action can be intelligent (flexible, adaptive, context-sensitive) without having any representational cognitive processes built into them., Australian Research Council DP170102987, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek VIDI Research Project "Shaping our action space: A situated perspective on self-control" VI.VIDI.195.116, Spanish Government FFI2016-80088-P PID2019-109764RB-I00, FiloLab Group of Excellence, University of Granada (Spain) FFI2016-80088-P PID2019-109764RB-I00

I assume that voters mark ballots exclusively to express their true preferences among parties, leaving aside any considerations about an election’s possible outcome. The paper then analyzes the resulting voting behavior. In particular, it studies how effective different voting systems such as plurality rule, approval voting, and range voting are in fostering high turnout rates of such expressive voters.

In this paper, we investigate how contemporary metaphysics of powers can further an understanding of agent-causal theories of free will. The recent upsurge of such ontologies of powers and the understanding of causation it affords promises to demystify the notion of an agent-causal power. However, as we arguepace(Mumford and Anjum in Analysis 74:20–25, 2013; Am Philos Q 52:1–12, 2015a), the very ubiquity of powers also poses a challenge to understanding in what sense exercises of an agent’s power to act could still befree—neither determined by external circumstances, nor random, but self-determined. To overcome this challenge, we must understand what distinguishes the power to act from ordinary powers. We suggest this difference lies in itsrationalnature, and argue that existing agent-causal accounts (e.g., O’Connor in Libertarian views: dualist and agent-causal theories, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002; Lowe in Personal agency: the metaphysics of mind and action, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) fail to capture the sense in which the power to act is rational. A proper understanding, we argue, requires us to combine the recent idea that the power to act is a ‘two-way power’ (e.g., Steward in A metaphysics for freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012b; Lowe (in: Groff, Greco (eds) Powers and capacities in philosophy: the new aristotelianism, Routledge, New York, 2013) with the idea that it is intrinsically rational. We sketch the outlines of an original account that promises to do this. On this picture, what distinguishes the power to act is its specialgenerality—the power to act, unlike ordinary powers, does not come with any one typical manifestation. We argue that this special generality can be understood to be a feature of the capacity toreason. Thus, we argue, an account of agent-causation that can further our understanding of free will requires us to recognize a specifically rational ormentalvariety of power.

The meta-ethical commitments of folk respondents – specifically their commitment to the objectivity of moral claims – have recently become subject to empirical scrutiny. Experimental findings suggest that people are meta-ethical pluralists: There is both inter- and intrapersonal variation with regard to people’s objectivist commitments. What meta-ethical implications, if any, do these findings have? I point out that current research does not directly address traditional meta-ethical questions: The methods used and distinctions drawn by experimenters do not perfectly match those of meta-ethicists. However, I go on to argue that, in spite of this mismatch, the research findings should be of interest to moral philosophers, including meta-ethicists. Not only do these findings extend the field of moral psychology with new data and hypotheses, but they also provide tentative evidence that touches on the adequacy of theses in moral semantics and moral metaphysics. Specifically, they put pressure on arguments in support of moral realism.

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross-cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general.

Power enthusiasts are engaged in two projects: (1) developing a decent metaphysical account of powers, and (2) applying that account in order to make progress on various other philosophical issues, ranging from narrowly related topics such as causality to further removed ones such as free will, reasoning, or perception. I argue that an intermediate step may be taken, one that explores ‘varieties of power’ while still staying within the realm of (1), of ‘pure’ powers metaphysics. Taking this intermediate step provides a much more interesting basis for those involved in project (2), ‘applied’ powers metaphysics. I articulate four such varieties of power by exploring various dimensions in which the explanatory profile of a power can be extended. I then briefly survey how these relate to various further metaphysical issues.

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage in ``reflective'' thinking.

