Podcasts about humean

Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7 David Builes is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, where he works in metaphysics and epistemology and has made serious contributions to the philosophies of mind, science, and mathematics. In this episode, Robinson and David discuss the metaphysics of time—including debates about the reality of the past, present, and future—the question of whether science can explain consciousness, and whether numbers exist as abstract objects. David's Website: https://davidbuiles.com OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 01:05 David's Interest in Philosophy 05:47 On the Philosophy of Time 16:01 In Defense of Presentism 24:21 How Long is the Present? 25:58 Humean and Non-Humean Laws 28:02 Can Science Explain Consciousness? 40:25 Does David Believe His Work? 43:32 First-Person Realism 53:18 Is First-Person Realism Correct? 57:42 The Philosophy of Math 01:01:45 Do Numbers Exist? Robinson's Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, historians, economists, and everyone in-between.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robinson-erhardt/support

In a world challenged by the politicization of data, contradicting evidence, and an onslaught of information, could the key to more effective and informed decision-making be as simple as, thinking like a scientist? Professor of physics Saul Perlmutter, professor of philosophy John Campbell, and professor of psychology and law Robert MacCoun combine their interdisciplinary minds in the book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense. The book explores the essence of scientific thinking and how it can be applied to practical societal issues. Saul, John, and Robert join Greg to chat about the genesis of “third millenium thinking,” the role of values in scientific judgment, and the importance of teaching probabilistic thinking and experimentation.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why is it so hard to just walk the Humean line and to be very explicit about sorting out these differences?09:03: [John Campbell] The message of the book is: keep the Humean line as far as we can, separate the facts and values. Scientists, we all know, have a lot to tell us about the facts, but we, the people, are the ones who tell you about the values. And then, I think, that has to be anyone's first brush, sort of partitioning off the boundaries of science, to keep that Humean line. But then it does get complicated when you think about things like mental illnesses and so on, where you're asking not just, Is this condition that a person had? Is this a real thing? But you're also asking, Is this a bad thing? Is it a bad thing for a person to be like that? So with autism, is that just neurodiversity that is not really within the sphere of medical treatment at all? There are boundaries there as to where science is authoritative and where the people have a voice. And this kind of issue clearly has to be a debate, it seems to me. It's not something for professionals only.To what extent must we trust the processes within the expert community?37:04: [Saul Perlmutter] I think that there's a difference between really understanding a field enough that you don't need the expert and having some understanding of how science works so you can recognize which experts you are more likely to trust.They myth of lone genius47:26: [Robert MacCoun] This mythology of the lone genius, I think, is very much the antithesis of third-millennium thinking, this notion that it's because I'm brilliant that you should listen to me. And that's really not where we think the authority of science comes from. It's not from the IQ of the scientist. It's from the procedures—the hoops you have to jump through to make your ideas work. And it's those procedures that give you credibility, not just brilliance.If you hold to the Humean line, why would your value judgments about what's good or bad for society impact your causal arguments?32:25: [Robert MacCoun]  The role of standards of proof when you're dealing with probabilistic evidence, you need to weigh two kinds of errors: false positive errors of claiming a hypothesis is true when it's not, and false negative errors of saying the hypothesis is wrong when in fact it's true. That is not a scientific matter. That is a matter of values. We can't avoid it. In dealing with uncertainty, we have to impose some sort of standard of proof. And so, under the Humean model, you take values very seriously. I don't think we would argue that values are simply outside the domain of science.Show Links:Recommended Resources:David HumeNeil deGrasse TysonSupreme Court overturns ChevronArticle: Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agenciesGuest Profile:Saul Perlmutter's Profile at UC BerkeleyJohn Campbell's Profile at UC BerkeleyRobert MacCoun's Profile at Stanford UniversityTheir Work:Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense

