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In contemporary psychology and philosophy, influential theories approach the emotions via their relations to values and evaluations. My aim is to contribute to our understanding of how these evaluative theories in psychology and philosophy relate to one another. I first explain why this presupposes that we make up our minds about the relations between “molecular” and “molar” properties. The rest of my discussion explores some ways of understanding the relation between the molar and the molecular: as a relation of epistemological support, of identity or of the determinabledeterminates type.

A common feature of all standard theories of the laws of nature is that they are ‘absolutist’: They take laws to be either all metaphysically necessary or all contingent. Science, however, gives us reason to think that there are laws of both kinds, suggesting that standard theories should make way for ‘non-absolutist’ alternatives: theories which accommodate laws of both modal statuses. In this paper, we set out three explanatory challenges for any candidate non-absolutist theory, and discuss the prospects of the two extant candidates in light of these challenges. We then develop our own non-absolutist theory, the essentialist DTA account, which combines the nomic-necessitation or DTA account with an essentialist approach to metaphysical modality in order to meet the three explanatory challenges. Finally, we argue that the distinction between kinematical and dynamical laws found in physical theories supports both non-absolutism in general and our proposed essentialist DTA view in particular.

It is widely accepted that necessity comes in different varieties, often called ‘kinds': metaphysical necessity, logical necessity, natural necessity, conceptual necessity, moral necessity, to name but a few – and the same goes for the varieties of possibility. What is usually not fully appreciated, however, is that modal variety is not simply ‘unidimensional': it does not only involve one main variable – kind, whose values are the particular kinds of necessity. Rather, I argue, it is ‘bidimensional', involving two distinct variables – domain and strength. In the first part of the paper, I introduce and develop the proposed bidimensional picture of modal variety, defending it against the common, unidimensional one. In the second part, I consider how the main available accounts of necessities and their relations rely, at least to a significant extent, on the latter picture, pointing out important limitations that they face as a result. I also show how, accordingly, alternative accounts based on a clear and systematic distinction between domain and strength would overcome those limitations. I conclude that, beyond the particular bidimensionalist view defended, our understanding of the modal realm may benefit from more direct debate on whether and how it is multidimensional.

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of how hunger motivates us to seek food and eat. It seems that the way that it feels to be hungry must play some role in it fulfilling this function. We propose that hunger is best viewed as a complex state involving both affective (viz., hedonic) and somatic constituents, as well as, crucially, changes in the way in which the hungry agent’s attention is deployed. We argue that in order to capture the distinctive way in which hunger motivates we need to articulate the relations amongst such components. The resulting account explains how hunger as an aversive affective reaction to a state of need motivates us specifically to eat and not to just to rid ourselves of the unpleasant sensations associated to it. We suggest, however, that there is more than this to the overall affective experience of the hungry agent, because hunger ordinarily facilitates the elicitation of other, positive affective reactions such as interest and appetite, and recruits them to further its function.

The history of developmental biology is interwoven with debates as to whether mechanistic explanations of development are possible or whether alternative explanatory principles or even vital forces need to be assumed. In particular, the demonstrated ability of embryonic cells to tune their developmental fate precisely to their relative position and the overall size of the embryo was once thought to be inexplicable in mechanistic terms. Taking a causal perspective, this Element examines to what extent and how developmental biology, having turned molecular about four decades ago, has been able to meet the vitalist challenge. It focuses not only on the nature of explanations but also on the usefulness of causal knowledge – including the knowledge of classical experimental embryology – for further scientific discovery. It also shows how this causal perspective allows us to understand the nature and significance of some key concepts, including organizer, signal and morphogen. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Past research on folk aesthetics has suggested that most people are subjectivists when it comes to aesthetic judgment. However, most people also make a distinction between good and bad aesthetic taste. To understand the extent to which these two observations conflict with one another, we need a better understanding of people's everyday concept of aesthetic taste. In this paper, we present the results of a study in which participants drawn from a representative sample of the US population were asked whether they usually distinguish between good and bad taste, how they define them, and whether aesthetic taste can be improved. Those who answered positively to the first question were asked to provide their definition of good and bad taste, while those who answered positively to the third question were asked to detail by what means taste can be improved. Our results suggest that most people distinguish between good and bad taste, and think taste can be improved. People's definitions of good and bad taste were varied, and were torn between very subjectivist conceptions of taste and others that lent themselves to a more objectivist interpretation. Overall, our results suggest that the tension Hume observed in conceptions of aesthetic taste is still present today.

In this thesis, I provide an analysis of the causal structure of occurrent emotions understood as complex, episodic and dynamic psychological continuities over time. The broad aim of the analysis is to uncover and theorise the relations between the temporality of emotion episodes–i.e., their having temporal extension, boundaries, trajectories etc.–and their ‘agentiality’–i.e., the aspect under which they are ways, or products of ways, of being active. My main proposal is that emotion episodes, unlike other kinds of affective reaction–such as, e.g., pain, sensory pleasure, physical craving etc.–are not wholly passive phenomena. Although they are elicited–viz., initiated–in us from without–what causes them to persist or unfold over time is an interplay between affective changes and agential cognitive processes–e.g., perceptual attending, imagining, ruminating, anticipating etc. These processes constitute our ‘sustained attentional engagement’ with emotional situations, an affective species of interest-driven attending.