Evolutionary accounts of the origin of human morality may be speculative to some extent, but they contain some very plausible claims, such as the claim that ethics evolved as a response to the demands of group living. Regarding the phenomenon of moral progress, it has been argued both that it is ruled out by an evolutionary approach, and that it can be explained by it. It has even been claimed that an evolutionary account has the potential to advance progress in the moral domain. This paper explores the complex relationship between evolutionary explanations of morality and the possibility of moral progress. It seeks to answer the question as to what these explanations are able to tell us about the possibility of moral progress and the ways in which such progress can be achieved. It is argued that evolutionary explanations can inform moral education and other forms of moral enhancement, and that increased evolutionary knowledge figures among the changes in the circumstances of morality that can lead to moral progress. Evolutionary explanations can show us certain limits to the possibility for humans of progressing morally as well as certain enabling conditions. It is argued that both aspects – enhancement and changes in the circumstances – are equally important for the achievement of moral progress. This is illustrated by means of two examples of areas in which moral progress seems possible: our relationship towards the distant poor and our relationship towards non-human animals.

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) purport to show that robust moral realism, the metaethical view that there are non-natural and mind-independent moral properties and facts that we can know about, is incompatible with evolutionary explanations of morality. One of the most prominent evolutionary debunking arguments is advanced by Sharon Street, who argues that if moral realism were true, then objective moral knowledge is unlikely because realist moral properties are evolutionary irrelevant and moral beliefs about those properties would not be selected for. However, no evolutionary, causal explanation plays an essential role in reaching the argument’s epistemological conclusion. Street’s argument depends on the Benacerraf-Field challenge, which is the challenge to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs about causally inert moral properties. The Benacerraf-Field challenge relies on metaphysically necessary facts about realist moral properties, rather than on contingent Darwinian facts about the origin of our moral beliefs. Attempting to include an essential causal empirical premise yet avoiding recourse to the Benacerraf-Field problem yields an argument that is either self-defeating or of limited scope. Ultimately, evolutionary, causal explanations of our moral beliefs and their consequences do not present the strongest case against robust moral realism. Rather, the question is whether knowledge of casually-inert, mind-intendent properties is plausible at all. Keywords

This note consists of a collection of observations on the notion of simplicity in the setting of proofs. It discusses its properties under formalization and its relation to the length of proofs, showing that in certain settings simplicity and brevity exclude each other. It is argued that when simplicity is interpreted as purity of method, different foundational standpoints may affect which proofs are considered to be simple and which are not.

Scientism, Enough of That In this paper I argue that it is not a good idea to employ the notion of scientism in public debates concerning issues like free will. Moreover, I claim that, also in philosophy proper, thinking through the notion of scientism is not an urgent task. It is better to reflect directly on notions like justification, evidence, authority of science and the like.

In order to deal with the problem caused by environmental luck some proponents of robust virtue epistemology have attempted to argue that in virtue of satisfying the ability condition one will satisfy the safety condition. Call this idea the entailment thesis. In this paper it will be argued that the arguments that have been laid down for the entailment thesis entail a wrong kind of safety condition, one that we do not have in mind when we require our beliefs to be safe from error in order for them to be knowledge.

In the extensive, recent debates on free will, the pioneering experiments by Benjamin Libet continue to play a significant role. It is often claimed that these experiments demonstrate the illusory nature of freely willed actions. In this article, we provide a detailed analysis and evaluation of Libet—s experiments from a philosophy of science perspective. Our analysis focuses on Libet—s central notion of the “initiation” of freely willed processes by the brain. We examine four interpretations of the notion of initiation: in terms of a cause, a necessary condition, a correlation, and a regular succession. We argue that none of these four interpretations can be supported by the design and results of Libet—s experiments. In addition, we analyze two recent Libet-type experiments. Our general conclusion is that neither Libet—s original experiments nor later Libet-type experiments can justify the claim that allegedly freely willed processes are in fact initiated by the brain. © 2012, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

William Alston has provided a by now well-known objection to the deontological conception of epistemic justification by arguing that since we lack control over our beliefs, we are not responsible for them. It is widely acknowledged that if Alston's argument is convincing, then it seems that the very idea of doxastic responsibility is in trouble. In this article, I attempt to refute one line of response to Alston's argument. On this approach, we are responsible for our beliefs in virtue of the fact that we have certain belief-policies, that is, policies about what (not) to believe in certain circumstances. I present the advocate of this strategy with a dilemma: either belief-policies are themselves beliefs or they are not. If they are, then they are as involuntary as our other beliefs. If they are not, then they cannot make a difference to the beliefs we hold. I conclude that if we bear doxastic responsibility, it should not be explained in terms of our belief-policies. © 2012 The Author(s).