Read the full transcript here. How did we end up with factory farming? How many animals do we kill every year in factory farms? When we consider the rights of non-human living things, we tend to focus mainly on the animal kingdom, and in particular on relatively larger, more complex animals; but to what extent should insects, plants, fungi, and even single-celled organisms deserve our moral consideration? Do we know anything about what it's like (or not) to be an AI? To what extent is the perception of time linked to the speed at which one's brain processes information? What's the difference between consciousness and sentience? Should an organism be required to have consciousness and/or sentience before we'll give it our moral consideration? What evidence do we have that various organisms and/or AIs are conscious? What do we know about the evolutionary function of consciousness? What's the "rebugnant conclusion"? What might it mean to "harm" an AI? What can be done by the average person to move the needle on these issues? What should we say to people who think all of this is ridiculous? What is Humean constructivism? What do all of the above considerations imply about abortion? Do we (or any organisms or AIs) have free will? How likely is it that panpsychism is true?Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies; Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law; Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program; Director of the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program; and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University. He is the author of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (2018). He is also an executive committee member at the NYU Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, a board member at Minding Animals International, an advisory board member at the Insect Welfare Research Society, a senior research fellow at the Legal Priorities Project, and a mentor at Sentient Media. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsAlexandria D. — Research and Special Projects AssistantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift [Read more]

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "How To Seem Virtuous Without Actually Being So". It focuses upon how two substantive moral approaches, Aristotelian and Humean, differ from each other. He also admits to "begging the question" in taking an Aristotelian approach, but argues that there is no position one can take that is not question-begging in that manner. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get MacIntyre's Education in Morality here - https://amzn.to/40ns6Jy

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "How To Seem Virtuous Without Actually Being So". It focuses upon one approach to moral theory, development, and the virtues that he calls "Humean". To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get MacIntyre's Education in Morality here - https://amzn.to/40ns6Jy

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with David Krakauer about the ideas in his forthcoming paper "The Structure of Complexity in Machine Learning Science" and how AI may alter the course of science. They discuss data-driven science vs theory-driven science, a bifurcation in science, the protein folding problem, brute force methods, the origin of induction in David Hume, the origin of neural networks in deductive thinking of the '40s, super-Humean models, crossing the statistical uncanny valley, ultra-high-dimensionality, adaptive computation, why genetic algorithms might come back, Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus, the lottery ticket hypothesis, neural nets as pre-processors for parsimonious science, how human expertise constrains model-building, GPT-4's arithmetic problem, cognitive synergy, why LLMs aren't AGIs, incompressible representations, gravitational lensing, the new sciences LLMs will lead to, encoding adaptive history, Jim's ScriptWriter software, discovery engines vs libraries vs synthesizers, the history of science as a history of constraint, Occam's razor & meta-Occam, assembly theory, whether existential risk is a marketing ploy, the Idiocracy risk, using empirical precedent in tech regulation, networks of info agents, the outsourcing of human judgment, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP10 - David Krakauer: Complexity Science Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel Dennett JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object David Krakauer's research explores the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth. This includes studying the evolution of genetic, neural, linguistic, social, and cultural mechanisms supporting memory and information processing, and exploring their shared properties. President of the Santa Fe Institute since 2015, he served previously as the founding director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the co-director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation, and professor of mathematical genetics, all at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The measurement problem highlights a deeply puzzling feature of quantum mechanics: nature seems to obey one law when not measured and a completely different law when measured. But how does nature "recognise" measurement contexts?! What explains these shifts in how nature operates?  For the Humean about laws, i.e., one who maintains that nature unthinkingly acts and the laws describe, these issues lose their bite. So perhaps there just is no measurement problem for Humeans! But if true, does this count for or against Humeanism? Listen and decide!Here's a link to the paperSee also this paper by Hicks and Schaffer for detail on derivative properties featuring in fundamental laws, an idea that features centrally in Dorst's discussion.  Support the show

