THEORIAPub Date : 2024-02-12DOI: 10.1111/theo.12513
Yuchen Guo
{"title":"Acting and pretending","authors":"Yuchen Guo","doi":"10.1111/theo.12513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12513","url":null,"abstract":"What is the nature of the kind of behaviour English speakers call “acting”? A popular strategy is to say that acting is a kind of pretence, and onstage actors pretend to do and say what the character does and says. This paper aims to reject this “pretence theory of acting”. To do so, first, I introduce several counterexamples showing that actors do not engage in pretending but still enact their characters; second, I argue that the reasons in favour of the pretence theory of acting are not persuasive; finally, I argue that the pretence theory of acting can lead to a misunderstanding about acting.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"98 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139767302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2024-02-10DOI: 10.1111/theo.12512
Peter Baumann
{"title":"What's a(t) stake? On stakes, encroachers, knowledge","authors":"Peter Baumann","doi":"10.1111/theo.12512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12512","url":null,"abstract":"According to subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI), whether S knows that <i>p</i> depends not only on the subject's epistemic position (the presence of a true belief, sufficient warrant, etc.) but also on non-epistemic factors present in the subject's situation; such factors are seen as “encroaching” on the subject's epistemic standing. Not the only such non-epistemic factor but the most prominent one consists in the subject's practical stakes. Stakes-based SSI holds that two subjects can be in the same epistemic position with respect to some proposition but with different stakes for the two subjects so that one of them might know the proposition while the other might fail to know it. It is remarkable that the notion of stakes has not been discussed much in great detail at all so far. This paper takes a closer look at this notion and proposes a detailed, new analysis. It turns out that there is more than one kind of stakes, namely event-stakes, knowledge-stakes and action-stakes. I discuss several issues that even plausible notions of stakes raise and propose solutions.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"277 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139767312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.1111/theo.12508
Finn Collin, Per Durst-Andersen
{"title":"Reductivism versus perspectivism versus holism: A key theme in philosophy of science, and its application to modern linguistics","authors":"Finn Collin, Per Durst-Andersen","doi":"10.1111/theo.12508","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12508","url":null,"abstract":"We use recent developments within philosophy of science and within certain strands of linguistic research to throw light on each other. According to Ronald Giere's perspectivist philosophy of science, the scientific understanding of reality must proceed along different, mutually irreducible lines of approach. Giere's proposal, however, leaves unresolved the problem of how to integrate the ever-growing multitude of highly diverse scientific accounts of what is, after all, one and the same world. We propose a technique for the alignment of different perspectives that will permit cross-perspectival explanation, and thus allow for a more holistic picture of reality to emerge. With respect to modern linguistics, however, Giere's perspectivism merely legalises a de facto state of affairs, as this discipline displays the peaceful coexistence of a multitude of different theoretical perspectives. Still, this makes it all the more important to show how the different aspects of language picked out by these different perspectives combine to form one single complex reality. During our investigation, a largely overlooked type of reduction within linguistics comes to light, prevalent in classical as well as current work within speech act theory and politeness theory. We suggest how a more holistic understanding of language can be attained through our technique for integrating different perspectives.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138826374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-12-17DOI: 10.1111/theo.12509
Keunchang Oh
{"title":"A developmental logic: Habermas's theory of social evolution","authors":"Keunchang Oh","doi":"10.1111/theo.12509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12509","url":null,"abstract":"In the paper, I first consider how his theory of social norms is connected to his theory of social evolution by examining the importance of learning in his theory of both social norms and social evolution. Then I turn to David Owen and Amy Allen's critiques of Jürgen Habermas. My aim is to develop their critique of Habermas by elucidating an important but neglected distinction between the developmental logic and the developmental dynamics in Habermas's theory of social evolution. Drawing on this distinction, I claim that Habermas's theory is problematic in that he underestimates the importance of the developmental dynamics. By introducing the distinction between individual learning and social learning, I also question his account of progress as accumulative experience of learning. This is because, unlike cumulative culture at the level of phylogenesis, individuals ontogenetically experience a kind of non-cumulative social learning. Unlike cumulative culture, each individual has to undergo a kind of non-cumulative social learning. The problem is that Habermas conceives the learning process too narrowly such that learning does not guarantee social evolution.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138826450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-12-06DOI: 10.1111/theo.12504
Stefan Rinner