The current medical approach to erectile dysfunction (ED) consists of physiological, psychological and social components. This paper proposes an additional framework for thinking about ED based on phenomenology, by focusing on the theory of sexual projection. This framework will be complementary to the current medical approach to ED. Our phenomenological analysis of ED provides philosophical depth and illuminates overlooked aspects in the study of ED. Mainly by appealing to Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, we suggest considering an additional etiology of ED in terms of a weakening of a function of sexual projection. We argue that sexual projection can be problematized through cognitive interferences, changes in the ‘intentional arc’, and modifications in the subject’s ‘body schema’. Our approach further highlights the importance of considering the ‘existential situation’ of patients with ED. We close by reflecting briefly on some of the implications of this phenomenological framework for diagnosis and treatment of ED.

In a recent paper, Dennis Whitcomb argues that omniscience is impossible. But if there cannot be any omniscient beings, then God, at least as traditionally conceived, does not exist. The objection is, roughly, that the thesis that there is an omniscient being, in conjunction with some principles about grounding, such as its transitivity and irreflexivity, entails a contradiction. Since each of these principles is highly plausible, divine omniscience has to go. In this article, I argue that Whitcomb's argument, if sound, has several unacceptable consequences. Among others, it implies that nobody knows that someone has knowledge, that, for most of us, all of our beliefs are false, and that there are no truths. This reductio all by itself provides sufficient reason to reject the argument. However, I also provide a diagnosis of where precisely the argument goes wrong. I argue that Whitcomb's crucial notion of grounding actually covers two distinct relations and that the principle of transitivity is true only for cases in which one of these relations holds rather than both of them.

In his wonderfully wise and witty, sharp and subtle Where the Conflict Really Lies, Alvin Plantinga suggests, among many other things, that beliefs to the effect that this or that has been designed1 are typically basic, i.e. that they are not held on the basis of arguments. For instance, upon noticing a watch that lies on the heath, one may form, without engaging in any form of argument, the belief that it displays design (i.e. that ‘its parts are framed and put together for a purpose’, to use an expression from William Paley’s famous discussion). Basic design beliefs aren’t only about human-made artefacts. Upon observing the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature, one may form, as Darwin confessed he often did,2 without engaging in any form of reasoning, the belief that those items display design. Plantinga maintains not only that design beliefs are typically basic, but also that they can be, and very often in fact are, properly basic, i.e. that there is nothing improper, irrational or otherwise epistemically untoward in holding design beliefs in the basic way. Design beliefs align, in this respect, with perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs and beliefs about other minds, that typically are also held in the basic way, and very often properly so. Now when exactly is a basic belief properly basic? Plantinga’s theory of warrant provides, roughly, the following answer: A basic belief is properly basic when it has warrant in the basic way. And a belief has

Are we living in an age of unreason? And what to do about it? Can we combat unreason? We discuss situations in which one may presume to be confronted with unreasonable behavior by an interlocutor: fallacies, changing rules of the game, shifting to some other type of dialogue, and abandonment of reasonable dialogue. We recommend ways that could be helpful to obtain a return to reason. These possibilities lead us to a moderately optimistic conclusion.

A link between mental disorder and freedom is clearly present in the introduction of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). It mentions “an important loss of freedom” as one of the possible defining features of mental disorder. Meanwhile, it remains unclear how “an important loss of freedom” should be understood. In order to get a clearer view on the relationship between mental disorder and (a loss of) freedom, in this article, I will explore the link between mental disorder and free will. I examine two domains in which a connection between mental disorder and free will is present: the philosophy of free will and forensic psychiatry. As it turns out, philosophers of free will frequently refer to mental disorders as conditions that compromise free will and reduce moral responsibility. In addition, in forensic psychiatry, the rationale for the assessment of criminal responsibility is often explained by referring to the fact that mental disorders can compromise free will. Yet, in both domains, it remains unclear in what way free will is compromised by mental disorders. Based on the philosophical debate, I discuss three senses of free will and explore their relevance to mental disorders. I conclude that in order to further clarify the relationship between free will and mental disorder, the accounts of people who have actually experienced the impact of a mental disorder should be included in future research.

