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Item The fanatic and the last man(Penn State University Press, 2022-10-01) Katsafanas, PaulItem What makes the affirmation of life difficult?(Cambridge University Press, 2022) Katsafanas, Paul; Ansell-Pearson, Keith; Loeb, PaulItem Group fanaticism and narratives of ressentiment(Routledge, 2021-12-01) Katsafanas, Paul; Townsend, Leo; Schmidt, Hans Bernard; Staudigl, Michael; Tietjen, RuthThe current political climate is awash with groups that we might be tempted to label irrational, extremist, hyper-partisan; it is full of echo-chambers, radicalization, and epistemic bubbles. Philosophers have profitably analyzed some of these phenomena. In this essay, I draw attention to a crucial but neglected aspect of our time: the way in which certain groups are fanatical. I distinguish fanatical groups from other types of problematic groups, such as extremist and cultish groups. I argue that a group qualifies as fanatical only if it has features that promote individual fanaticism. But how might a group promote individual fanaticism? I argue that a typical feature of fanatical groups is their tendency to encourage an emotion that philosophers sometimes call “ressentiment,” which differs from ordinary resentment. I explain what ressentiment is, how it can be fostered, and how it can lead to fanaticism. I contend that this account helps us to identify a disturbing and increasingly widespread feature of contemporary social and political groups.Item Data models, representation and adequacy-for-purpose(2021) Bokulich, Alisa; Parker, WendyWe critically engage two traditional views of scientific data and outline a novel philosophical view that we call the pragmatic-representational (PR) view of data. On the PR view, data are representations that are the product of a process of inquiry, and they should be evaluated in terms of their adequacy or fitness for particular purposes. Some important implications of the PR view for data assessment, related to misrepresentation, context-sensitivity, and complementary use, are highlighted. The PR view provides insight into the common but little-discussed practices of iteratively reusing and repurposing data, which result in many datasets' having a phylogeny-an origin and complex evolutionary history-that is relevant to their evaluation and future use. We relate these insights to the open-data and data-rescue movements, and highlight several future avenues of research that build on the PR view of data.Item Recent Work on Nietzsche's Ethical Theory(Walter de Gruyter, 2021-08-01) Katsafanas, PaulItem Review of Agnes Callard, aspiration(Wiley, 2021) Katsafanas, PaulItem Towards a taxanomy of the model-ladenness of data(University of Chicago Press, 2020-12) Bokulich, AlisaModel-data symbiosis is the view that there is an interdependent and mutually beneficial relationship between data and models, whereby models are not only data-laden, but data are also model-laden or model filtered. In this paper I elaborate and defend the second, more controversial, component of the symbiosis view. In particular, I construct a preliminary taxonomy of the different ways in which theoretical and simulation models are used in the production of data sets. These include data conversion, data correction, data interpolation, data scaling, data fusion, data assimilation, and synthetic data. Each is defined and briefly illustrated with an example from the geosciences. I argue that model-filtered data are typically more accurate and reliable than the so-called raw data, and hence beneficially serve the epistemic aims of science. By illuminating the methods by which raw data are turned into scientifically useful data sets, this taxonomy provides a foundation for developing a more adequate philosophy of data.Item Losing sight of the forest for the Ψ: beyond the wavefunction hegemony(Oxford University Press, 2020-05) Bokulich, Alisa; French, Steven; Saatsi, JuhaTraditionally Ψ is used to stand in for both the mathematical wavefunction (the representation) and the quantum state (the thing in the world). This elision has been elevated to a metaphysical thesis by advocates of the view known as wavefunction realism. My aim in this paper is to challenge the hegemony of the wavefunction by calling attention to a little-known formulation of quantum theory that does not make use of the wavefunction in representing the quantum state. This approach, called Lagrangian quantum hydrodynamics (LQH), is not an approximation scheme, but rather a full alternative formulation of quantum theory. I argue that a careful consideration of alternative formalisms is an essential part of any realist project that attempts to read the ontology of a theory off of the mathematical formalism. In particular, I show that LQH undercuts the central presumption of wavefunction realism and falsifies the claim that one must represent the many-body quantum state as living in a 3n-dimensional configuration space. I conclude by briefly sketching three different realist approaches one could take toward LQH, and argue that both models of the quantum state should be admitted. When exploring quantum realism, regaining sight of the proverbial forest of quantum representations beyond the Ψ is just the first step.Item Teaching and learning with Wittgenstein and Turing: sailing the seas of social media(2019) Floyd, JulietA history of the mutual impact of Turing and Wittgenstein on one another points to the contemporary foundational significance of our artful capacity to embed everyday words in forms of life. Wittgenstein’s mature focus on forms of life, interlocutory drift, and rule-following, with its play between the ‘I’ and the ‘we’, was an informed critical response to Turing’s idea of a “Turing machine”, his analysis of the very idea of taking a “step” in a formal system. Wittgenstein’s characterizations of