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    • “The Tyrant’s Headache” in Sci Phi Journal

      by Eric Schwitzgebel

      According to a broad class of materialist views, conscious experiences — such as the experience of pain — do not supervene on the local physical state of the being who is having those conscious experiences. Rather, they depend in part on the past evolutionary or learning history of the organism (Fred Dretske) or on what is “normal” for members of its group (David Lewis). These dependencies are not just causal but metaphysical: The very same (locally defined) brain state might be experienced as pain by one organism as as non-pain by another organism, in virtue of differences in the organisms’ past history or group membership, even if the two organisms are molecule-for-molecule identical at the moment in question.

      Donald Davidson’s Swampman example is typically used to make this point vivid: You visit a swamp. Lightning strikes, killing you. Simultaneously, through incredibly-low-odds freak quantum chance, a being who is molecule-for-molecule identical to you emerges from the swamp. Does this randomly-congealed Swampman, who lacks any learning history or evolutionary history, experience pain when it stubs its toe? Many people seem to have the hunch or intuition, that yes, it would; but any externalist who thinks that consciousness requires a history will have to say no. Dretske makes clear in his 1995 book that he is quite willing to accept this consequence. Swampman feels no pain.

      But Swampman cases are only the start of it!

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    • Analyses of the Philosophical Gourmet Report

      As most readers probably know, the 2014 Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), a “Ranking of Graduate Programs in Philosophy in the English-Speaking World,” was recently published; the rankings purport to be “primarily measures of faculty quality and reputation.”  Mitchell Aboulafia has done a series of postings analyzing the 2014 PGR.  If Aboulafia’s analyses are accurate, which they seem to me to be, they show why the rankings produced by the 2014 PGR ought not to be relied on.

      The postings:

      Some might think that some of these problems are at least partially the result of the September Statement.  However, the editors of the PGR made the decision to publish the report and seem to stand by it, so the reasons behind the problems (whatever they might be) seem beside the point.

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    • An Open Letter Concerning the Autonomy of Macedonian Universities

      The following open letter in support of the autonomy of the universities of the Republic of Macedonia was originally drafted by Todd May for the purposes of being circulated and gaining additional signatories. It is being published here with the names of its current subscribers.  Those who wish to add their signatures are encouraged to do so in the comments. Institutional affiliations are provided solely for the purposes of identification of the individual signers and do not express any official position of the named institutions. 

      Those seeking more information about the situation or who wish to discuss it should read and comment on the post below this one. 

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    • Macedonian Universities in Crisis

      I have been asked to pass along the following appeal—first circulated privately and signed by representatives of a student organization and several faculty, including noted philosopher Katerina Kolozova—concerning the situation of universities in Macedonia.

      The Macedonian government is moving to institute a set of external, government administered examinations that would become the condition for granting of any university-level degree. Billed as an anti-corruption measure, this initiative is being criticized by the authors of the letter below as having the effect of ending the autonomy of the country's universities (guaranteed in the Macedonian constitution) and subjecting their core academic functions to direct political control. Similar sentiments are reflected in the following news stories about significant protests which took place last week in Skopje (here and here)—the largest in a month of protests. 

      The letter is reproduced below. Those with more knowldge of the situation are encouraged to add their voices in the comments. 

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    • Conceptual genealogy for analytic philosophy – Part II.3: The historicity of philosophical concepts

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      This is the fourth and for now final installment of my series of posts on conceptual genealogy. Part I is here; Part II.1 is here; Part II.2 is here; a tentative abstract of 2 years ago, detailing the motivation for the project, is here. 

      I now discuss the five main features of the historicist conception of philosophical concepts that motivates and justifies the method of conceptual genealogy for philosophical concepts. In a sense, this is the backbone of the  paper and of the whole project, so I'm particularly interested in feedback from readers now.

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      We are now in a better position to describe in more detail what I take to be the five main characteristics of the historicist conception of philosophical concepts that I defend here, borrowing elements from Nietzsche’s conception of genealogy and Canguilhem’s concept-centered historical approach. In short, these are (they will each be discussed in turn subsequently):

      1. Historical change
      2. Superimposition of layers of meaning
      3. Contingency
      4. Multiple lines of influence
      5. Connected to (extra- or intra-philosophical) practices and goals

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    • Directory of Philosophers from Underrepresented Groups in Philosophy

      …is online! It merges the different lists hitherto available with specific underrepresented groups within philosophy and for different areas into a single directory. From the description:

      The UPDirectory publicizes information about philosophers who are members of traditionally underrepresented groups in philosophy. The purpose of the directory is to provide an easy-to-use resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the work of philosophers who belong to underrepresented groups within the discipline. […]

      For the purposes of the UPDirectory, traditionally underrepresented groups in philosophy include women philosophers, black philosophers, Asian philosophers, Latina/o and Hispanic Philosophers, Indigenous/Native philosophers, LGBTQ philosophers, and philosophers with a disability, among others. […] Inclusion in the directory is primarily a matter of self-entry.