In some criminal cases a forensic psychiatrist is asked to make an assessment of the state of mind of the defendant at the time of the legally relevant act. A considerable number of people seem to hold that the basis for this assessment is that free will is required for legal responsibility, and that mental disorders can compromise free will. In fact, because of the alleged relationship between the forensic assessment and free will, researchers in forensic psychiatry also consider the complicated metaphysical discussions on free will relevant to the assessment. At the same time, there is concern about the lack of advancement with respect to clarifying the nature of the forensic assessment. In this paper I argue that, even if free will is considered relevant, there may be no need for forensic researchers to engage into metaphysical discussions on free will in order to make significant progress. I will do so, drawing a parallel between the assessment of criminal responsibility on the one hand, and the medical practice of obtaining informed consent on the other. I argue that also with respect to informed consent, free will is considered relevant, or even crucial. This is the parallel. Yet, researchers on informed consent have not entered into metaphysical debates on free will. Meanwhile, research on informed consent has made significant progress. Based on the parallel with respect to free will, and the differences with respect to research, I conclude that researchers on forensic assessment may not have to engage into metaphysical discussions on free will in order to advance our understanding of this psychiatric practice. © 2010 The Author(s).

Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of a “replicability crisis” in the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. Researchers have made progress identifying statistical and methodological causes of the crisis. However, the social structure of science is also to blame. In the fields affected by the crisis, nobody is explicitly responsible and rewarded for doing confirmation and replication work. This article makes the case for a social structural reform to address the problem. I argue that we need to establish a reward system that supports a dedicated group of confirmation researchers and formulate a proposal that would achieve this.

The study of presumptions has intensified in argumentation theory over the last years. Although scholars put forward different accounts, they mostly agree that presumptions can be studied in deliberative and epistemic contexts, have distinct contextual functions (guiding decisions vs. acquiring information), and promote different kinds of goals (non-epistemic vs. epistemic). Accordingly, there are “practical” and “cognitive” presumptions. In this paper, I show that the differences between practical and cognitive presumptions go far beyond contextual considerations. The central aim is to explore Nicholas Rescher’s contention that both types of presumptions have a closely analogous pragmatic function, i.e., that practical and cognitive presumptions are made to avoid greater harm in circumstances of epistemic uncertainty. By comparing schemes of practical and cognitive reasoning, I show that Rescher’s contention requires qualifications. Moreover, not only do practical and cognitive presumptions have distinct pragmatic functions, but they also perform different dialogical functions (enabling progress vs. preventing regress) and, in some circumstances, cannot be defeated by the same kinds of evidence. Hence, I conclude that the two classes of presumptions merit distinct treatment in argumentation theory.

Robert Fogelin has argued that in deep disagreements, resolution cannot be achieved by rational argumentation. In response, Richard Feldman has claimed that deep disagreements can be resolved in a similar way to more everyday disagreements. I argue that Feldman’s claim is based on a relatively superficial notion of “resolution” of a disagreement whereas the notion at stake in Fogelin’s argument is more substantive. Furthermore, I argue that Feldman’s reply is based on a particular reading of Fogelin’s argument. There is an alternative reading, which takes the central concern to be the role of common ground in argumentation. Engaging with this version of Fogelin’s argument is also a worthwhile endeavour., Robert Fogelin a soutenu que dans les désaccords profonds, on ne peut pas obtenir une resolution par une argumentation rationnelle. En réponse, Richard Feldman a affirmé qu’on peut résoudre des désaccords profonds de la même manière que les désaccords quotidiens. Je soutiens que l’affirmation de Feldman est basée sur une notion relativement superficielle de «résolution» d’un désaccord alors que la notion en jeu dans l’argument de Fogelin est plus substantielle. En outre, j’affirme que la réponse de Feldman se fonde sur un type particulier d’interprétation de l’argument de Fogelin. Il existe une interprétation alternative, dont la préoccupation centrale est le rôle du terrain d'entente dans l'argumentation. S'engager avec cette version de l'argument de Fogelin est également un effort valable.

Strong notions of free will are closely connected to the possibility to do otherwise as well as to an agent’s ability to causally influence her environment via her decisions controlling her actions. In this paper we employ techniques from the causal modeling literature to investigate whether a notion of free will subscribing to one or both of these requirements is compatible with naturalistic views of the world such as non-reductive physicalism to the background of determinism and indeterminism. We argue that from a causal modeler’s perspective the only possibility to get both requirements consists in subscribing to reductive physicalism and indeterminism.