our drive to evade a responsibility in speech, especially by appealing to “machines” or “algorithms” as pure mathematical objects, are invaluable warnings for us. The enduring importance of mutually-attuned “phraseology” to education may be formulated as a humanistic challenge to the very ideas of “computational foundations” and “Big Data” in our hyper-connected world. This raises critical challenges for democracy, especially in a world where social media shapes human-to-human conduct in ways we are only beginning to appreciate.Item Heideggerian ruminations on being and presence(2019-05-20) Dahlstrom, Daniel O.As Aristotle puts it, ‘being’ (used interchangeably with ‘existence’ here) is said in many ways, including many opposing ways. Potentialities exist precisely as potentialities for specific actualities but the potentialities and the respective actualities for which they are potentialities are not identical to one another, even though they are determinable only in terms of one another (e.g., the acorn and the mature oak, the glass before and after shattering). In this sense being exceeds the exclusive disjunction of potentialities and their respective actualities.Item Wittgenstein on ethics: working through Lebensformen(SAGE Publications, 2020-01-21) Floyd, JulietIn his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein conveyed the idea that ethics cannot be located in an object or self-standing subject matter of propositional discourse, true or false. At the same time, he took his work to have an eminently ethical purpose, and his attitude was not that of the emotivist. The trajectory of this conception of the normativity of philosophy as it developed in his subsequent thought is traced. It is explained that and how the notion of a ‘form of life’ (Lebensform) emerged only in his later thought, in 1937, earmarking a significant step forward in his philosophical method. We argue that the concept of Lebensform represents a way of domesticating logic itself, the very idea of a claim or reason, supplementing the idea of a ‘language game’, which it deepens. Lebensform is contrasted with the phenomenologists’ Lebenswelt through a reading of the notions of ‘I’, ‘world’ and ‘self’ as they were treated in the Tractatus, The Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. Finally, the notion of Lebensform is shown to have replaced the notion of culture (Kultur) in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s spring 1937 ‘domestication’ of the nature of logic is shown to have been fully consonant with the idea that he was influenced by his reading Alan Turing’s 1936/1937 paper, ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem’.Item Debunking logical grounding: distinguishing metaphysics from semantics(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2020-04-20) Mcsweeney, MichaelaMany philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground (such as a true disjunction being grounded in its true disjunct(s)) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for (e.g.) first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground, even on a quite broad conception of what ground is. Hence, without a positive argument for taking so-called ‘logical ground’ to be something distinct from a semantic determination relation, we should cease treating logical cases as cases of ground.Item Calibration, coherence, and consilience in radiometric measures of geologic time(University of Chicago Press, 2019-08-05) Bokulich, AlisaIn 2012 the Geological Time Scale, which sets the temporal framework for studying the timing and tempo of all major geological, biological, and climatic events in Earth's history, had one-quarter of its boundaries moved in a wide-spread revision of radiometric dates. The philosophy of metrology helps us understand this episode, and it, in turn, elucidates the notions of calibration, coherence, and consilience. I argue that coherence testing is a distinct activity preceding calibration and consilience, and highlight the value of discordant evidence and tradeoffs scientists face in calibration. The iterative nature of calibration, moreover, raises the problem of legacy data.Item Missing in action: affectivity in being and time(Pagrave Macmillan, 2019-08-14) Dahlstrom, Daniel O.; Hadjioannou, ChristosDespite the importance that Heidegger assigns to affectivity structurally in Being and Time, accounts of the relevant sorts of affectivity are frequently and, in some cases, perhaps even egregiously missing from existential analyses that form the centerpiece of the work. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate as much. After recounting the considerable insights of Heidegger’s general account of disposedness and affectivity and the fundamental status he assigns to them, the focus of the paper turns to the secondary status often accorded them in the first half of Being and Time and the seemingly crucial absence of an adequate account of the affective dimension of authentic existence, in the second half of the work. After making the argument that, according to Heidegger’s own criterion, the adequate rootedness of the existential analysis demands a more robust account of the affective character of existing authentically, the paper concludes with an open question about the mood of undertaking the existential analysis itself.Item Teaching and learning with Wittgenstein and Turing: sailing the seas of social media(Wiley, 2019-11) Floyd, JulietResults of the Boston University Mellon Sawyer seminar 2016–2019 (www.mellophilemerge.com) reveal that social and philosophical drives are increasingly central to our uses of technology, including AI. This raises critical challenges for democracy, especially in a hyper‐connected world where social media shapes human conduct in ways we are only beginning to appreciate. A history of the mutual impact of Turing and