Recently a growing body of literature on the pleasure of giving – also known as 'warm glow feeling' – has emerged in both economics and psychology. As a result, the hypothesis that people may derive a 'warm glow' from their altruistic gift has been construed both as the underlying motive of the generous action of gifting and as a positive side-effect of one's charitable behavior. In this paper, I address two related issues. I first deal with the nature of 'warm-glow effects', that is the nature of the affective states referred to as 'warm glow' that are associated with giving, and then I explore in depth the warm-glow explanation of giving, henceforth ‘warm glow hypothesis'. One of the idea that lies at the core of the warm glow hypothesis is to explain why donors care to make donations despite the personal financial cost involved in the act by appealing to what they experience when they give, that is an emotional benefit, a reward, or to put it more simply, a warm glow. Accordingly, the main purpose of this work is to argue that one cannot simply pass from the observation of warm-glow effects of giving to a warm-glow explanation of why people give without further assumptions regarding the motivations underlying generous actions. This involves both a clarification of the nature of these explanations – as they can, in principle, be deployed to account for any type of prosocial behavior – and an examination of the main arguments given against them. The conclusion I will be inching towards has two parts. First, I argue that a decisive argument to the conclusion that ‘internal reward explanations' are conceptually incoherent is yet to be provided. And second, I contend that even if the warm glow hypothesis turned out to be true – a possibility, which I argue, is worth exploring – it would not warrant the conclusion that all prosocial actions, and in particular charitable donations, are the result of narrow self-interest – by which I mean that it would not follow that people are motivated to help others only by considerations bearing on their own interest.

A number of philosophers have argued in favour of extended simples on the grounds that they are needed by fundamental physics. The arguments typically appeal to theories of quantum gravity. To date, the argument in favour of extended simples has ignored the fact that the very existence of spacetime is put under pressure by quantum gravity. We thus consider the case for extended simples in the context of different views on the existence of spacetime. We show that the case for extended simples based on physics is far more complex than has been previously thought. We present and then map this complexity, in order to present a much more textured picture of the argument for extended simples.

An important task for metaphysicians and philosophers of science is to account for laws of nature – in particular, how they distinguish themselves from ‘mere’ regularities, and the modal force they are endowed with, ‘natural necessity’. Dispositional essentialism about laws (for short: ‘essentialism’) is roughly the view that laws distinguish themselves by being grounded in the essences of natural entities (e.g. kinds, properties). This paper does not primarily concern how essentialism compares to its main rivals – Humeanism and Armstrongeanism. Rather, it distinguishes and comparatively assesses various brands of essentialism – which mainly differ as to where exactly they take laws to find their essentialist sources (e.g. in particular entities, like electrons, or in larger pluralities of entities, or in the world as a whole), and what they take to be the targets of laws, namely what they apply to. Yet, this internal comparison is not unrelated to the more general debate about laws: the main criteria with which I compare these essentialist views concern how they can deal with some of the main objections faced by essentialism in general (the modal status it typically attributes to laws, which some think is too strong; and its alleged incapacity to account for the most 'general' laws, like conservation laws), and how they can keep what is arguably the main intuitive advantage of essentialism over its rivals (the fact that, on this view, things “govern themselves”). Thus, the paper also concerns the relative position of essentialism in the larger debate about laws – ultimately bringing support to it.

Testimonies about aphantasia are still surprisingly rare, more than a century after Galton. It is therefore difficult to understand how a person devoid of (a kind of) imagination actually thinks. In order to outline "what it is like" to be aphantasic, I will start by compiling two qualitative interviews with aphantasics that I will then compare with other testimonies collected in literature and online. The fact that aphantasia is poorly documented may also explain why few philosophers (with the notable exception of Phillips 2014) seem to take this phenomenon seriously – contrary to others phenomena such as blindsight for instance. To redress the balance, the second part of this paper will consider three debates to which aphantasia could contribute.

This Ph.D. dissertation is mainly related to the metaphysics of time and the philosophy of science. It aims to satisfy three main desiderata: (i) to provide an accurate characterization of the intuitive asymmetry between the ‘open future' and the ‘fixed past', (ii) to determine which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the asymmetry, and (iii) to reconcile the asymmetry with our best physics. It argues, in particular, that an ontological characterization of the asymmetry, which can be accommodated by a specific version of the ‘growing block theory' of time, finds some naturalistic support in the causal set approach to quantum gravity.