Knowledge defeat occurs when a subject knows that p, gains a defeater for her belief, and thereby loses her knowledge without necessarily losing her belief. It’s far from obvious that externalists can accommodate putative cases of knowledge defeat since a belief that satisfies the externalist conditions for knowledge can satisfy those conditions even if the subject later gains a defeater for her belief. I’ll argue that virtue reliabilists can accommodate defeat intuitions via a new kind of error theory. I argue that in cases where the subject holds dogmatically onto her belief in the face of an apparent defeater, her belief never qualified as knowledge, since the belief was not gained via an exercise of her epistemic virtues. In cases where the subject suspends her judgment upon receiving the putative defeater her original belief might have qualified as knowledge, but crucially, in such cases knowledge is lost due to loss of belief, rather than due to the epistemic force of the defeater. Therefore, knowledge defeat isn’t a genuine phenomenon even though there are no cases where a subject knows what she originally believed after receiving the putative defeater.

Some disagreements seem to be persistent: they are, pretty much, immune to persuasive argumentation. If that is the case, how can they be overcome? Can argumentation help us? I propose that to overcome persistent disagreements through argumentation, we need a dynamic and pluralistic version of argumentation. Therefore, I propose that argumentation, more than a tool that uses persuasion to change the mind of the counterpart, is a toolbox that contains persuasion, deliberation, negotiation, and other dialogical strategies that can be used to reach an agreement., Certains désaccords semblent persistants: ils sont, à peu près, à l'abri de l'argumentation persuasive. Si tel est le cas: comment les surmonter? L'argumentation peut-elle nous aider? Je proposerai que, pour surmonter les désaccords persistants par l'argumentation, nous avons besoin d'une version dynamique et pluraliste de l'argumentation. Par conséquent, je proposerai que l'argumentation, plus qu'un outil qui utilise la persuasion pour changer l'esprit de la contrepartie, est une boîte à outils qui utilise la persuasion, la délibération, la négociation et d'autres stratégies de dialogue pour parvenir à un accord.

When engaging in social interaction, people rely on their ability to reason about unobservable mental content of others, which includes goals, intentions, and beliefs. This so-called theory of mind ability allows them to more easily understand, predict, and influence the behavior of others. People even use their theory of mind to reason about the theory of mind of others, which allows them to understand sentences like Alice believes that Bob does not know about the surprise party'. But while the use of higher orders of theory of mind is apparent in many social interactions, empirical evidence so far suggests that people do not use this ability spontaneously when playing strategic games, even when doing so would be highly beneficial. In this paper, we attempt to encourage participants to engage in higher-order theory of mind reasoning by letting them play a game against computational agents. Since previous research suggests that competitive games may encourage the use of theory of mind, we investigate a particular competitive game, the Mod game, which can be seen as a much larger variant of the well-known rock-paper-scissors game. By using a combination of computational agents and Bayesian model selection, we simultaneously determine to what extent people make use of higher-order theory of mind reasoning, as well as to what extent computational agents can encourage the use of higher-order theory of mind in their human opponents. Our results show that participants who play the Mod game against computational theory of mind agents adjust their level of theory of mind reasoning to that of their computer opponent. Earlier experiments with other strategic games show that participants only engage in low orders of theory of mind reasoning. Surprisingly, we find that participants who knowingly play against second- and third-order theory of mind agents apply up to fourth-order theory of mind themselves, and achieve higher scores as a result.

The paper focuses on conflicts about an already negotiated compromise, taking as its example a debate in Dutch parliament about the approval of the Paris Agreement on climate change of 2015. It deals with a variety of worries that opponents of approval may advance and the arguments in its defense thus invited. It concludes with a profile of dialogue providing reasonable options for those involved in such a conflict.

