Time's arrow and Eddington's challenge

Huw Price (University of Sydney, Australia)

For many years, physicists and philosophers have understood that there is no sign of a fundamental "arrow" or "flow" of time in fundamental physics, and that the very idea of such a thing is problematic, for logical reasons. (How fast would time flow, for example?) Yet the human sense that time passes is so pervasive that many physicists and some philosophers remain convinced that our present physics is missing something. Sir Arthur Eddington, who invented the term "the arrow of time", was one physicist who saw these issues particularly clearly. He opted reluctantly for the view that there is a flow of time, missing from current physics, and he issued a challenge to the opposing view that remains valid to this day. Eddington was wrong about the flow of time, in my view, but his challenge deserves to be better known.

The ontology of natural kinds

Alexander Bird (Bristol University, UK)

Natural science is often concerned with natural kinds: kinds of subatomic particle (e.g. the electron), kinds of chemical element and chemical compound (e.g. hydrogen and water), and kinds of organism (e.g. H. pylori and H. sapiens), for example. But what are kinds themselves? Should kinds themselves be thought of as any kind of thing? How do kinds relate to other things such as the properties that appear in the laws of nature?

Is causation scalar?

Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham, UK)

In his recent book, 'Causation and Responsibility', Michael Moore defends an account of the metaphysics of causation that, he claims, is consistent with various principles of (Western) law. In particular, he defends the claim that causation is 'scalar': it comes in degrees, both in the sense that causation 'fades out' over time, and in the sense that different simultaneous causes (e.g. the striking of the match and the presence of oxygen) 'contribute' to different extents to the effect (the lighting). These alleged aspects of causation are supposed to do some serious work in legal contexts -- in particular, in tort law (via the notion of 'causal apportionment' and in the 'substantial factor' test), as a substitute for the notion of 'intervening causation', and as a determinant of accomplice liability. I argue that not only is there is no available account of causation that recognises scalarity (at least, not of the kind that Moore needs), but that this is no accident: there are insuperable problems for the view that causation is scalar.

The task-relative rationality of human reasoning

In-Rae Cho (Seoul National Univ, Korea)

There have been continuing and serious debates between two apparently conflicting views about the rationality of human reasoning in contemporary psychological studies. One of the two views, initiated by Kahneman and Tversky, is that human reasoning is irrational in the way that people frequently violate the rules of reasoning derived from contemporary logic, probability theory and decision theory. The other is the view, championed by Gigerenzer, that human reasoning is rational in the respect that heuristics actually operative in human reasoning are successful in solving problems of a natural and social world. Although Samuels, Stich and Bishop (2004) recently claimed that both sides do not really have any deep disagreement over the extent of human rationality, I suggest that there are still interesting disagreements between the two sides about how to understand human rationality, and further argue that through sound adjudication of both views and mutual learning from each other, we can reach a more comprehensive and balanced view of human rationality, which may be called the task-relative rationality of human reasoning. In doing so, I'll draw and exploit two important distinctions, one between natural reasoning and artificial reasoning, and the other between descriptive level of human rationality and its evaluative level.

Ruling out that pigs speak fluent French when nobody's looking

Masahiro Yamada (Claremont Graduate University, USA)

You observe a number of Fs and they are all G. You generalize and conclude that all Fs are G. There are many ways in which such inductive generalization can fail. One source of failure is a dependence of an F's being G on its being observed. How can it be reasonable to believe that an F's being G is independent of its being observed? That is, what justified us in thinking that a black raven, say, would have been black even if nobody had observed it? If we never have such justification, we cannot use inductive reasoning at all. There are three main options: we have a posteriori reasons, we have a priori reasons, we need no reasons so long as we have no reason to think that the observed property is observation dependent. The paper explores the advantages and drawbacks of these options.

On Peirce's conception of laws of nature

Hsi-Heng Cheng (National Tsin-Hua University, Taiwan)

Charles Peirce develops a conception of laws of nature which is both realistic and anti-deterministic. In his view, laws of nature govern existent individuals, and chance plays a limited but in-eliminable role in that laws of nature do not absolutely govern existent individuals. I will try to show how we can found the above notion of laws of nature upon Peirce's renovated notions of final and efficient causes, his doctrine of three Universal Categories, and his distinction between "reality" and "existence" as two different modes of being.

