{"title":"Intercorporeality and the Problem of Other Minds","authors":"Valentina Cuccio","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00660-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00660-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper develops an embodied account of the problem of other minds. I argue that our capacity to recognize others, and to be recognized by them, as individuals capable of subjective experience and knowledge, is rooted in a pre-reflective intersubjectivity, articulated through Merleau-Ponty’s notion of intercorporeality. On this view, the body plays a twofold role. At a basic level, social understanding arises through bodily attunement: in perceiving others’actions, our bodies simulate their experiences, thereby generating a corporeal mode of understanding. At a second level, the body contributes to the construction of meaning, as suggested by data on the embodiment of language and, specifically, on the embodiment of metaphors. This twofold role of the body is clarified through the case of schizophrenia. Reframing the problem of other minds in embodied terms carries epistemological implications. If the recognition of others as epistemic agents is rooted in bodily self-experience, disturbances of embodiment undermine the very conditions of epistemic relatedness.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"223 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Problem of Other-Awareness","authors":"Melina Garibović","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00655-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00655-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the problem of other minds. Although there was once near consensus that there is in fact no problem of knowledge about others, that is no longer so clear. This paper introduces a problem about our awareness of others. By isolating and drawing on features of two familiar problems about other minds—epistemological and conceptual—I point to a problem about other minds that, unlike these other formulations of the problem, shows it to be unique. An upshot of this is that the topic of other minds, or “other-knowledge,” is as deserving of its own investigation as the topic of self-knowledge has proven to be in philosophy. I begin by drawing on phenomenology, in which philosophers have had a different orientation toward the problem of others. Some phenomenologists, I argue, ask about what sort of awareness is involved in the basic relation we stand in to others, where this is understood to be different from the basic relation we stand in to the non-mental world. This problem captures two features of the <i>topic</i> of other minds that I claim are unique: mediation and asymmetry.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"203 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Be Realists About Artifact Kinds?","authors":"Tim Juvshik","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00659-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00659-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There’s been much debate about whether artifact kinds have real essences or if they are merely conventional kinds. Several proposals have been advanced that aim to give accounts of artifact kinds that satisfy the conditions for real kinds, but a concerted evaluation of their merit hasn’t yet been offered, which this paper provides. I survey realist commitments, and argue realists are primarily motivated by mind-independence, while considering four realist accounts of artifact kinds. I then give a twofold argument against accepting realist accounts of artifact kinds. First, I criticize the underlying motivation of realism as unjustified. Second, I argue that the realist accounts fail to satisfy their own requirements or can’t maintain a principled distinction between real and nonreal kinds. The realists either need to radically revise our ordinary views of artifact kinds or reject the reality of artifact kinds. I conclude that we shouldn’t be realists about artifact kinds.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"295 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dolores García-Arnaldos, Concha Martínez-Vidal, Christopher Ranalli
{"title":"Naturalism: Deep Disagreement or Metalinguistic Negotiation?","authors":"Dolores García-Arnaldos, Concha Martínez-Vidal, Christopher Ranalli","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00654-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00654-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Drawing on the notions of deep disagreement and metalinguistic negotiation, we develop a new interpretation of the debate between scientific naturalism and liberal naturalism over the idea of naturalism. We argue that recent revisions of the debate suggest that the common perception of this as a case of metalinguistic negotiation is misleading. We trace this misperception back to the different ways in which scientific naturalism and liberal naturalism use the term ‘naturalism.’ Once this difference is considered, their seemingly contradictory claims on this issue can apparently be reconciled. It turns out to be a remarkably consequential metalinguistic negotiation over whether the term ‘naturalism’ should be reinterpreted or replaced for the purposes of positive philosophical theorizing. This interpretation explains the genuine disagreement that led scientific naturalism and liberal naturalism to engage in this debate and illuminates the broader meta-philosophical convictions that underlie each of their positions. Finally, we analyze how the development of the principle of charity acts as a mediating argumentative tool in disagreements.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"453 - 473"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12136-025-00654-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Explanatory Role of Norms: A Naturalist Approach to the Value-Ladenness of the Social World","authors":"Thodoris Dimitrakos","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00653-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00653-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines the dilemma of value-ladenness, which suggests that either the social world is inherently value-laden, requiring normative concepts to explain human actions and thoughts (anti-naturalism), or norms lack explanatory role, equating the social with the natural world (naturalism). The first horn implies a methodological gap between the social and natural sciences and risks representing humans as causally idiosyncratic, while the second risks ending up in relativism. My strategy is to treat normative propositions as constitutive principles in empirical research, retaining the explanatory role of norms without presupposing any methodological uniqueness for the social sciences qua social. The contribution of the present paper lies primarily in the philosophy of the social sciences. My argument, in brief, is this: if we take for granted the role of the functional a priori in empirical inquiry, and if we understand norms based on Anscombe’s notion of direction of fit, then the dilemma of value-ladenness can be dissolved.