{"title":"Scientific progress: normative, but aimless","authors":"Finnur Dellsén","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00264-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00264-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Does science have any aim(s)? If not, does it follow that the debate about scientific progress is somehow misguided or problematically non-objective? These are two of the central questions posed in Rowbottom’s Scientific Progress. In this paper, I argue that we should answer both questions in the negative. Science probably has no aims, certainly not a single aim; but it does not follow from this that the debate about scientific progress is somehow misguided or problematically non-objective.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44204-025-00264-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143553934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Replies to critics","authors":"Jun Otsuka","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00260-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00260-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This is the author’s reply to the critics in the book symposium on <i>Thinking about Statistics: The Philosophical Foundations</i> (Routledge 2023).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143553935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bioconservatism, enhancement counsellors, and love drugs: commentary on Gordon","authors":"Alexandre Erler","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00262-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00262-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This commentary on Emma Gordon’s book <i>Human Enhancement and Well-Being</i> explains why, despite my basic agreement with her overall position on the strength of bioconservative objections to enhancement, my thinking differs from hers regarding some aspects of her analysis. I focus in particular on her critique of the hyperagency argument, the authenticity argument, and the inequality argument against enhancement. I then proceed to discuss, in turn, her remarks on enhancement counsellors and on the enhancement of loving relationships, highlighting some issues which I think are worthy of further clarification and exploration. These include the degree to which enhancement counsellors should act as “gatekeepers” when it comes to accessing enhancements, how their role would relate to that of medical professionals, and how exactly some of Gordon’s desiderata should be applied to the enhancement of loving relationships.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44204-025-00262-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143533198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rule-following, I-we sociality, and solitary language","authors":"Refeng Tang","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00254-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00254-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The commentary focuses on McDowell’s understanding of rule-following and language use, to which Cheng is explicitly sympathetic. According to McDowell, Wittgenstein’s discussions of following a rule imply that rule-following is social, that is, dependent upon interaction with other people. But Wittgenstein seems to allow the possibility of solitary rule-following. McDowell’s main reason for insisting on the sociality of rule-following is that following a rule is linguistic and language use is essentially social. But Wittgenstein’s relevant remarks seem to allow the possibility of non-linguistic rule-following, which leaves room for the possibility of non-linguistic solitary rule-following. It can be objected that, despite the possibility of non-linguistic solitary rule-following, linguistic rule-following is essentially social, for the reason that language is essentially social. But there seems to be no further reason to insist on the sociality of language, if the possibility of solitary rule-following is allowed. Moreover, pace McDowell, the Gadamerian conception of <i>I-we</i> sociality seems to be congenial to the possibility of solitary language, which in turn supports the possibility of solitary linguistic rule-following.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143521674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coastlines, consequence, and collapse","authors":"Christopher Blake-Turner","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00256-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00256-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. Stei assumes that the correctness of a logic is a matter of the relation between the formal validity of a logical theory and extra-theoretic validity. I reject the assumption, on the grounds that it’s not clear that extratheoretic validity can be determined independently of formal validity. I formulate instead <i>quietist logical pluralism</i>, which is quietist with respect to the nature of extra-theoretic validity and its relation to formal validity. Because of this, quietist logic pluralism needs a different correctness criterion for logic: correctness is a matter of a logic’s having normative upshot for deductive reasoning. I argue that this approach has the advantage of resisting the collapse of logical pluralism into monism. In particular, I suggest that deductive reasoning has two distinct roles, one with respect to the coherence of our attitudes and another with respect to how our attitudes are based on one another. I give two different normative principles that correspond to these roles; doing so requires abandoning the idea that normative bridge principles are universally quantified over all logics. That idea has been inherited from MacFarlane, but it’s not clear why the pluralist should accept it, as long as she can avoid giving principles that are ad hoc. By tying the principles to crucial roles of deductive reasoning, I aim to avoid both ad hockery and collapse.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143527626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Against phenomenalism","authors":"Brian Cutter","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00255-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00255-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this commentary, I raise four objections to the view defended in Michael Pelczar’s book, <i>Phenomenalism: A Metaphysics of Chance and Experience</i>. First, I challenge his claim that physical things are identical to possibilities for experience even if there turns out to be some categorical reality underlying these possibilities. Second, I argue that Pelczar’s phenomenalism cannot accommodate the existence of some unobservable entities that we have good scientific reason to accept. Third, I argue that his view threatens to lead to massive indeterminacy about what the physical world is like. Fourth, I argue that phenomenalism fares much worse than its rivals with respect to the theoretical virtue of nomological parsimony, the ideal of keeping the fundamental laws simple.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143513410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In defense of Frankfurtian wholeheartedness—comments on Chen Yajun’s Frankfurt’s concept of identification","authors":"Yuanfan Huang","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00258-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00258-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper responds to Chen Yajun’s critique in “Frankfurt’s Concept of Identification.” Frankfurt is well-known for defining free will as second-order volitions that an agent fully endorses wholeheartedly. Chen, however, argues that Frankfurt’s concept of wholeheartedness is problematic for two reasons. First, it fails to offer a clear endpoint in the appeal to higher-order desires to resolve conflicts among second-order desires. Second, wholeheartedness sets an unreasonably high bar for acting freely, as one can still act freely even in a state of halfheartedness or ambivalence. In response, Chen proposes his theory of weak identification, which he claims has certain advantages over Frankfurt’s view. I argue that Frankfurt can address the issue of arbitrariness and that Chen misinterprets Frankfurt’s concept of wholeheartedness. Furthermore, I argue that Chen’s theory faces significant challenges.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143489555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evidential Pluralism and accounts of establishing","authors":"Michael Wilde","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00252-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00252-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In <i>Evi</i><i>dential Pluralism in the Social Sciences</i>, Yafeng Shan and Jon Williamson do a great job of clarifying, motivating, and defending the commitments of Evidential Pluralism. In this commentary, I will show that one of their clarifications commits Evidential Pluralism to a particular account of establishing. And I will argue that a non-committal account of establishing would better promote the main message of the book.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44204-025-00252-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143480918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Publisher Correction: Internalist reliabilism in statistics and machine learning: thoughts on Jun Otsuka’s Thinking about Statistics","authors":"Hanti Lin","doi":"10.1007/s44204-025-00251-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s44204-025-00251-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":93890,"journal":{"name":"Asian journal of philosophy","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143396515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}