Causal structure as a guiding idea in the practice of economic theorizing

Szu-Ting Chen (National Tsin-Hua University, Taiwan)

The main thesis of this paper is that methodological discussion in economics should extend its focus to include not only theory-testing, as at present, but also theory-building, an important topic that is worthy of detailed discussion. In addition, the communication between the theory-building part of theorizing and the theory-testing part of theorizing should also be paid greater attention. Furthermore, this paper also argues that theory-testing should be interpreted in the context of the structuralist rather than the associationist view. And, finally, an example of international trade theory development is provided to illustrate that, instead of being regarded as a deductive-nomological explanation, an economic explanation should be interpreted as a causal structuralist explanation. Key words: deductive-nomological explanation, causal structure, international trade theory, model manipulation, economic law

Mathematical scepticism and entitlement

Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (UCLA, USA)

Satisfiability is an important property of mathematical properties. This paper is concerned with the epistemology of satisfiability, in particular, the question how we can be warranted in accepting the satisfiability of mathematical theories. I will start by addressing the issue indirectly by rehear sing a sceptical argument to the effect that we can never be thus warranted. The sceptical line of reasoning involves a transposition of an argument familiar from mainstream epistemology. While it is maintained that the sceptical argument fails to undermine the warrantability of accepting the satisfia bility of mathematical theories, it is conceded that it does point to a genuine constraint on such warrant, viz. that it has to be non-evidential. I offer an account of warrant for accepting the satisfiability of a theory which satisfies this constraint. The account appeals to entitlement of cognitive project, a non-evidenial notion of warrant recently introduced by Crispin Wright .

A modest mathematical platonism

Hsing-Chien Tsai (National Chung-Cheng University , Taiwan)

Mathematical Platonism is the thesis that mathematical objects are some kind of abstract existence independent of the human mind and practices. However, such a thesis does not have to be a whole sale deal. It is possible for one to make ontological commitment to some mathematical objects but not to others; a relevant observation is that a working mathematician might take as real the mathematical object he is dealing with but does not need to go beyond to take in all other kinds of mathematical objects. This gives room for classifying different kinds of mathematical Platonisms. I shall suggest classifying a mathematical Platonism based on what mathematical object it believes to exist. Moreover, since arguably mathematical objects in finite cardinalities are not problematic, such a classification will be based on mathematical objects in infinite cardinalities. In fact, I will give a spectrum of mathematical Platonisms in which the weakest only commits itself to the existence of the set of natural numbers while the strongest takes as real the class of well-founded sets and, in this spectrum, the bigger the mathematical object, the stronger the corresponding mathematical Platonism. I shall then propose a modest Platonism which will admit the said weakest position but remain, as least temporarily, skeptical to those stronger positions. In supporting this proposal, I will argue that so far, based on what Charles Parsons has done, we can give a clear and persuasive account of mathematical intuition which applies to natural numbers. However, it still remains quite unclear what mathematical intuition involved would be beyond this stage.

Wittgenstein on Godel's incompleteness theorem

Jeong-Il Park (Sookmyung Women's Univ, Korea)

As far as mathematical logic is concerned, the 20th century was the Godel's era. The impacts of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem were so great that the development of logic thereafter cannot be explained without it and the thoughts of the 20th century had been widely influenced and, it might be said, adjusted by it. By the way, we can ascertain that Wittgenstein revealed a peculiar attitude, namely seemingly negative or aggressive positions about Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. As is well known, several philosophers such as Anderson, Dummett, etc, severely criticized Wittgenstein's remarks and thoughts. On the other hand, recently Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam in their "A Note on Wittgenstein's 'Notorious Paragraph' about the Godel's Theorem"(2000), claimed that if "we have discovered a proof of the negation of a Godel's sentence in Principia Mathematica, and PM is consistent", PM will be 'ω-inconsistent' and the original interpretation of "Godel's sentence would have to be given up just as Wittgenstein observed". In spite of their charity about Wittgenstein's 'notorious' remarks, it cannot be claimed, as they confessed, that their reading "exhausts the themes at stake in Wittgenstein's remarks about the Godel's Theorem". The aim of this paper is to throw a light on a appropriate interpretation of Wittgenstein's 'Notorious Paragraph' on the basis of Wittgenstein's remarks about the Godel's Theorem, and on the reasons why he said "My task is, not to talk about (e. g.) Godel's proof, but to by-pass it."