The thesis argues that a basic ontology of dóxa and appearances (and more in general mental episodes) can be gleaned from a careful analysis of Plato's early dialogues. To this aim, the first part (chapter 1) discusses the main issues concerning Plato's language of dóxa and appearances, both from the linguistic and from the philosophical point of view, and argues that dóxa is best understood as judgement. The second part develops a three-stage argument: chapter 2 argues that dóxa and appearances are for Plato affections (páthe); chapter 3 that affections are for Plato fundamentally relational events; chapter 4 that, therefore, appearances are for Plato fundamentally relational events. The third and last part (chapter 5) investigates Plato's ontology of evaluative appearances (and desire) by focussing on the interplay between the ontology of appearances and the ontology of values (“goods and evils”) as one can extract it from the dialogue Gorgias. The three parts are secluded within a general introduction and conclusions. Four appendices complement the thesis with: a philosophical glossary of mental events; a table of frequencies of terms for mental episodes in the Platonic corpus; a list of all the occurrences of 'phaínomai' and 'dokéo' in the early dialogues; and a semi-formal appendix discussing the logical form of Plato's statements about metaphysical explanations.

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. In particular, I show that these latter two models cannot apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer.

International audience; The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman and Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French and McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on a parallel by French and McKenzie between mathematics and metaphysics to show that the whole field of analytic metaphysics, being useful not only for philosophy but also for science, should continue to exist as a largely autonomous field.

Le Récit de Hayy ibn Yaqzân d'Ibn Sînâ et le Récit de l'Archange empourpré de Suhrawardî mettent en scène la figure de l'ange en tant que médiateur spirituel, entre Dieu et l'homme. La plume philosophique de nos deux auteurs retrace le cheminement spirituel de l'âme humaine, laquelle est guidée par « Le Sage » angélique dans les deux récits. Comment les enseignements du Sage permettent-ils à l'homme d'éviter, puis de dépasser les embuches sur son chemin spirituel, afin d'accéder au monde des Intelligibles ? Nous avons resserré le tissu sémantique qui sous-tend ces textes, afin de mieux cerner cette quête philosophique de la vérité, amour de la Sagesse. De ces deux récits, se dégage la portée philosophique du cheminement spirituel de l'âme humaine dans une double relation verticale entre l'ange et l'homme : le mouvement descendant de l'intelligible vers l'âme humaine visant un mouvement ascendant de celle-ci vers Dieu.

Spacetime functionalism is the view that spacetime is a functional structure implemented by a more fundamental ontology. Lam and Wuthrich have recently argued that spacetime functionalism helps to solve the epistemological problem of empirical coherence in quantum gravity and suggested that it also (dis)solves the hard problem of spacetime, namely the problem of offering a picture consistent with the emergence of spacetime from a non-spatio-temporal structure. First, I will deny that spacetime functionalism solves the hard problem by showing that it comes in various species, each entailing a different attitude towards, or answer to, the hard problem. Second, I will argue that the existence of an explanatory gap, which grounds the hard problem, has not been correctly taken into account in the literature.

As a candidate theory of quantum gravity, the popularity of string theory has waxed and waned over the past four decades. One current source of scepticism is that the theory can be used to derive, depending upon the input geometrical assumptions that one makes, a vast range of different quantum field theories, giving rise to the so-called landscape problem. One apparent way to address the landscape problem is to posit the existence of a multiverse; this, however, has in turn drawn heightened attention to questions regarding the empirical testability and predictivity of string theory. We argue first that the landscape problem relies on dubious assumptions and does not motivate a multiverse hypothesis. Nevertheless, we then show that the multiverse hypothesis is scientifically legitimate and could be coupled to string theory for other empirical reasons. Looking at various cosmological approaches, we offer an empirical criterion to assess the scientific status of multiverse hypotheses.

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the code/semantic model (including ‘super-semantic’ models, natural codes, etc.) and the Gricean/pragmatic model (including neo- and post-Gricean models). I focus on why these two models cannot apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean’. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer (the discussion include natural meaning, probabilistic meaning, sender-receiver games, teleosemantics, speech act theory, speaker-meaning, and ostensive-inferential communication).

Dans cet essai, nous nous attaquons à l'idée reçue selon laquelle la panique consiste simplement en un état où l'on se laisse « dépasser par sa peur ». La panique, selon nous,n'est pas une peur extrême qui pousse nécessairement la personne à des comportements dysfonctionnels,contre-productifs et irrationnels.Au contraire,comme nous allons tenter de le montrer ici, il s'agit d'une émotion à part entière qui a ses propres fonctions cognitives et motivationnelles. Nous analyserons ici la panique comme une réaction face à un danger perçu comme majeur,imminent et sans issue claire,dans le sens où le sujet n'a pas de plan d'action déterminé pour réagir face au danger.La panique implique ainsi un accès particulier à certaines informations ou certains faits – une perception ou appréhension d'un danger et de ses propriétés précises – et c'est en cela qu'elle a une fonction cognitive.Sur le plan motivationnel, nous défendrons l'idée selon laquelle la panique implique des tendances à l'action appropriées à la situation telle qu'elle est perçue.À contre-courant de l'opinion populaire et de celle des philosophes, nous proposerons donc une manière de concevoir la panique comme pouvant être fonctionnelle et ainsi, rationnelle, dans la mesure où cette émotion nous aide à atteindre nos buts étant donné les moyens dont nous disposons. Contrairement à ce nous pourrions penser, dans certaines situations il vaut la peine de paniquer.

