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Item Plasticity, Numerical Identity,and Transitivity(Philosophy Documentation Center, 2022-09) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsIn a recent paper, Chunghyoung Lee argues that, because zygotes are developmentally plastic, they cannot be numerically identical to the singletons into which they develop, thereby undermining conceptionism. In this short paper, I respond to Lee. I argue, first, that, on the most popular theories of personal identity, zygotic plasticity does not undermine conceptionism, and, second, that, even overlooking this first issue, Lee’s plasticity argument is problematic. My goal in all of this is not to take a stand in the abortion debate, which I remain silent on here, but, rather, to push for the conclusion that transitivity fails when we are talking about numerical identity of non-abstract objects.Item The Apple of Kant's Ethics: i-Maxims as the Locus of Assessment(Wiley, 2023) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsI want to distinguish between maxims at three levels of abstraction. At the first level are what I shall call individual maxims, or i-maxims: maxim tokens as adopted by particular rational beings. At the second level are abstract maxims, or a-maxims: abstract principles distinct from any individual who adopts them. At the third level are maxim kinds, or k-maxims: sets of various action-guiding principles that are grouped on the basis of their content. In this paper, I argue for the thesis that i-maxims are the locus of assessment in Kant's ethics.Item Kantian Ethics and our Duties to Nonhuman Animals(California Polytechnic State University, 2023) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsMany take Kantian ethics to founder when it comes to our duties to animals. In this paper, I advocate a novel approach to this problem. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I canvass various passages from Kant in order to set up the problem. In the second, I introduce a novel approach to this problem. In the third, I defend my approach from various objections. By way of preview: I advocate rejecting the premise that nonhuman animals are nonrational.Item Korsgaard's Expanded Regress Argument(SciELO, 2023-04) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsIn this discussion note, I aim to reconstruct and assess Korsgaard's recent attempt to extend her regress argument. I begin, in section 1, with a brief recapitulation of the regress argument. Then, in section 2, I turn to the extension. I argue that the extension does not work because Korsgaard cannot rule out the possibility--a possibility for which there is both empirical evidence and argumentative pressure coming directly from the original regress--that we value animality in ourselves qua animality of rational beings.Item Frankfurt Cases and Alternate Deontic Categories(Cambridge, 2023-12) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsIn Harry Frankfurt’s seminal “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” he advances an argument against the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: if an agent is responsible for performing some action, then she is able to do otherwise. However, almost all of the Frankfurt cases in this literature involve impermissible actions. In this article, I argue that the failure to consider other deontic categories exposes a deep problem, one that threatens either to upend much current moral theorizing or to upend the relevance of Frankfurt cases.Item Chess and Antirealism(Springer Nature, 2023-11) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsIn this article, I make a novel argument for scientific antirealism. My argument is as follows: (1) the best human chess players would lose to the best computer chess programs; (2) if the best human chess players would lose to the best computer chess programs, then there is good reason to think that the best human chess players do not understand how to make winning moves; (3) if there is good reason to think that the best human chess players do not understand how to make winning moves, then there is good reason to think that the best human theories about unobservables are wrong; therefore, (4) there is good reason to think that the best human theories about unobservables are wrong. The article is divided into three sections. In the first, I outline the backdrop for my argument. In the second, I explain my argument. In the third, I consider some objections.Item Peirce’s Heuristic Conception of Fundamentality(2024) De Tienne, André; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsWhat are the signs that inform us that some theory, concept, or entity is fundamental? What is fundamentality? Is fundamentality foundational? This article delves into such questions through an examination of the writings of American philosopher Charles S. Peirce, arguably one of the most genuinely “fundamental” thinkers in history. After an introductory contextualization of the topic, a representative sample of eight distinct principles or conceptions that Peirce announced as essential or fundamental is drawn from a chronologically diverse collection of his papers to identify which characters emerge that seem to justify their fundamentality. The article then articulates ten general properties that seem to be essential to Peirce’s conception of fundamentality, all of which are especially pertinent to the research endeavor. It concludes that Peirce’s heuristic conception of fundamentality cannot be separated from his metaphysical conception of reality, which sets him apart from contemporary debate.Item Pausing the Send Command: A Semioethical Methodology to Arm the Hinge between Information and Communication(2024-04-20) De Tienne, André; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsThis article explores the intersection between information and communication from the standpoint of Peirce’s semiotic theory. An initial reminder of the tenets of Peirce’s early semiotic theory of information provides the logical framework necessary for the investigation. We then explore the heuristic power of information at two levels, one first-intentional, the other, centrally, second-intentional. We identify specific critical exigencies at the nexus between information and communication that govern the assessment of inferential consistency and knowledge gains obtained while generating information. We then turn to an analysis of the transition between the representational relation and the interpretational relation at the core of semiosis. A detour taken to study how medieval thinkers worked out the transition from suppositio to significatio yields a logical and analogical clue regarding the hinge between information and communication. That hinge reveals itself to be a fluid transition between the logical and the ethical given the responsibilities involved when verifying the reliability of information. The paper’s high point comes with the introduction of the phrase “editorial semiosis” to characterize the activity at the hinge, an activity clarified through Peirce’s concept of self-control. The paper ends by considering whether some form of “artificial editorial semiosis” could counteract AI-generated pseudo-information.Item On the Genealogy of Meaning in Peirce's New List of Categories(Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, 2021) Dillabough, Ronald Joseph; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsMany scholars believe that “On a New List of Categories” is a metaphysical or transcendental deduction. This essay will argue that Peirce derives the categories by induction and validates their order by precision . The paper will then draw on Peirce’s early and mature writings to explain how the new way of listing the categories can serve as a genealogy of signification : how different types of terms, propositions, and arguments emerge in the process of reasoning as different types of signs. In this way, the genealogy of signification would then qualify as both a phenomenology of logic and a science of semiotics . Such a science of semiotics will have three types of comparison corresponding to the sign-relation in inference: namely, uniparance, diaparance, and comparance. Then, the three types of comparison will give rise to three types of relatives in different types of proposition: namely, competitors, disquiparance, and equivalence. Finally, the three types of relatives will give rise to the different types of signs corresponding to the different types of terms: namely, icons, indices, and symbols. With this classification, there is then an explanation of how the process of reasoning is a semiotic process with three forms of valid arguments: namely, hypothesis, induction, and deduction.Item Ideal Friendship, Actual Friends(2023) Coleman, Martin; Philosophy, School of Liberal ArtsFriendship, on George Santayana’s account, is a form of human society made possible by consciousness of ideals while simultaneously rooted in the experience of embodied creatures spontaneously drawn to each other. His philosophical and autobiographical writings on friendship (particularly his friendship with Frank Russell) exemplify a practice of cultivating wisdom and suggest how we can come to understand our own actual friendships and the opportunities for self-knowledge and sanity in them.