Intersectionality theory explores the peculiar disadvantages that arise as the result of occupying multiple disadvantaged demographic categories. Addressing intersectionality theory through quantitative methods has proven difficult. Concerns have been raised about the sample size one would need in order to responsibly tease out evidence for the claims of intersectionality theorists. What is more, theorists have expressed concern about our ability to formulate novel intersectional hypotheses in a non-ad-hoc manner. We argue that simulation methods can help address these, and other, methodological problems, because they can generate novel hypotheses about causal dependencies in a relatively cheap way, and can thus guide future empirical work. We illustrate this point using models which show that intersectional oppression can arise under conditions where social groups are disadvantaged in the emergence of bargaining norms. As we show, intersectional disadvantage can arise even when actors from all social categories are completely identical in terms of preferences and abilities. And when actors behave in ways that reflect stronger intersectional identities, the potential for disadvantage increases. As we note, this exploration illustrates the usefulness of idealized models to real-world inquiry.

The purpose of this paper is to show the pervasive, though often implicit, role of arguments in negotiation dialogue. This holds even for negotiations that start from a difference of interest such as mere bargaining through offers and counteroffers. But it certainly holds for negotiations that try to settle a difference of opinion on policy issues. It will be demonstrated how a series of offers and counteroffers in a negotiation dialogue contains a reconstructible series of implicit persuasion dialogues. The paper is a sequel to van Laar and Krabbe (2017), in which we showed that for some differences of opinion it may be reasonable to shift from persuasion dialogue, aimed at a resolution of the difference on the merits, to negotiation dialogue, aimed at compromise, whereas in the present paper we show that such a shift need not amount to the abandonment of argumentation. Our main aim in this paper as well as in the previous one is to contribute to the theory of argumentation within the context of negotiation and compromise formation.

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.

The premise of this two-part theme issue is simple: the cognitive sciences should join the rest of the life sciences in how they approach the quarry within their research domain. Specifically, understanding how organisms on the lower branches of the phylogenetic tree become familiar with, value and exploit elements of an ecological niche while avoiding harm can be expected to aid understanding of how organisms that evolved later (includingHomo sapiens) do the same or similar things. We call this approach basal cognition. In this introductory essay, we explain what the approach involves. Because no definition of cognition exists that reflects its biological basis, we advance a working definition that can be operationalized; introduce a behaviour-generating toolkit of capacities that comprise the function (e.g. sensing/perception, memory, valence, learning, decision making, communication), each element of which can be studied relatively independently; and identify a (necessarily incomplete) suite of common biophysical mechanisms found throughout the domains of life involved in implementing the toolkit. The articles in this collection illuminate different aspects of basal cognition across different forms of biological organization, from prokaryotes and single-celled eukaryotes—the focus of Part 1—to plants and finally to animals, without and with nervous systems, the focus of Part 2. By showcasing work in diverse, currently disconnected fields, we hope to sketch the outline of a new multidisciplinary approach for comprehending cognition, arguably the most fascinating and hard-to-fathom evolved function on this planet. Doing so has the potential to shed light on problems in a wide variety of research domains, including microbiology, immunology, zoology, biophysics, botany, developmental biology, neurobiology/science, regenerative medicine, computational biology, artificial life and synthetic bioengineering.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: conceptual tools and the view from the single cell’.

Discussions of the function of early nervous systems usually focus on a causal flow from sensors to effectors, by which an animal coordinates its actions with exogenous changes in its environment. We propose, instead, that much early sensing was reafferent ; it was responsive to the consequences of the animal's own actions. We distinguish two general categories of reafference—translocational and deformational—and use these to survey the distribution of several often-neglected forms of sensing, including gravity sensing, flow sensing and proprioception. We discuss sensing of these kinds in sponges, ctenophores, placozoans, cnidarians and bilaterians. Reafference is ubiquitous, as ongoing action, especially whole-body motility, will almost inevitably influence the senses. Corollary discharge—a pathway or circuit by which an animal tracks its own actions and their reafferent consequences—is not a necessary feature of reafferent sensing but a later-evolving mechanism. We also argue for the importance of reafferent sensing to the evolution of the body-self , a form of organization that enables an animal to sense and act as a single unit. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: multicellularity, neurons and the cognitive lens’.

List (2014, 2019) has recently argued for a particular view of free will as a higher-level phenomenon compatible with determinism. According to List, one could refute his account by showing that determinism at the physical level implies the impossibility of doing otherwise at the agential level. This paper takes up that challenge. Based on assumptions to which List's approach is committed, I provide a simple probabilistic model that establishes the connection between physical determinism and the impossibility of doing otherwise at the agential level that is needed to refute free will as a higher-level phenomenon.