Les transhumanistes placent leur espoir dans les technosciences pour affranchir l'être humain de ses limites et le faire entrer dans un processus de modification menant au posthumanisme. Or leur programme d'amélioration soulève des inquiétudes et les critiques à l'encontre des moyens engagés pour repousser les limites de l'être humain pleuvent. Ces peurs sont-elles justifiées ? Les arguments soutenus par les bioconservateurs sont-ils fondés ? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, il s'agira, dans un premier temps, d'examiner et d'expliciter les concepts utilisés par l'une et l'autre partie, puis de confronter les arguments des bioconservateurs (Leon R. Kass, Francis Fukuyama, Michael J. Sandel) à ceux des transhumanistes (Nick Bostrom, Julian Savulescu, Ray Kurzweil) autour de la modification de la nature humaine, de l'anéantissement du corps humain, de la dignité, de la justice et de la quête de la vie bonne Nous démontrerons que ce projet répond finalement à des aspirations profondément humaines.

Cette discussion examine plusieurs facons de comprendre les emotions comme des reactions evaluatives. Il existe un consensus dans les sciences affectives qui veut que les emotions paradigmatiques soient faites de quatre composants : categorisation du stimulus, tendances a l’action, changements corporels et aspect phenomenal. L’article expose les quatre principales theories dans la philosophie contemporaine des emotions et montre qu’elles ont tendance a se focaliser sur l’un ou l’autre des quatre composants des emotions pour expliquer leur nature evaluative. La conclusion est qu’il est possible de rendre compte des emotions comme reactions evaluatives a ces quatre niveaux et que, pour cette raison, les conceptions presentees sont plus complementaires qu’on ne le suppose generalement.

In a recent paper, Tuomas Tahko has argued for a hybrid view of the laws of nature, according to which some physical laws are metaphysically necessary, while others are metaphysically contingent. In this paper, we show that his criterion for distinguishing between these two kinds of laws — which crucially relies on the essences of natural kinds — is on its own unsatisfactory. We then propose an alternative way of drawing the metaphysically necessary/contingent distinction for laws of physics based on the central kinematical/dynamical distinction used in physical theorising, and argue that the criterion can be used to amend Tahko’s own account, but also that it can be combined with different metaphysical views about the source of necessity.

We know, since Descartes (1641), that exercises of sensory imagining (S-imagining) are not purely imagistic: they possess multiple aspects. This much is agreed upon among philosophers but, when the question of the intentionality of S-imaginings arises, agreement seems to unravel. According to the Two Content View (TCV), S-imagining “has two kinds of content, qualitative content and assigned content” (Kung, 2010:632) – e.g., my image of an apple is about both (i) shapes and colors and (ii) about the fact that it is an apple, rather than a perfect imitation thereof. Advocates of TCV claim that the imagistic content does represent something, but it is not enough to individuate the imagining of an A rather than a B (Kung, 2010; Langland-Hassan, 2015; Martin, 2002; Noordhof, 2002; Peacocke, 1985; Tooming, 2018; White, 1990). Some, however, have expressed skepticism about TCV. As Sartre claims, “despite some prejudices […] when I produce in myself the image of Pierre, it is Pierre who is the object of my current consciousness.” (1940/2010:4) The intentional object of our S-imaginings is exhausted by a single content treated in a specific way (Currie & Ravenscroft, 2002; Goldman, 2006; Hutto, 2015; Mulligan, 1999; Soteriou, 2013; Stock, n.d.; Wiltsher, 2016,2019). In the following, (1) I sketch one of the most efficient pleas for the TCV by Peter Langland-Hassan, (2) I give two reasons to doubt the decisiveness of his arguments, and (3) suggest that S-imagining can be captured by the attitude/content distinction.

This chapter explores substantive accounts of emotional phenomenology, in order to see whether it sheds light on key features of emotions. To this end, it focuses on four features that can be introduced by way of an example. Say Sam is angry at Maria’s nasty remark. The first feature relates to the fact that anger is a negative emotion, by contrast with positive emotions such as joy and admiration (valence). The second feature is how anger differs from other emotions such as sadness, fear, and joy (individuation). The third concerns the objects of anger and the sense in which anger discloses the significance of Maria’s remark to Sam (intentionality). Finally, there is anger’s relation to behaviour (motivation). Does focusing on emotional phenomenology encourage specific accounts of these features? This chapter argues that there are reasons to think it does.

The paper presents the first thorough investigation of quantum metaphysical indeterminacy (MI) in the context of the Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (RQM). We contend that the interaction between MI and RQM is mutually beneficial. On the one hand, MI provides a metaphysical framework for RQM that has been neglected in the literature, and that promises to undermine some objections that are often raised against RQM. On the other hand, RQM might serve as an example of fundamental quantum MI.