Was Hilbert's foundation of physics (too) metaphysical?

Woosuk Park (KAIST, Korea)

We can witness the recent surge of interest in logical positivism, which has not only improved our understanding of the twentieth century philosophy but also paved a way toward the more fruitful philosophy of science. One thing still unclear is, however, to what extent logical positivism was indebted to David Hilbert. There is no doubt that the leading logical positivists took Hilbert's revolutionary achievement in the foundations of geometry quite seriously. The priority debate between Einstein and Hilbert must never be of their minor concern. Furthermore, Einstein himself paid tribute to Hilbert's axiomatic method as a crucial factor for his theory of general relativity. In view of all this, it seems rather strange why the logical positivists were almost silent about their Hilbertian heritage. Fortunately, we seem to find a clue to understand this mystery in Stoltzner's study of Hahn's and Frank's criticism of Hilbert's project of deepening the foundations as too metaphysical. Starting with this clue, I shall probe the question as to whether Hilbert's foundations of physics was truly too metaphysical. We have every reason to be curious about whether Hilbert's project was also too metaphysical to Schlick, Reichenbech, and Carnap. Friedman's most recent study of Carnap's later logic of science seems to confirm Bernays' claim that Carnap's approach to theoretical terms in science is nothing but an application of Hilbertian axiomatic method. If so, we should be able to appreciate how Carnap appropriated Hilbert's axiomatic method without becoming too metaphysical. For this purpose, I shall examine some of the examples from some of Hilbert's attempts for axiomatizing physical theories. Especially, I want to check whether they already demonstrated (without becoming too metaphysical) how to introduce theoretical terms in science, eo ipso anticipating Carnap's views. Ultimatelely, I shall ask whether Hilbert's project should still look too metaphysical to 21st century philosophers of science.

The metaphysical modesty of conditional accounts of dispositions

Eline Busck Gundersen (University of Oslo, Norway)

Conditional accounts of dispositions are often taken to entail a highly specific, and perhaps downright hostile, way of thinking about dispositions. The aim of this talk is to explore whether this contention is warranted. It will be argued that it is not; the traditional biconditionals connecting disposition ascriptions with appropriate counterfactual conditionals are neutral on a range of important questions about dispositions. The biconditionals can be employed for very different purposes (perhaps with certain adjustments, the details of which merit closer investigation). They do not in themselves settle the question about the order of determination between dispositions and the appropriate counterfactuals. Finally, (appropriate versions of) the biconditionals turn out to be compatible with each of the main views on the metaphysics of dispositions

Knowledge, cognitive dispositions and conditionals

Lars Bo Gundersen (Aarhus University, Denmark)

In a previous paper, I argued for a dispositional account of knowledge. Knowledge, I claimed, is best understood in dispositional terms. If dispositions can be given a conditional analysis, a dispositional account of knowledge can simply be given in terms of a true p-belief that satisfies the conditionals that had p been false, one would not have believed p and had p been true one would still have believed p. These conditionals are, of course, just the two familiar tracking conditionals from Nozick's celebrated tracking theory of knowledge. The feasibility of accounting for dispositions in terms of conditionals has, though, been challenged by so-called ‘masked', ‘mimicked' and (two sorts of) ‘finkish' counterexamples. And interestingly, the classical counterexamples to the tracking theory divide smoothly into four corresponding categories of cognitive masking, mimicking and finkishness). One would therefore expect that findings from discussions of the conditional account of dispositions ? in particular findings from the ongoing discussions of how best to amend this account so as to become less vulnerable to these counterexamples ? will carry over to the discussion of the tracking theory and how best to respond to the counterexample launched against it. In this paper I demonstrate how one particular line of defence of the conditional account of dispositions also provides the means to deal with a wide range of classical counterexamples to the tracking theory.