      So, philosophers belonging to one or more of these underrepresented groups: go add yourselves! And everybody else: go check it out! Make sure you use this amazing resource next time you plan a conference, an edited volume etc.

    • Conceptual genealogy for analytic philosophy – Part II.2: Canguilhem on genealogy of scientific concepts

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      This is the third installment of my series of posts with different sections of the paper on conceptual genealogy that I am working on. Part I is here; Part II.1 is here; a tentative abstract of 2 years ago, detailing the motivation for the project, is here. 

      I now turn to Canguilhem as an author exemplifying the kind of approach I have in mind when I speak of 'conceptual genealogy'. The main difference is that Canguilhem focused on scientific concepts (especially from biology and medicine), whereas I am articulating a methodology for the investigation of philosophical concepts (though of course, often the line between the two groups will be rather blurry). The same caveat of the previous installment on Nietzsche applies: this is a very brief and inevitably superficial discussion of Canguilhem's ideas, on which there is obviously much more to say.

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      The thesis of the relevance of historical analysis for philosophical theorizing rests crucially on a historicist conception of philosophical concepts, namely that they are not (or do not correspond to) a-historical essences or natural kinds. However, ‘historicism’ can have different meanings (Beiser 2011, Introduction), so let me now spell out in more detail in what sense I defend a historicist conception of philosophical concepts.

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    • Conceptual genealogy for analytic philosophy – Part II.1: Nietzschean Genealogy

      By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      This is the second installment of my series of posts with different sections of the paper on conceptual genealogy that I am working on. Part I is here; a tentative abstract of 2 years ago, detailing the motivation for the project, is here. 

      I now present some of the basics of Nietzschean genealogy which will then be central for my general project. The goal here is thus not to offer a thorough account of Nietzsche's thought on the matter, obviously (a lifelong project!), but it should still be an accurate presentation of some aspects of it. If that is not the case, please do let me know! (I rely mostly on Geuss' and Leiter's interpretations.) Feedback in general is more than welcome.

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      The mundane, commonsensical sense of genealogy is typically related to the idea of vindication, i.e. of validation of one’s authority through the narrative of one’s origins. This is particularly conspicuous in historical disputes for political power within the traditional monarchic model: a contestant has a claim to the throne if she can prove to be a descendent of the right people, namely previous monarchical power-holders. In such cases, a genealogy is what Geuss (1994, 274) describes as ‘tracing a pedigree’, a practice as old as (Western?) civilization itself. The key idea is the idea of transmission of value: a person with noble ancestry inherits this status from her ancestors.

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    • Schmitt not so Decisionist

      Nothing new to say about Schmitt here, but I think there is something to be said for clarifying in what ways Schmitt is not ‘Schmittian’ in some senses that influence some people. This issue came up in a teaching context recently and I think refers to a widespread tendency, which I believe can be tackled without hopefully falling into assault and battery on a straw man in order to clarify what is distinctive about Schmitt’s contribution.

      The issue is of defining Carl Schmitt as a ‘decisionist’ who regards the question of who exercises sovereignty as arbitrary, as a question which begins and ends with the question who has the force to exercise sovereignty, with no regard for the legitimation of that sovereignty. This is severely one- sided, but does have some basis in some things Schmitt said, particularly in Political Theology, The Concept of the Political, and Crisis in Parliamentary Democracy. The opening of Political Theology and a slightly later in the text quotation from Kierkegaard, with related discussion, is where decisionistic Schmitt seems most apparent. 

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    • Moral Order and Immanent Justice

      by Eric Schwitzgebel

      Let’s say the world is morally ordered if good things come to those who act morally well and bad things come to those who act morally badly.


      Moral order admits of degrees. We might say that the world is perfectly morally ordered if everyone gets exactly what they morally deserve, perfectly immorally ordered if everyone gets the opposite of what they morally deserve, and has no moral order if there’s no relationship between what one deserves and what one gets.

      Moral order might vary by subgroup of individuals considered. Perhaps the world is better morally ordered in 21st century Sweden than it was in 1930s Russia. Perhaps the world is better morally ordered among some ethnicities or social classes than among others. Class differences highlight the different ways in which moral order can fail: Moral order can fail among the privileged if they do not suffer for acting badly, can fail among the disadvantaged if they do not benefit from acting well.

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