La présente thèse a une vocation à la fois descriptive et prospective. Descriptive, d'une part, en ce qu'elle entend mettre au jour les fondements juridiques actuels de la responsabilité criminelle tout en déterminant l'étendue des rapports qu'ils entretiennent avec la notion philosophique de libre arbitre. Prospective, d'autre part, en ce qu'elle entend évaluer les chances de survie de ces fondements à la lumière de la nouvelle vision de l'homme qui se dégage des avancées récentes en neurosciences. Nous aurons pour ce faire à soupeser la vraisemblance de deux grandes prophéties concernant l'avenir de la responsabilité criminelle : l'une, que nous qualifierons de « scientiste », prétend que le concept juridique actuel de responsabilité criminelle est voué à tomber en désuétude en raison de son incompatibilité avec notre connaissance du cerveau. L'autre, que nous qualifierons de « légitimiste », prétend que c'est plutôt en modifiant les intuitions populaires en matière de responsabilité que les neurosciences bouleverseront l'édifice pénal. Dans les deux cas, nous découvrirons qu'une erreur de diagnostic quant au fonctionnement juridique et psychologique des jugements de responsabilité conduit à une erreur de pronostic.

In a recent article, Ned Markosian gives an argument against four-dimensionalism understood as the view that time is one of four similar dimensions that constitute a single four-dimensional manifold. In this paper, I show that Markosian attacks a straw man as his argument targets a theory known to be false on empirical grounds. Four-dimensionalism rightly conceived in no way entails that time is identical to space. I then address two objections raised by Markosian against four-dimensionalism rightly conceived.

« Mentalism without Psychologism. Abelard's Dicta as Mental, Objective Entities », in L. Cesalli, P. Emamzadah, F. Goubier, M. Roques (eds.), Ontological Comittment in Medieval Logic (= Medioevo 44) 2020, 17-37. In this paper, I consider an option that, as far as I can tell, is almost a newcomer on the stage2 and, to some extent at least, a quite iconoclastic one. The hypothesis is that dicta are mental, yet objective entities. That view has its roots in the simple intuition that the technical term ‘dictum' has to be taken at face value, namely as referring to an item, whatever it is,3 that depends on a proposition. Furthermore, I will argue that such a dependence does not prevent dicta from possessing the objectivity Abelard wants them to have. The way to conciliate mental dependence with objectivity will be explained on the basis of a (quasi) contemporary account of states of affairs as mental, objective entities. In terms of ontological commitment, then, the claim is that Abelard's propositional semantics commits him to special mental, objective entities that are precisely what propositions say.The paper is divided into three main sections. §1 briefly introduces the Abelardian notion of “what propositions say” (dicta propositionum) and formulate two series of characteristic claims (functional and ontological ones) about dicta; §2 argues for the case of dicta being dependent on mental acts and, more precisely, on what Abelard calls the modus enuntiandi (the mode of stating); §3 is an attempt to assess dicta as products of mental acts; §4, drawing on Carl Stumpf's notion of formation (Gebilde), explains how dicta can be at the same time dependent of mental acts and objective entities.

Dans cette entrée, après une introduction qui servira de cadre à notre discussion (section 1.), nous allons présenter et analyser des définitions du concept « Art ». Nous discuterons brièvement les définitions classiques les plus influentes puis nous nous concentrerons sur les principales définitions contemporaines. Nous verrons pourquoi les définitions classiques sont aujourd'hui considérées comme insatisfaisantes (2.a.), et comment les philosophes, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème ont tenté de pallier leurs défauts. Dans les grandes lignes, le problème principal soulevé à l'encontre des théories classiques est qu'elles cherchent toutes l'essence de l'art dans un trait caractéristique qui serait reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes. Les théories contemporaines répondent à ce problème principalement de quatre façons, comme on le verra dans les sections 2.b à 2.d. Les théories sceptiques (2.b.) défendent qu'il est dès lors impossible de définir l'art – qu'on peut au mieux en donner certains caractères typiques, des airs de famille. Les théories relationnalistes (2.c.) défendent que ce qui fait qu'une chose est de l'art est à trouver en dehors de celle-ci, notamment dans les relations qu'elle entretient avec son contexte de création ou de présentation. Les théories néo-classiques (2.d.) continuent à chercher l'essence de l'art dans un trait caractéristique reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes tout en prenant en comptes les réactions sceptiques ou relationnalistes. Enfin, la théorie du ‘renvoi de la balle' (2.e.) défend que l'on ne peut pas définir l'art mais seulement des sous-catégories comme la musique, la sculpture, les installations, les performances, etc. Nous présenterons les avantages et les inconvénients principaux des théories contemporaines. Nous verrons qu'aucune n'est dénuée de problèmes, expliquant pourquoi il n'existe pas de consensus sur une définition de l'art aujourd'hui. Nous verrons également que – à l'exception d'un certain scepticisme qui jette, semble-t-il, trop vite l'éponge – chacune de ces théories amène, par son originalité, à une compréhension nouvelle et plus profonde de cette notion extrêmement complexe qu'est le concept « Art ».