Frank Jackson is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. He is best known for the knowledge argument and Mary's Room—its accompanying thought experiment—but has published widely in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Graham Priest is a Distinguished Professor in the philosophy department at the CUNY Graduate Center. Like Frank, he is one of the most influential philosophers of the past fifty years, and has done important work on a wide range of topics, ranging from the philosophy of mathematics to logic and eastern philosophy. In this episode, Robinson, Frank, and Graham talk about David Lewis and his immense legacy in the philosophical world. They cover his character—Frank and Graham were friends with him for many years—as well as some of his work, ranging from the thesis of modal realism to Humean supervenience and the philosophy of set theory. David Lewis: ⁠https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/david-lewis/⁠ Graham's Website: ⁠https://grahampriest.net⁠ OUTLINE 00:00 In This Episode… 01:17 Introduction 07:54 David Lewis as a Friend and Philosopher 24:12 Australian Philosophy 28:53 Lewisian Themes 34:30 Modal Realism 52:43 Kripke and Lewis on Possible Worlds 58:07 Making Use of Possible Worlds 01:23:29 Humean Supervenience 01:38:19 Set Theory and Mereology 01:45:19 Final Thoughts Robinson's Website: ⁠http://robinsonerhardt.com⁠ Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robinson-erhardt/support

Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU. Before that, he did his undergraduate work in philosophy and physics at Yale and received his PHD from Pittsburgh in the History and Philosophy of Science. Tim is renowned as one of the leading philosophers of physics, and he also works in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. Among other things, Robinson and Tim talk about whether metaphysics should come prior to or after physics, the debates over absolute time and space, free will, the nature of physical laws, and David Lewis's views on the Humean supermosaic. You can find out more about Tim and his work on his website, www.tim-maudlin.site. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robinsonerhardt Outline: 00:00 Introduction 2:35 Studying Physics and Philosophy 8:38 Theoretical Physics, Foundations, and Metaphysics 15:54 Physics and Free Will 26:17 The Mathematical Structure of the Universe 37:49 Hume, Lewis, and the Supermosaic 49:16 Laws of Nature 1:04:02 Moral facts 1:18:03 Absolute and Relative Space 1:34:27 Space and the Ether 1:39:31 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence 1:46:08 Absolute Space, Time, and Relativity 1:53:07 The Infinity of Time and Space --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robinson-erhardt/support

Check out my short video series about what's missing in AI and Neuroscience. Support the show to get full episodes and join the Discord community. Cameron Buckner is a philosopher and cognitive scientist at The University of Houston. He is writing a book about the age-old philosophical debate on how much of our knowledge is innate (nature, rationalism) versus how much is learned (nurture, empiricism). In the book and his other works, Cameron argues that modern AI can help settle the debate. In particular, he suggests we focus on what types of psychological "domain-general faculties" underlie our own intelligence, and how different kinds of deep learning models are revealing how those faculties may be implemented in our brains. The hope is that by building systems that possess the right handful of faculties, and putting those systems together in a way they can cooperate in a general and flexible manner, it will result in cognitive architectures we would call intelligent. Thus, what Cameron calls The New DoGMA: Domain-General Modular Architecture. We also discuss his work on mental representation and how representations get their content - how our thoughts connect to the natural external world. Cameron's Website.Twitter: @cameronjbuckner.Related papersEmpiricism without Magic: Transformational Abstraction in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks.A Forward-Looking Theory of Content.Other sources Cameron mentions:Innateness, AlphaZero, and Artificial Intelligence (Gary Marcus).Radical Empiricism and Machine Learning Research (Judea Pearl).Fodor's guide to the Humean mind (Tamás Demeter). 0:00 - Intro 4:55 - Interpreting old philosophy 8:26 - AI and philosophy 17:00 - Empiricism vs. rationalism 27:09 - Domain-general faculties 33:10 - Faculty psychology 40:28 - New faculties? 46:11 - Human faculties 51:15 - Cognitive architectures 56:26 - Language 1:01:40 - Beyond dichotomous thinking 1:04:08 - Lower-level faculties 1:10:16 - Animal cognition 1:14:31 - A Forward-Looking Theory of Content

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology.  In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (Princeton UP, 2020), Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment."