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"475 - 500"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wisdom, Open-Mindedness, and KK-Failure","authors":"Oushinar Nath","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00657-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00657-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Wise agents are characteristically open-minded. In this paper, I discuss why that is the case. Central to my argument is the notion that open-mindedness is an inquiring attitude. A standard thought about inquiring attitudes is that they entail ignorance—if <i>S</i> is inquiring into a question <i>q</i>, then <i>S</i> doesn’t know its answer <i>p</i><sup><i>q</i></sup>. This, however, doesn’t sit well with some of our intuitions about open-mindedness; for, as I shall show, there are instances of open-mindedness where <i>S</i> knows that <i>p</i><sup><i>q</i></sup> and yet is justified in inquiring into <i>q</i>. I explain that such instances are best explained in terms of KK-failure, i.e. failing to know that one knows, and more specifically a sort of KK-failure that emerges out of <i>S</i>’s sensitivity to unawareness. I argue that a wise agent too is in a similar state of KK-failure in relation to the body of knowledge that makes her wise, and it’s precisely because of this that a wise agent remains characteristically open-minded.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"529 - 547"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12136-025-00657-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Panpsychist Perspectives on Free Will: Compatibilism and Libertarianism, and Constitutive and Non-constitutive Panpsychism","authors":"Tobias A. Wagner-Altendorf","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00656-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00656-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Panpsychism is the unorthodox view that mentality is a fundamental and ubiquitous trait of reality. Although a clear minority position, panpsychist positions have experienced a renewed interest, starting (not only) from Chalmers’ (1995) proposal to take consciousness “as a fundamental feature of our world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time.” Various forms of the panpsychist thesis recently have been elaborated, including constitutive and non-constitutive (i.e., emergentist) types. However, the implications of panpsychist conceptions for related philosophical fields so far have only sparsely been explored. The present paper aims at clarifying the implications of panpsychist theories for the topic of free will: given a panpsychist ontology—should free will in the compatibilist or the libertarian sense be assumed? It turns out that, whereas constitutive (micro-)psychism is perfectly consistent with the compatibilist view of freedom and determinism, emergentist (non-constitutive) panpsychism might be the best metaphysical conception to systematically legitimize a libertarian account of freedom.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"239 - 249"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Corporations Deserve Moral Consideration?","authors":"Anand Jayprakash Vaidya","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00651-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00651-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, I examine Kenneth Silver’s (<i>Journal of Business Ethics</i>, <i>159</i>, 253-265, 2019) defense of the claim that it is possible to attribute moral standing to corporations because they are sentient. I argue that corporations have moral standing, but not in virtue of being sentient. Following others in the philosophy of mind and the theory of wellbeing, I argue that consciousness is not normatively significant in the way that sentience theorists claim; sentience is not necessary for moral standing. Instead, I argue that computational intelligence tied to preferences is the ground of moral standing. Corporations are intelligent systems with preferences, and therefore, corporations deserve moral standing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"40 4","pages":"581 - 598"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145469247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What’s Wrong With Swearing?","authors":"Abida Malik, Shane Ryan","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00652-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00652-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper makes the case that a prima facie wrongness of swearing is due to the wrongness of disrespecting another person’s autonomy. This disrespect is manifested in the imposition of swearing and inhibiting reflective capacities, which is a consequence of swearing. In order to make this case, we start by defining and contrasting swearing with nearby concepts, as well as reviewing existing literature on swearing’s wrongness, which has tended to focus on offensiveness. Dual process theory is set out as it forms an important component of our account of swearing’s wrongness. In order to explain this wrongness, however, we first have to explain the wrongness of imposition and how this is connected to dual process theory. We explain how swearing evokes Type 1 cognitive processes in hearers and the threat this poses to autonomy. We elaborate on the boundaries of the wrongness of swearing by consideration of some final examples.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"429 - 452"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12136-025-00652-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Long Does a Time Last?","authors":"Robert E. Pezet","doi":"10.1007/s12136-025-00650-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12136-025-00650-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The paper begins by examining an intuitive complaint against the possibility of instantaneous existence. This complaint has force under the condition that dynamic time has metaphysical priority over existence, whereby existence is limited in reality by the vicissitudes of time. Standard conceptions of present reality construe it as instantaneous. Accordingly, the complaint against instantaneous existence extends to present reality under its forceful conditions. A large proportion of the paper is then devoted to exploring how present reality might support lasting existents, through temporally extended presents and bifurcated time, finally arriving at an account of duration as a monadic property of existents that can survive external changes. Yet, whether the resultant position is tenable relies heavily on whether instantaneous existents can plausibly be refused admittance to reality. Whilst the sketch of a proposal is suggested, the demand for adequately subverting the need of such existents is advanced as a future challenge.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":"41 2","pages":"369 - 392"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147985138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}