Eternalism, the view that what we regard locally as being located in the past, the present and the future equally exists, is the best ontological account of temporal existence in line with special and general relativity. However, special and general relativity are not fundamental theories and several research programs aim at finding a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity weaving together all we know from relativistic physics and quantum physics. Interestingly, some of these approaches assert that time is not fundamental. If time is not fundamental, what does it entail for eternalism and the standard debate over existence in time? First, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in string theory entails standard eternalism. Second, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in loop quantum gravity entails atemporal eternalism, namely a novel position in the spirit of standard eternalism.

Leibniz était philosophe, les électrons se repoussent, les hérissons ne parlent pas un mot de latin, 2+2=4, j'ai raté mon bus ce matin : ce sont des faits. Mais sont-ils nécessaires ou contingents : fallait-il qu'il en soit ainsi, ou aurait-il pu en être autrement ? Ce genre de questions, les questions modales, concernent des distinctions (nécessaire/contingent, possible/impossible) qui vont au-delà de ce qui est effectivement vrai ou faux, effectivement le cas ou non. Et pourtant, elles ont du sens et de l'importance pour nous, comme en témoigne la fréquence des notions modales dans nos discours et nos raisonnements philosophiques, scientifiques ou plus ordinaires. Elles n'ont d'ailleurs pas échappé à l'attention des philosophes – d'Aristote à Quine, Lewis et Fine, en passant par Ockham, Leibniz et Kant, par exemple. On peut aborder les modalités sous l'angle épistémologique (Comment savoir ce qui est possible ou impossible ?), logique (À quels axiomes obéissent les raisonnements modaux ?) ou métaphysique (En quoi consistent fondamentalement les modalités ?). C'est principalement la perspective métaphysique que nous adopterons ici, en nous penchant sur les deux questions suivantes. La première – qui fera l'objet de la partie la plus importante – est une question « verticale » : quelles sont les relations entre modalités et réalité ? Par exemple, quand j'affirme qu'il est nécessaire que les hérissons soient des mammifères, est-ce que j'affirme quelque chose sur le monde lui-même ? Je proposerai un tour d'horizon critique des principales réponses possibles : les réponses antiréalistes, réductionnistes, primitivistes et dispositionnalistes. La seconde question – que nous considérerons plus brièvement – est « horizontale ». Nous distinguons intuitivement entre différentes « espèces » de modalités : par exemple, entre les nécessités (ou possibilités) logique, physique et morale. Mais quels rapports entretiennent-elles ? Certaines sont-elles plus « fortes » que d'autres ? Combien sont fondamentales ?

John D. Norton is responsible for a number of influential views in contemporary philosophy of science. This paper will discuss two of them. The material theory of induction claims that inductive arguments are ultimately justified by their material features, not their formal features. Thus, while a deductive argument can be valid irrespective of the content of the propositions that make up the argument, an inductive argument about, say, apples, will be justified (or not) depending on facts about apples. The argument view of thought experiments claims that thought experiments are arguments, and that they function epistemically however arguments do. These two views have generated a great deal of discussion, although there hasn't been much written about their combination. I argue that despite some interesting harmonies, there is a serious tension between them. I consider several options for easing this tension, before suggesting a set of changes to the argument view that I take to be consistent with Norton's fundamental philosophical commitments, and which retain what seems intuitively correct about the argument view. These changes require that we move away from a unitary epistemology of thought experiments and towards a more pluralist position.

Do causes necessitate their effects? Causal necessitarianism (CN) is the view that they do. One major objection—the “monotonicity objection”—runs roughly as follows. For many particular causal relations, we can easily find a possible “blocker”—an additional causal factor that, had it also been there, would have prevented the cause from producing its effect. However—the objection goes on—, if the cause reallynecessitatedits effect in the first place, it would have produced itanyway—despite the blocker. Thus, CN must be false. Though different from Hume’s famous attacks against CN, the monotonicity objection is no less important. In one form or another, it has actually been invoked by various opponents to CN, past and present. And indeed, its intuitive appeal is quite powerful. Yet, this paper argues that, once carefully analysed, the objection can be resisted—and should be. First, I show how its success depends on three implicit assumptions concerning, respectively, the notion of cause, the composition of causal factors, and the relation of necessitation. Second, I present general motivations for rejecting at least one of those assumptions: appropriate variants of them threaten views that even opponents to CN would want to preserve—in particular, the popular thesis ofgroundingnecessitarianism. Finally, I argue that the assumption we should reject is the one concerning how causes should be understood: causes, I suggest, include an element of completeness that excludes blockers. In particular, I propose a way of understanding causal completeness that avoids common difficulties.