{"title":"Direct reference and the Goldbach puzzle","authors":"Stefan Rinner","doi":"10.1111/theo.12504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12504","url":null,"abstract":"So-called Neo-Russellians, such as Salmon, Braun, Crimmins, and Perry, hold that the semantic content of ‘<math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0001\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0001.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>n</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ n $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> is <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0002\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0002.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>F</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ F $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math>’ in a context <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0004\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0004.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>c</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ c $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> is the singular proposition <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0005\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0005.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mo>⟨</mo>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ Biglangle $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math>o, P<math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0006\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0006.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mo>⟩</mo>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ Bigrangle $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math>, where <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0007\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0007.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>o</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ o $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> is the referent of the name <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0008\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0008.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>n</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ n $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> in <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0009\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0009.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>c</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ c $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math>, and <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0010\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0010.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>P</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ P $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> is the property expressed by the predicate <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0011\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0011.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>F</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ F $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math> in <math altimg=\"urn:x-wiley:theo:media:theo12504:theo12504-math-0012\" display=\"inline\" location=\"graphic/theo12504-math-0012.png\" overflow=\"scroll\">\u0000<semantics>\u0000<mrow>\u0000<mi>c</mi>\u0000</mrow>\u0000$$ c $$</annotation>\u0000</semantics></math>. This is also known as the Neo-Russellian theory. Using truth ascriptions with names designating propositions, such as ‘Goldbach's conjecture’, in this paper, I will argue that, together with highly plausible principles regarding a priori knowledge, the N","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"111 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138565815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-11-23DOI: 10.1111/theo.12503
Ryo Chonabayashi
{"title":"Moral explanation of moral judgements","authors":"Ryo Chonabayashi","doi":"10.1111/theo.12503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12503","url":null,"abstract":"“The wrongness of Albert's action causally explains why Jane judged that his action was wrong”. This type of causal moral explanation has been extensively discussed in the recent metaethical literature. This paper motivates the following claims about this type of moral explanation. First, a typical defence of this type of moral explanation suggested in the literature does not work because it predicts inaccurate modal information. Second, focusing on different aspects of the ways moral judgements are generated provides better chances for the defender of this type of moral explanation. Third, the strategy mentioned in the previous point leads us to the following alternative evaluative explanation: The property of being a harmful action explains a recognisable pattern of moral judgements observed in the relevant empirical studies. One crucial implication the paper alludes to is a localist approach to the debates concerning moral realism: We should consider each moral property's ontological genuineness separately, referring to specific empirical findings that are particularly relevant to the target moral property in question. Such a localist approach can provide solid resources for realists to respond to various anti-realist challenges, such as an influential evolutionary debunking argument.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1111/theo.12506
Tim Juvshik