Before-effect, Zeno causality or no (Known) cause

Chunghyoung Lee (California State University, Fresno, USA / POSTECH, Korea)

In Infinity: An Essay in Metaphysics, Jose Benardete presents three puzzles which he calls (variants of) the ‘paradox of the before-effect.' As the name indicates, Benardete takes the puzzles to be about causation whose lesson is that some effects can happen temporally prior to their causes. John Hawthorne (2000) also takes the puzzles to be about causation but arrives at a different conclusion: they reveal the existence of a ‘surprising' causal relation, i.e., some event being caused by a fusion of many things (even without undergoing change) although it is not caused by any single one of them. A similar conclusion is reached by other philosophers: a thing can interact with a set of many things without interacting with any one of them (Perez Laraudogoitia (2003)) or an event can be caused by many events as such without being caused by any one of them (Yi (2008)). I argue that Hawthorne et. al.'s conclusions are unwarranted. They are no better than Benardete's for they actually imply the existence of before-effects or actions affected by what will happen in the future. Furthermore, they are no better than the alternative conclusion that some events could happen either without any cause or due to some (unknown) causes which are not mentioned in the puzzles. And this alternative is better than the conclusions of Hawthorne et. al.'s and Benardete's in that it gives a simple and uniform treatment to all the three puzzles of Benardete's.

The concept of chance

Toby Handfield (Monash University, Australia)

David Lewis's Principal Principle characterises chance as a kind of epistemic 'trump'. If you know the chance, then you should set your degree of belief to equal the chance, even if you get other admissible evidence. But defining admissibility has proven difficult. In this paper, I examine the proposal that admissibility might be equated with availability. Evidence is admissible if and only if it is available. But what is available might be subject to contextual variability. The resultant concept of chance promises to solve some old problems, and to invite some new ones

The no persistence conditions thesis

Simon Langford (Hannam University, Korea)

Merricks (1998a) argues for a version of what I'll call the no persistence conditions thesis (NPCT). In reply Zimmerman (1998) criticises Merricks 's “identity mysticism” on the grounds that it implies rejection of mereological supervenience. He contends that if mereological supervenience is accepted, NPCT must be false. The purpose of this paper is to develop a version of NPCT consistent with mereological supervenience.

Fundamentality and ideology

Tora Koyama (Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Japan)

Since Quine (1948), metaphysics has been a significant branch of analytic philosophy. In Quinean orthodoxy, metaphysics is about what exists, so the central questions of metaphysics are "existential", and ontology is the basic part of metaphysics. In recent years, however, some metaphysicians urge that metaphysics is not about what exists, but what is fundamental (e.g. Fine (2001), Schaffer (2009), and Sider (2009)). So, in their view, the central questions in metaphysics are "fundamental". Although these metaphysicians use the notion of fundamentality in different senses, the shift from the existential questions to fundamental questions involves changes in metaphysics, or so I will argue. At least, it seems that ideology (in the sense of Quine (1951)) should be taken as another basic part of metaphysics, because it is an ideological matter to answer fundamental questions. Also, there is a related questions: how the fundamentals relate to the non-fudnamentals. I will argue that this should be paid more attention than fundamental questions because it relates to familiar metaphysical notions, such as supervenience or truthmaking.

Chomsky and Wittgenstein against referential semantics

Jinho Kang (Seoul National Univ, Korea)

Many philosophers of language suppose that Chomsky and Wittgenstein have diametrically opposite and mutually incompatible views on the nature of language. I argue that this supposition is mistaken. I first point out that Chomsky's 'critical naturalism' and Wittgenstein's 'grammatical investigations' aim to understand different aspects of natural language, respectively, and accordingly that their views on language are very much compatible with each other. I then show that Chomsky gives a sharp criticism of the currently dominant paradigm in natural language semantics, the referential semantics, and argue that his criticism has striking similarities with Wittgenstein's criticism of the so-called 'Augustinian picture of language' in Philosophical Investigations.