I first elaborate a descriptive and evaluative conceptual scheme intended to organize the analysis of any social-scientific framework. The descriptive aspect regards the historical development of ideas of the framework under question. The evaluative aspect regards this development both (a) in relative terms to what practitioners find important, and (b) in more general terms, proposing some explicit evaluative criteria. Then, I show how this scheme could be implemented using a restricted part of the historical development of the account of individual decision-making of Expected Utility Theory (EUT) as an example. To do this, I use Network Analysis to organize an analysis of citations between texts to guide the historical description of this development, which is then used as a base to propose possible lines of evaluation. Lastly, I present a series of reflections and lessons that the elaboration of this scheme and its example implementation leave for the Philosophy and History of the Social Sciences.

We critically review two extant paradigms for understanding the systematic interaction between modality and tense, as well as their respective modifications designed to do justice to the contingency of time's structure and composition. We show that on either type of theory, as well as their respective modifications, some principles prove logically valid whose truth might sensibly be questioned on metaphysical grounds. These considerations lead us to devise a more general logical framework that allows accommodation of those metaphysical views that its predecessors rule out by fiat.

Figure de la philosophie contemporaine, Judith Jarvis Thomson est décédée à l'âge de 91 ans. Avortement, sacrifice ou suicide assisté, cette penseuse de l'éthique n'a cessé d'étudier le conflit de valeurs entre la vie et la liberté. Roberto Keller et Steve Humbert-Droz, doctorants à l'Université de Genève, lui rendent ici hommage.

Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich eingehend mit dem konfigurationalen kausalen Modellieren im crisp-set Fall. Darunterfallende Methoden wie die Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) oder die Coincidence Analysis (CNA) zeichnen sich unter anderem dadurch aus, dass sie aus Konfigurationen Kausalstrukturen mit hoher Komplexität aufdecken können. In einem ersten Teil der Arbeit wird ein Verursachungsbegriff entwickelt, der für das Erfassen von solchen Kausalstrukturen angemessen ist. Die sich daraus ergebende neue Regularitätstheorie der Kausalität beachtet einen bis anhin unberücksichtigten Typ von Redundanzen: strukturelle Redundanzen. In einem zweiten Teil wird die empirische Grundlage beleuchtet und neue Bedingungen formuliert, mit denen die Verhinderung von kausalen Fehlschlüssen sichergestellt wird. Nach Ausarbeitung des mathematischen Fundaments werden in einem dritten Teil schliesslich QCA und CNA miteinander verglichen und darauf basierend ein Aufdeckungsverfahren entwickelt, das in der Lage ist, innerhalb eines idealisierten Entdeckungskontextes Kausalstrukturen beliebiger Komplexität aus Konfigurationen korrekt abzuleiten.

In his article ‘Making Semantics for Essence' (Inquiry, 2019), Justin Zylstra proposed a truthmaker semantics for essence and used it to evaluate principles regarding the explanatory role of essence. The aim of this article is to show that Zylstra's semantics has implausible implications and thus cannot adequately model essence.

Actes du XX International Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l'Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale. L'article expose dans une première partie la réponse détaillée que donne Gaithier Burley (+ ca. 1342) à la question de savoir ce qu'est l'objet de la logique, notre analyse aboutissant à une suggestion quant à la manière de comprendre la notion intrigante de "choses de seconde intention" (res secundae intentionis). Notre seconde partie vise à reconstruire le contexte doctrinal large dans lequel s'inscrit ce premier résultat. Pour ce faire, nous revisitons un scenario historiographique bien établi et selon lequel notre question éponyme reçoit une réponse en deux temps : d'abord considérée comme une science des mots (scientia sermocinalis), la logique devient, à partir des années 1250, une science des pensées (scientia rationalis).

According to a well known, yet controversial metaphysical thesis, Composition is Identity. Recently, Kris McDaniel has articulated and defended a related—and arguably more controversial—thesis, one he calls Parthood is Identity (PI). Roughly the view has it that a whole is, strictly and literally, identical to each of its parts considered individually. At first sight, the view seems rather implausible. However, McDaniel’s formulation and defense are worthy of a serious discussion. In this paper I put forth such a discussion. The result is what we should have expected all along: PI is not only implausible, but arguably false.

Priority monism (PM) is roughly the view that the universe is the only fundamental object, that is, a concrete object that does not depend on any other concrete object. Schaffer, the main advocate of PM, claims that PM is compatible with dependence having two different directions: from parts to wholes for subcosmic wholes, and from whole to parts for the cosmic whole. Recently it has been argued that this position is untenable. Given plausible assumptions about dependence, PM entails that dependence has only one direction, it always goes from wholes to parts. One such plausible assumption is a principle of Isolation. I argue that, given all extant accounts of dependence on the market, PM entails No Isolation. The argument depends upon a particular feature of the dependence relation, namely, necessitation and its direction. In the light of this, I contend that the argument is important, insofar as it suggests that we should distinguish dependence from other cognate notions, e.g. grounding. Once this distinction is made, I suggest we should also distinguish between two different notions of fundamentality that might turn out to be not-coextensive.