Links ReferencedAmerican Isn't split in half, its divided into four by Caroline Mimbs Nyce https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/06/america-isnt-split-in-half-its-divided-into-four/619138/QuotationsThis new-synthesis view of morality has four basic elements: (1) a Humean mind-focused sentimentalism, (2) a Darwinian evolutionary account of why the mind has the traits it does, (3) a human interest–based utilitarianism about morality, all embedded within (4) a strident naturalism committed to empirical study of the world. (Science and the Good, 86, 87)Innovations in neuroscience are important because they help us answer basic questions about morality, namely why you might be concerned with the goals and well-being of people besides yourself. In the new moral science, it turns out that people “have special kinds of neural populations that make concern for others very natural.” (Ibid. Later quotation from Paul Thagard, Ther Brain and the Meaning of Life (Princeton University Press, 2010)The moral law is not imposed from above or derived from well-reasoned principles; rather, it arises from ingrained values that have been there since the beginning of time. The most fundamental one derives from the survival value of group life.Frans de Waal, The Bonobo and the Atheist (New Yokr: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013), 228. Quoted in S&G, 88.Once ethics is viewed as a social technology, directed at particular functions, recognizable facts about how those functions can be better served can be adduced in inferences justifying ethical novelties.Kitcher, “Naturalistic Ethics without Fallacies,” Preludes to Pragmatism: Toward a Reconstruction of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012,) 315. Quoted in S&G, 90.One strain of naturalism seeks to provide empirical explanations for all of reality by fitting it into a domain of interacting physical particles.38 This would render purely metaphysical or transcendent accounts of reality not only unnecessary but unthinkable. S&G, 91, 92.“Level Three” findings would provide scientifically based descriptions of, say, the origins of morality, or the specific way our capacity for moral judgment is physically embodied in our neural architecture, or whether human beings tend to behave in ways we consider moral. Evidence for these sorts of views doesn't tell us anything about the content of morality—what is right and wrong—but they speak to the human capacity for morality and in that sense are interesting. (S&G, 100.)

What did Fr. Garrigou mean by saying perfections are "formally and eminently" in God? What other distinctions do Thomists typically make when discussing the divine nature? How would Fr. Garrigou defend the principle of finality against a Humean skeptic? Dr. Matthew Minerd joins the show to discuss several essays written by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. The Classical Theism Podcast aims to defend Catholic Christian ideas in conversation. With the help of various guests, I defend three pillars of the Catholic Christian worldview: (1) the God of classical theism exists, (2) Jesus is our Messiah and Lord, and (3) He founded the Catholic Church. We place a strong emphasis on the first pillar, defending classical theism, drawing upon the work of Thomistic philosopher Dr. Edward Feser and many others. John DeRosa www.classicaltheism.com/support

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer and Onkar Ghate discuss Sam Harris’s argument against the existence of free will. Among the topics covered: Harris’s Humean argument equating causality with causation by prior events;Why free will doesn’t mean self-creation out of nothing;Harris’s argument for why we have no introspective experience of free will;How Harris’s thought experiment involves superficial attention to our experience of freedom;Why Harris can’t explain why his argument isn’t self-refuting;Rand’s view of why man is a being of self-made soul;Whether individuals with certain psychiatric conditions have volition;The issue of soft determinism (compatibilism). Mentioned in the discussion are the “free will” entry in the Ayn Rand Lexicon, Onkar Ghate’s talk “Seize the Reins of Your Mind” and Ben Bayer’s article “Why Champions of Science and Reason Need Free Will.” This podcast was recorded on April 15, 2021. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. Podcast audio:

In this episode, we ask Helen Beebee about a range of compatibilist positions, beginning with the “classical compatibilism” of Hobbes/Hume and then turning to the conditional analysis of ability,  David Lewis's “local miracle compatibilism,” and, finally,  “Humean compatibilism.”Helen's website: https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/Helen.Beebee.htmlHelen's book, Free Will: An Introduction: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230232921Helen's paper, “Local Miracle Compatibilism”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3506084?seq=1Helen's paper with Al Mele, “Humean Compatibilism”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3093706?seq=1If you have a question you'd like us to answer in our Q&A episode, get in touch with us at thefreewillshow@gmail.com, via the show's website: thefreewillshow.com, or through social media:Twitter: https://twitter.com/thefreewillshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefreewillshow/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Free-Will-Show-105535031200408/