The meaning of disposition ascriptions: a Wittgensteinian approach

Kai-Yuan Cheng (National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan)

Philosophers on all sides of the debate about dispositions agree that there is some connection between disposition ascriptions and conditionals. There is also a wide consensus, however, that the former cannot be analyzed in terms of the latter due to the notable problems of finks and masks. Nonetheless, philosophers have persisted to offer various forms of conditional analyses to overcome those problems. In this paper, I first critically examine some recent conditional attempts, and then offer an alternative account to explain what the link in question may consist in.

The "truth-value links" problem for anti-realism about the Past

Takahiro Yamada (Kyoto University, Japan)

On some branches of science about history, such as paleontology and cosmogony, how can we interpret the scientist's claim? That is the issue related to the realism and anti-realism about the past. To the anti-realists, the sentences about the past can be true only when it has sufficient evidence. On the other hand, realists think that the sentences can be true in virtue of the situation of the world at that time. The anti-realism is suspected to be inconsistent with the so-called "Truth-value links". According to this realist idea, the anti-realism is simply wrong. I want to argue on behalf of the anti-realism, using ideas of Michael Dummett, Crispin Wright, and Bernhard Weiss. Philosophers have often refered to the principle of the "truth-value links" that there is a systematic connection between the truth-values of the sentences which have different tense and are made at different times. Take an example of the systematic connection. The truthvalues of the following two sentences must be quivalent: the sentence "Someone in the class room is pink-haired" uttered at present, and the sentence "One year ago, someone in the class room was pink-haired" uttered after one year. In common sense, people take this principle for granted. Its plausibility stems from the realist's conception of truth that it is fixed timelessly. Anti-realists don't usually accept it. To them, truth-value depends on evidence. However, evidence can occasionally become unavailable as time goes. Therefore, realists argue, while a sentence is now true, it might not be true in the future. I will argue that the principle is too strong. A weaker version of the principle is compatible with, and sufficient for the anti-realism. In interpreting scientific sentences, it is suitable to use this weaker version

Experimental realism and realization

Reuy-Lin Chen (National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan)

This paper discusses Hacking's experimental realism and suggests a concept of realization to help dissolve the issue about realism. I first rephrase Hacking's experimental realism by reconstructing it into one thesis and three arguments. Next, I consider Resnik's criticism. According to an adequate interpretation of Hacking's experimental realism, Resnik's objection failed because of his theory realist position. Nevertheless, there are still two problems with the experimental aspect of experimental realism. They are the pessimistic induction of the experimental science argument and the combination of apparatus argument. Hacking himself responded to my two queries in 2008. I also discuss his responses and argue that they did not satisfy. Then I offer a new perspective on the realism issue by proposing a set of related concepts, including categorization, realization, and the degree of realization. Finally I show that this conceptual scheme may provide a better solution to the two problems and cast new light on the realism issue.

A nominalistic theory of multiple languages and its application to debates on scientific realism

Yasuo Nakayama (Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan)

In Tractatus Wittgenstein presented the standard form of metaphysical realism. His metaphysical realism is based on the following two theses: 1. the world consists of a set of existing elementary facts; 2. the structure of the fundamental language corresponds exactly to the structure of the world. In this study, I propose a different world concept and criticize this kind of metaphysical realism and the scientific realism based on it. My concept of the world is nominalistic and is based on the following three theses: 1. the world exists independent from our epistemic states; 2. the world is dividable and the general extensional mereology (GEM) is applicable to it; 3. we as cognitive and agentive subjects exist in the world as (mereological) parts of it. As the next step, I expand GEM and define GEM with sortal predicates (GEM-SP). Within GEM-SP, objects can be individuated by sortal predicates. For example, atom[F](x) means: x is atomic with respect to F. Thus, atom[human](Peter) means: Peter is an atom as human. Within GEM-SP, we can express: Peter is an atom as human, but he is not an atom as cell and not an atom as molecular. Then, we can distinguish language of elementary physics, language of polymer chemistry, language of cytology, ordinary language, and so on. All these languages deal with one existing world, but they individualize objects in it differently. This is the view of the nominalistic theory of multiple languages. I will describe activities of scientists as activities developing new (scientific) languages and describing the world using them. So far, all scientific disciplines have been established after developing their own language. So there is no unique language that describes everything, although elementary physics is the most fundamental theory with respect to ontology. I this way, I will argue against scientific realism.