Wittgenstein on one another points to the contemporary foundational significance of our artful capacity to embed everyday words in forms of life. Wittgenstein's mature focus on forms of life, interlocutory drift, and rule‐following, with its play between the ‘I’ and the ‘we’, was an informed critical response to Turing's idea of a ‘Turing machine’, his analysis of the very idea of taking a ‘step’ in a formal system. Wittgenstein's characterisations of our drive to evade a responsibility in speech, especially by appealing to ‘machines’ or ‘algorithms’ as pure mathematical objects, are invaluable warnings for us. The enduring importance of mutually‐attuned ‘phraseology’ to education may be formulated as a humanistic challenge to the very ideas of ‘computational foundations’ and ‘Big Data’ in our hyper‐connected world.Item Theories as recipes: third-order virtue and vice(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020-02) McSweeney, Michaela MarkhamA basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying (not necessarily truthful!) answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I propose an account of “third-order” virtue that tells us what it takes for certain kinds of metaphysical theories to do so. We should think of these theories as recipes. I identify three good-making features of recipes and show that they translate to third-order theoretical virtues. I apply the view to two theories—mereological universalism and plenitudinous platonism—and draw out their third-order virtues and vices. One lesson is that there is an important difference between essentially and non-essentially third-order vicious theories. I also argue that if a theory is essentially third-order vicious, it cannot be assessed for more standard “second-order” theoretical virtues and vices, like parsimony. This motivates the idea that third-order virtues are distinct from second-order ones. Finally, I suggest that the relationship between truth, progress, and third-order virtue is more complex than it seemsItem "The True" in Journalism(Oxford University Press, 2019) Floyd, Juliet; Katz, James E.“The True” is a central norm of journalism that cannot be reduced away to something else: opinion, consensus, social force, power, or demographic identity. There are no “alternative” facts, though there are of course alternative interpretations of facts. The evolution of social media platforms have made collective pursuit of the ideal of “the True” more difficult and complex in our time. Just as in the 15th century the printing press led to the dissemination of forms of scepticism, so today, as the manufacture of doubt is disseminated by algorithms, distrust of journalists is widespread and increasing. Following Frege, we argue that journalists should nevertheless pursue the norm of “the True” as a central, irreducible and irreplaceable norm. We survey debates over “the True” from Frege through the pragmatists, social constructivists, deconstructionists, deflationists. In the end, we side with those who refuse to eliminate “the True”: Frege, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam and Diamond. “The True” should not be reduced to something it is not. Nevertheless we should be realistic about the struggle involved in unfolding and revealing it. The struggle for appropriate representation, acknowledgement of “the True”, is a central target of journalism, as it is also in everyday life.Item Disengaged Buddhism(Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2019) Lele, Amod JayantContemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this rejection on the grounds that the most important sources of suffering are not something that activism can fix, and that political involvement interferes with the tranquility required for liberation. The article then examines the history of engaged Buddhism in order to identify why this rejection of activism has not yet been taken sufficiently seriously.Item Scheler on shame(sdvig press) Dahlstrom, Daniel O.This paper presents a critical review of Scheler’s analysis of shame's structure, dynamic, and affectivity, and his explanation of phenomena of shame. This first part of the paper examines Scheler’s accounts of shame’s basic condition, the law ultimately governing its origin, and its basic dynamic. The second part of the paper turns to his general descriptions of what we feel when we feel shame and his analyses of two distinct forms of shame. The conclusion attempts to draw these aspects of his account of shame together to illustrate why, according to Scheler, we feel shame. Throughout the paper, some basic criticisms of Scheler’s account are advanced. At the same time the paper attempts to demonstrate the virtues of his highly differentiated descriptions of experiences of shame and his attempt to weave these descriptions together into a general theory.Item Using models to correct data: paleodiversity and the fossil record(Springer Verlag, 2018-05-17) Bokulich, AlisaDespite an enormous philosophical literature on models in science, surprisingly little has been written about data models and how they are constructed. In this paper, I examine the case of how paleodiversity data models are constructed from the fossil data. In particular, I show how paleontologists are using various model-based techniques to correct the data. Drawing on this research, I argue for the following related theses: first, the ‘purity’ of a data model is not a measure of its epistemic reliability. Instead it is the fidelity of the data that matters. Second, the fidelity of a data model in capturing the signal of interest is a matter of degree. Third, the fidelity of a data model can be improved ‘vicariously’, such as through the use of post hoc model-based correction techniques. And, fourth, data models, like theoretical models, should be assessed as adequate (or inadequate) for particular purposes.