There is an interesting puzzle about the interaction between mereology, topology, and dependence. It is not only interesting in and on itself, but also reveals subtleties about the aforementioned interaction that have gone unnoticed. The puzzle has it that the following plausible claims are jointly inconsistent: (i) wholes depend on their parts; (ii) boundaries are parts; (iii) boundaries depend on the whole they are part of. In the paper, I first argue that claims (i)–(iii) are not as a matter of fact inconsitent insofar as further assumptions are needed to get the puzzle off the ground. I consider several such assumptions, somemore plausible than others. Though I do not take any definite stance as to whether the plusibility of the assumptions considered trump that of claims (i)–(iii), I set forth a suggestion to replace (iii) with something similar yet interestingly different.

I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer’s priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer’s priority monism by being identified with the fundamental structure, namely the cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumption, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition.

Selon l’analyse FA des concepts évaluatifs, notre conception d’un objet comme ayant une valeur donnée est la conception d’une certaine attitude évaluative appropriée à son endroit. Cet article examine deux défis que doit relever cette analyse. Le défi psychologique exige de l’analyse qu’elle fasse appel à des attitudes qui soient à même d’éclairer nos concepts évaluatifs, tout en ne présupposant pas la maîtrise de ces mêmes concepts. Le défi normatif réclame quant à lui que la compréhension du caractère approprié des attitudes pertinentes s’articule autour d’une forme de normativité intimement liée à la nature de ces attitudes, sans pour autant dépendre de la maîtrise des concepts évaluatifs analysés. Afin d’établir si l’analyse FA peut relever ces défis, nous commençons par clarifier la nature des attitudes auxquelles il convient de faire appel. Dans la première section, nous considérons des attitudes génériques comme les désirs et présentons des raisons de privilégier des attitudes plus spécifiques, à savoir les émotions. La suite de la discussion évalue la plausibilité d’une analyse FA souscrivant à l’une ou l’autre des approches contemporaines en théorie des émotions. La deuxième section souligne qu’il est difficile d’associer l’analyse FA aux théories en termes de contenu évaluatif et la troisième présente les atouts d’une théorie en termes d’attitudes évaluatives. Dans la dernière section, nous revenons au défi normatif et esquissons une manière de le relever., According to the FA analysis of evaluative concepts, our conception of an object as having a given value is the conception of a given evaluative attitude towards it as being appropriate. In this paper, we explore two challenges that this analysis has to take up. The psychological challenge requires that (i) the analysis appeal to attitudes that are apt to shed light on our evaluative concepts while (ii) not presupposing the mastery of these same concepts. The normative challenge requires that (i) we understand the appropriateness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, again (ii) without this presupposing the mastery of the relevant evaluative concepts. To determine whether the FA analysis can meet these challenges, we start by clarifying the sort of attitudes the analysis should appeal to. In section 1, we consider generic attitudes like desires and give some reasons to favor more specific attitudes, namely emotions. The ensuing discussion assesses the prospects of an FA analysis in light of contemporary accounts of emotions. In section 2, we argue that the FA analysis should not be combined with accounts according to which emotions have evaluative contents and then offer, in section 3, some reasons for combining the FA with an account in terms of evaluative attitudes. In section 4, we show how this allows for solving the normative challenge.

If emotions provide reasons for action through their intentional content, as is often argued, where does this leave the role of the affective element of an emotion? Can it be more than a motivator and have significant bearing of its own on our emotional actions, as actions done for reasons? One way it can is through reinforcing other reasons that we might have, as Greenspan (2011) argues. Central to Greenspan's account is the claim that the affective discomfort of an emotion, as a fact about the agent's state of being, provides an additional normative reason to act to alleviate the state. This, I argue, is not correct, nor is it the best way to understand emotions as reason-reinforcers. In this paper, I thus do two things: I provide an examination of how and why the affect of emotion could provide reasons to act to alleviate it and I propose that the real way emotions reinforce reasons is through the way they orient our attention onto things that matter, registering them as salient.

What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true. We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse; (iii) Offers and acceptances, together with the contractual obligations and claims they bring about, lie at the heart of all cases of exchange.

Bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions share the striking property of being valenced, i.e. they are positive or negative. What is valence? How do bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions relate to one another? This chapter assesses the prospects of two popular theses regarding the relation between bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions in light of what we can reasonably think about valence. According to the first thesis, the valence of bodily (dis)pleasures is explanatory prior vis-à-vis the valence of emotions. According to the second, emotions contain bodily (dis)pleasures. I argue that bodily (dis)pleasures are intentional states whose valence is to be understood in terms of evaluative experience, and bring to light the similarities and dissimilarities between their intentional structure and that of emotions. On this backdrop, I offer reasons to conclude that we should adopt neither of the two theses.

International audience; Important features of space and time are taken to be missing in quantum gravity, allegedly requiring an explanation of the emergence of spacetime from non-spatio-temporal theories. In this paper, we argue that the explanatory gap between general relativity and non-spatio-temporal quantum gravity theories might significantly be reduced with two moves. First, we point out that spacetime is already partially missing in the context of general relativity when understood from a dynamical perspective. Second, we argue that most approaches to quantum gravity already start with an in-built distinction between structures to which the asymmetry between space and time can be traced back.