Abstract entities and the inference to the best explanation

Shin Kim (Hankuk Univ of Foreign Studies, Korea)

The dollar bill under Agnes's pillow instigated an inference to the existence of the tooth fairy who takes away milk teeth in exchange for the bill. Agnes now infers, nevertheless, the presence of the surrogate fairies?e.g., the parents?when she finds the bill under the pillow. It is inferred that Dorothy suffers from measles on noticing the following: Dorothy has red spots all over the face. A known symptom of measles, viz., if one suffers from measles, then one's face would be covered with red spots, plays an important role in the inference. The reality of the external world is supposedly inferred from the unity of one's sensory experience. Again the supposed fact that the reality of the world external to human experience would best explain the unity of one''s experience plays an essential role in it as well. These inferences are often characterized as follows: The surprising fact, C, is observed; But if A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. C. S. Peirce's above characterization of abduction is the topic of the presentation. First, I shall explicate Gilbert Harman's rendition of abduction: Observation is the evidence that best explains it. I shall focus on the so-called 'inference to the best explanation'. In my explication of IBE, I rely on Peter Lipton(1991 & 2004), within which IBE is described as the "inference to the loveliest [live-option] explanation". We are to infer, according to Lipton that a live-option explanatory hypothesis is true on the ground that if true it would provide the most understanding of the observed phenomena than any other live-option explanatory hypotheses?i.e., the hypothesis is the loveliest explanation. The loveliness of an explanatory hypothesis is measured by the amount of understanding it provides; and, I shall argue that understanding is but a kind of causal information. I shall then try to answer the questions over the reason why loveliness of the live-option explanations is the key in inferring abstract entities. The response must allow us to explain why some such inference to the loveliest explanation succeed while others fail. I shall argue that the reason is some lack the kind of causal information that may provide understanding for the inferrer(s).

Mind stuffed with red herrings: on aggregates, unities, and James' argument against the “Self-compounding of mental facts”

Itay Shani (Kyung Hee University, Korea)

In a famous passage in chapter six of his Principles of Psychology William James offers an argument against the “self-compounding of mental facts” (SCMF) whose import, many believe, deals a devastating blow to the explanatory aspirations of panpsychism. In the present paper I take a close look at this argument, focusing in particular on its metaphysical commitments and implications. Apart from the fact that the argument was never aimed at panpsychism as such, I show that it rests on highly problematic assumptions which, if followed to their logical consequences, are just as inedible to the majority of contemporary physicalist critics of panpsychism as they are to its present-day supporters. In essence, I show that James' argument against SCMF is based on the assumption that all complex natural phenomena are mere aggregates, hence that there are no intrinsically integrated wholes, or unities ? mental or otherwise. In rejecting the reality of unities, James winds up denying the existence of emergence. However, since emergence is almost universally presupposed in the contemporary debate between physicalists and panpsychists concerning the nature of consciousness (the disagreement between the parties corresponds to the question as to whether emergence is ‘radical' or ‘mild'), it follows that a naive employment of James' the argument, as a critique leveled by physicalists against panpsychism, is counterproductive and even self-defeating.

How can functionalism support the extended mind hypothesis?

Young E Rhee (Kangwon National Univ, Korea)

The extended mind hypothesis contends that our cognition and mind can extend beyond the bodily boundary to environment. The extended cognition hypothesis seems to be compatible with standard functionalism, according to which it can be realized in a wide range of distinct material bases. Recently, Sprevak(2009) argues that though the functionalism entails the extended cognition hypothesis and the version of extended cognition hypothesis entailed by functionalism is more radical than the version of the extended cognition hypothesis that Clark and Chalmers(1998) suggest, the former is simply false and the latter is unsustainable. In this paper I shall argue against Sprevak's pessimistic diagnosis that two versions of extended cognition hypothesis are sustainable.