{"title":"On the social nature of artefacts","authors":"Tim Juvshik","doi":"10.1111/theo.12506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12506","url":null,"abstract":"Recent work in metaphysics has focused on the nature of artefacts, most accounts of which assume that artefacts depend on the intentions of their individual makers. Artefacts are thus importantly different from institutional kinds, which involve collective intentions. However, recent work in social ontology has yielded renewed focus on the social dimensions of various kinds, including artefacts. As a result, some philosophers have suggested that artefacts have a distinctly social dimension that goes beyond their makers' individual intentions but which stops short of the collective intentionality of institutional kinds. I aim to combine these insights into an account of artefacts that involves disjunctive conditions of mind-dependence: Artefacts can <i>either</i> depend on the singular intentions of their makers <i>or</i> they can depend on the collective acceptance of particular social groups. Whether the first or second disjunct is satisfied depends on the artefact's context of creation. I'll argue that this applies not to <i>artefact kinds</i> but to <i>individual artefacts</i>. I then consider two objections to my view based on Robinson Crusoe cases and show how my account allows us to fit artefacts into a taxonomy of social kinds.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"53 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138524055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1111/theo.12507
Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi, Antonio Benítez-Burraco
{"title":"A philosophical analysis of the emergence of language","authors":"Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi, Antonio Benítez-Burraco","doi":"10.1111/theo.12507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12507","url":null,"abstract":"There is a research programme in linguistics that is founded on describing language as an emergent phenomenon. This paper clarifies how the core concept of emergence is deployed in this emergentist programme. We show that if one adopts the weak understandings of the concept of language emergence, the emergentist programme is not fundamentally different from the other non-emergentist research programmes in linguistics. On the other hand, if one adopts the stronger understandings of emergence then the programme would have a unique character, but at the cost of some corollaries (philosophical, but not only) which the emergentist linguists would seemingly want to avoid. We show that if the emergentists accept those corollaries, the resulting hypothetical emergentist programme would be totally different from the emergentist programme in its present shape. We conclude that the emergentist programme, as it stands, should be either abandoned or reshaped in both theory and methodology.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"65 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138524056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-11-14DOI: 10.1111/theo.12505
Pirooz Fatoorchi
{"title":"On a body-switching argument in defence of the immateriality of human nature","authors":"Pirooz Fatoorchi","doi":"10.1111/theo.12505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12505","url":null,"abstract":"In an earlier paper in <i>Theoria</i>, I discussed an argument based on the idea of “soul-switching” that attempted to undermine the immaterialist account of human beings. The present paper deals with a parity argument against that argument in which the idea of “body-switching” plays a pivotal role. I call these two arguments, that have been reported by Razi (d. 1210), respectively “the soul-switching argument” and “the body-switching argument”. After some introductory remarks, section 2 of the paper describes the structure of the latter argument. Section 3 considers some philosophical discussions in the ancient, modern, and contemporary eras in which the idea of body-switching (or some similar conception) plays a major role. In the following section 4, some criticisms of the argument are discussed and a general response that is meant to cover a broad range of objections is considered. This paper shows that the body-switching argument reported by Razi is a methodological antecedent of several contemporary arguments in defence of substance dualism.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"47 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138524051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
THEORIAPub Date : 2023-11-14DOI: 10.1111/theo.12502
Jolly Thomas
{"title":"On the criteria of the imitation for the artificial intelligent systems in the moral imitation game","authors":"Jolly Thomas","doi":"10.1111/theo.12502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12502","url":null,"abstract":"To assess the intelligence of machines, Alan Turing proposed a test of imitation known as the imitation game, famously known as the Turing test. To assess whether artificial intelligent (AI) systems could be moral or not, Colin Allen et al. developed a test of imitation in the context of morality, a test known as the Moral Turing Test (MTT), which I will, in this paper, call the moral imitation game. There are arguments against developing any type of MTT or moral imitation game. Rather than developing a moral imitation game, this paper proposes a criterion of imitation for AI systems in the moral scenario. To develop a criterion of imitation, I explore the notion of moral attribution in detail. Within the case of moral attribution, I introduce the subject-ascriber distinction. The notion of moral attribution and the subject-ascriber distinction is employed to address the following questions: (a) how is the assessment in MTT arranged?, (b) what is the role of the interrogator in the MTT?, and (c) what information is to be concealed from the interrogator? The first question deals with the aspect of assessment, the second question deals with the reordering of the role of the interrogator and the third one deals with the concealment aspect of the imitation game. After that, a criterion of imitation for AI systems is put forward. Using the subject-ascriber distinction in moral attribution and David Lewis' Mad Pain and Martian Pain cases, it is argued that the notion of sentience is insignificant for the ascriber for moral attributions.","PeriodicalId":44638,"journal":{"name":"THEORIA","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}