Group living is of benefit to foraging individuals by improving their survival, through passive risk dilution by sheer numbers and through increasingly more active processes, ranging from cue transmission to alarm calling. Cue transmission of information within a group cannot easily be tracked in the field, but can be studied by modelling. An unintentional visual cue can be given by a fleeing action, and when it occurs in the visual field of an individual, can by contagion incite it to flee as well, making such a cue functional in anti-predator warning. The visual field is limited not only by morphology, causing a blind angle at the back, but also by behaviour. For instance, foraging with the head down can cause an extra “blind” angle in front for cues from other individuals, changing an unobstructed frontal visual field to a split lateral shape. The questions of the present study are: how do visual fields, in terms of their size and blind angles, influence survival of individuals in a group through their effect on non-attentional reception of cues to danger among group members after attentional detection of a predator, and how can we quantify this? We use an agent-based spatially explicit model to investigate the effect of contagious fleeing after detection of predators on survival rate. This model is a bottom-up model of foraging agents in a simple environment, where only assumptions about basic competences are made. We vary the size and the shape of the visual field (lateral, with the additional frontal “blind” angle, versus a frontal continuous view), the group size, the movement probability, and the style of movement (regular movement or start-stop movement) in residential groups. We devise a measure for the transmission rate and we measure the length of the transmission chains. We find that, as expected, in a residential group, a larger visual field enhances survival rate. Moreover, a lateral field is more effective than a frontal field of the same total size because it increases the field of vision and therefore the non-attentional reception of visual cues about danger during, for instance, foraging, for all but the largest visual fields. This is demonstrated by the higher transmission rates and longer chains of transmission for lateral fields. Better transmission for lateral visual fields results in more synchronized fleeing behaviour. As long as the visual field is large enough, having a blind angle in front does not detract from sufficiently effective transmission. These findings should be taken into account in empirical studies of vigilance in groups of foraging animals.

We study wireless ad-hoc networks from an agent-based perspective. In our model agents with different strategies such as being selfish, tit-for-tat or battery-based compete and cooperate. If only different levels of selfishness are allowed then being selfish is clearly the dominant strategy. However, introduction of more advanced strategies allows to some extent to combat selfishness. In particular we present a battery-based approach and a hybrid of battery-based and tit-for-tat approaches. The findings give hope that the introduction of widely available ad-hoc networks might at some point be possible. Even when users are given full control of their devices, effective strategies allow for the networks overall to be effective and feasible.

This paper provides complementary evidence for the interpretation offered by Grellard, according to which Oresme defends an active model of perception. It does so by tracing the roots of this model beyond the perspectivist model in geometrical optics and Avicenna to Augustine. The focus of the paper is on the possibility of error in the perceptual process.

Prepublication peer review should be abolished. We consider the effects that such a change will have on the social structure of science, paying particular attention to the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists. We evaluate these changes from the perspective of epistemic consequentialism. We find that where the effects of abolishing prepublication peer review can be evaluated with a reasonable level of confidence based on presently available evidence, they are either positive or neutral. We conclude that on present evidence abolishing peer review weakly dominates the status quo.

Social contract theorists often take the ideal contract to be the agreement or bargain individuals would make in some privileged choice situation (i.e., an ‘original position’). Recently, experimental philosophers have explored this kind of decision-making in the lab. One rather robust finding is that the exact circumstances of choice significantly affect the kinds of social arrangements experimental subjects (almost) unanimously endorse. Yet prior work has largely ignored the question of which of the many competing descriptions of the original position subjects find most compelling. This paper aims to address this gap, exploring how attractive experimental subjects find various characterizations of these circumstances of choice. We find evidence suggesting that no one choice situation can fulfill the role that social contract theorists have hoped it would play. We also find that, contrary to what some prominent social contract theorists have expected, there is no robust relationship between an individual’s ranking of distributive principles and their ranking of various descriptions of the original position. In conclusion, we discuss the broader implications of these results for political philosophy.