How is it possible to represent non-existent entities?
(Toward a solution to the puzzle about the intentionality of consciousness)

Youngjin Kiem (Kyonggi Univ, Korea)

How does the mind represent entities that do not really exist in the world? In other words, how can objectless representation be possible? Philosophers often call it “the problem of intentionality”. Considering that we do not yet have a general, substantial theory that can solve the puzzle in an adequate way, we are definitely perplexed by that problem. But I think that the predicament associated with the problem is somewhat misguided and, even, exaggerated. Viewed in this way I try to present a solution to the puzzle. My suggestion is that objectless representation is possible when the mind is consciously directed upon a linguistic symbol in the natural language that is intended to designate the presumed entity in question. I defend the thesis, chiefly by means of rearranging some distinct ideas in the theories of intentionality that we already have.

Degrees of freedom and life science

Masaki Ichinose (Tokyo University, Japan)

I will discuss the metaphysical issue of how to understand human freedom by considering suggestions that life science offers from three aspects, namely, fitness, genes, and brain states. First, I will introduce these suggestions of biology with mentioning evolutionary psychology, issues of criminal gene, and Libet's experiments. Second, I will propose my strategy to discuss the problem of freedom. Particularly, I will focus upon the distinction between the past tense and the future tense as to freedom, and also assert that we should take degrees of freedom into account seriously. That is to say, I suppose that metaphysics should raise the quantitative question of how much free we are in each case. Then, finally, I will apply my strategy to those suggestions of biology in order to evaluate those as philosophical arguments which are supposed to clarify the issue of freedom. It might result in criticizing those, but by which we could, hopefully, find a desirable direction to understand human freedom better.

Human incapacities and their metaphysical significance

Huw Price (University of Sydney, Australia)

There are several things I am unable to do: e.g., to play the tuba, to fly under my own steam, or to travel faster than the speed of light. As Einstein showed us, not all of these incapacities are my own fault: at least in thelast case, I can blame physics. Another thing I can't do is to affect the past. Who's to blame in this case? And what lessons does this case have for our understanding of the relation between physics and modal metaphysics? I aim to answer the first of these questions, and to say something about the second.

Why are there no time-travellers?: from a presentist point of view

Takeshi Sakon (Osaka University, Japan)

In this paper, I shall consider why it is actually impossible to travel in the fourth dimension from a presentist point of view. Presentism is the view that only the present exists whereas the past and future are unreal. Assuming that presentism holds true, I shall first introduce the debate over whether presentism is compatible with time-travel. Following this, I shall distinguish between the minimal version and the rich version of presentism, arguing that the latter gives us a better motivation for presentism whereas the former falls short of giving a reason to prefer presentism to four-dimensionalism, an anti-presentist view that the past, present and future are ontologically on par. Finally, I shall argue that the rich version of presentism is incompatible with time-travel while the minimal version allows presentists to accept time-travel. Hence, if we support the rich version of presentism, we must reject time-travel as a metaphysical impossibility

How to Tell a Propositional-Attitude-Eliminating Story on Cognition without Eliminating Contents?

Yingjin Xu (Fudan University, China)

Abstract Intentionally inexistent entities are typically composed of propositional attitudes (PAs) and contents. According to standard eliminativism, PAs employed in everyday discourse cannot be scientifically vindicated and hence require elimination operation. And the elimination of contents, as they believe, needs to follow that of PAs. By contrast, in the standard psycho-functionalistic framework, both the PAs and contents need to be scientifically vindicated. So both positions, competing with each other notwithstanding, assume that there cannot be a joint position endorsing both the elimination thesis (on PAs) and the vindication thesis (on contents). However, what we want to defend is just this joint position, which will be further fleshed out via the Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System, which exhibits how the inter-transformability among non-PA-involving mental representations can be implemented under the constraints of rationality.