Negotiation is not only used to settle differences of interest but also to settle differences of opinion. Discussants who are unable to resolve their difference about the objective worth of a policy or action proposal may be willing to abandon their attempts to convince the other and search instead for a compromise that would, for each of them, though only a second choice yet be preferable to a lasting conflict. Our questions are: First, when is it sensible to enter into negotiations and when would this be unwarranted or even fallacious? Second, what is the nature of a compromise? What does it mean to settle instead of resolve a difference of opinion, and what might be the dialectical consequences of mistaking a compromise for a substantial resolution? Our main aim is to contribute to the theory of argumentation within the context of negotiation and compromise formation and to show how arguing disputants can shift to negotiation in a dialectically virtuous way.

According to robust virtue epistemology, the difference between knowledge and mere true belief is that in cases of knowledge, the subject’s cognitive success is attributable to her cognitive agency. But what does it take for a subject’s cognitive success to be attributable to her cognitive agency? A promising answer is that the subject’s cognitive abilities have to contribute to the safety of her epistemic standing with respect to her inquiry, in order for her cognitive success to be attributable to her cognitive agency. Call this idea the contribution thesis. The author will argue that the contribution thesis follows naturally from virtue epistemological accounts of knowledge, and that it is precisely the contribution thesis that allows the virtue epistemologist to deal with a wide variety of objections. Nevertheless, the principal aim of this paper is to argue that virtue epistemological theories of knowledge that are committed to the contribution thesis are ultimately untenable. There are cases of knowledge where the subject’s cognitive abilities do not improve the safety of the subject’s belief.

Despite being one of the major figures in late medieval thought and being the subject of numerous studies, certain topics concerning the Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) remain in need of further investigation. One of these is an aspect of his theory of cognition: his account of sense perception. It is our aim in this study to systematically look at his scattered remarks on the topic and make a number of suggestions as to the nature of his thought on how we come to know external things. It is not our purpose to offer a comprehensive account of his theory of cognition. Our focus in this article is on his account of perception and the specific claim that Nicholas develops a model whereby reason operates together with the senses in perceptual experience. Despite being tentative our claim is grounded on suggestions found in the scholarship on Cusanus; but these suggestions remain quite vague and in need of exploration. In this article, we closely examine the textual evidence and develop our claim based on this examination. In order to substantiate it, we proceed as follows: first, we consider the core theses on perception in several of Nicholas’ works. Second, we bring these elements together and propose a reading of how perception is rational according to Cusanus. Despite being an academic outsider and employing terminology in a way that sometimes obstructs interpretive access, our paper shows that Nicholas is well-acquainted with the different traditions in the philosophy of perception, especially perspectivist optics and medieval Augustinianism. In addition, and as the result of the role he attributes to reason in our experience of the world, Cusanus occupies an important place in the history of the development of theories of perception.

This paper briefly discusses some of David Bohm’s views on mind and matter and suggests that they allow for a stronger possibility for conscious free will to influence quantum dynamics than Henry Stapp’s approach.

Brette criticizes the notion of neural coding as used in neuroscience as a way to clarify the causal structure of the brain. This criticism will be positioned in a wider range of findings and ideas from other branches of neuroscience and biology. While supporting Brette's critique, these findings also suggest the need for more radical changes in neuroscience than Brette envisions.

The article defends the no‐harm principle as an intuitively plausible and a common‐sense way to justify individual emitters’ duties to take more radical steps in the fight against climate change. The appearance of climate change as requiring large‐scale collective action should not lead us astray with respect to the fundamental moral nature of the problem: individual emitters who knowingly sustain and foster the carbon intensive ways of acting also bear personal moral responsibility for the foreseeable climate‐related harm and acquire in line with the no‐harm principle a direct personal duty to contribute to the efforts of preventing the harm. The article examines more closely the so‐called collectivistic approach, according to which emitters’ responsibilities are primarily collective, and argues that without individualistic grounds of emitters’ personal moral responsibility for the harm the collectivistic approach fails to provide unstructured emitters with sufficient reason to act together and fulfil their correlative duty of effective harm prevention. The article argues that since an emitter's personal moral responsibility warrants others to expect her personal engagement in the efforts of effective harm prevention and can justify blame if she fails, identifications of personal responsibility may also significantly increase unstructured emitters’ collective capability of remedying the climate crisis.

Sweet Analytics, ‘tis thou hast ravish'd me,Bene disserere est finis logices.Is to dispute well logic's chiefest end?Affords this art no greater miracle?(Christopher Marlow, Doctor Faustus, Act 1, ...