Mamen Etxaniz ha caminado 1100 kilometros durnate 70 días por el Himalaya de Nepal. Nos relata la primera gran etapa: desde la zona del Kanchenjunga al Everest. El montañero de Huelva Teo Gonzalez Garcia lleva el proyecto "Montañas que humean". Quiere ascender volcanes. De momento ha subido al Teide y algunos de Cabo Verde. Mar Ramirez nos pasea por las ciudades más importantes de Irán y la cultura persa. Isaías Cruz y Jon Luzuriaga son especialista en bucear con tiburones en la costa vasca....

Today’s episode is of Chapter 4 of  “How To Be An Atheist” by Mitch Stokes (Amazon Link – https://amzn.to/2DVJmw6). We look at the road Hume took with his skepticism as it applies to science. Hume end shows that there is no non-circular argument for the reliability of science and fails to answer the question of [...] The post Ep. 23 – How To Be An Atheist – Ch.4 – Science & The Humean Condition appeared first on Cave To The Cross Apologetics.

Craig Callender (UCSD) gives a talk at the MCMP/MCTS Workshop on Laws of Nature (17 December, 2012) titled "Building a Better System". Abstract: In this talk I'll sketch the central motivating idea behind Humean approaches to lawhood, namely, that modality arises from bodies of knowledge, not the world (see, e.g., Putnam 1962). Keeping one's eyes firmly focused on this motivation is the key to developing so-called "system" approaches to lawhood. I'll claim that it will suggest particular ways of formulating the best system theory and also replies to recent criticisms. But it will also invite many open questions, such as why do creatures like us modalize at all?

Michael Esfeld (Lausanne) gives a talk at the MCMP/MCTS Workshop on Laws of Nature (17 December, 2012) titled "Humeanism and dispositionalism in physics". Abstract: The paper sets out to make a case for a natural philosophy or naturalized metaphysics that treats physics and metaphysics as inseparable. It examines how Humeanism and dispositionalism about laws of nature fare with respect to classical as well as quantum physics. In particular, I argue that, despite widespread claims to the contrary, Lewis' metaphysics of Humean supervenience is applicable to non-relativistic quantum mechanics and that its application even removes the charge of quidditism. However, this position faces considerable difficulties once physics abandons the assumption of a background system of geometrical relations unifying the world. Against this background, I indicate reasons to prefer dispositionalism to Humeanism.

Mathias Frisch (Maryland) gives a talk at the MCMP/MCTS Workshop on Laws of Nature (17 December, 2012) titled "Why Physics Can't Explain Everything". Abstract: Barry Loewer and David Albert have argued for a view on laws that is at once pragmatic (and takes nomic regularities are summaries of aspects of the Humean mosaic that are useful for beings like us) and 'imperialistic' or foundationalist. I argue in this paper that there is a deep tension between the two planks of the account and suggest that it is the pragmatism and not the foundationalism that is worth keeping.

In this episode, Paul and Courtney discuss the now dominant disenchanted way of perceiving the cosmos. Paul introduces the neo-Humean model and its philosophical underpinnings, including scientism, materialism, reductionism, atheism, and nihilism. Be sure to subscribe to our show!

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Implicit bias has been studied by many social psychologists, and one particular measure, the Implicit Association Test (or IAT) has often been used in that research. It has also been used by practitioners, often for purposes of raising participants' awareness of their own biases. And millions have completed IAT's online at the Project Implicit website. In this episode, I continue a discussion with six people who have all thought about the IAT, with the conversation covering such topics as (a) how well the IAT predicts discriminatory behavior and other behavior, (b) whether it's appropriate for the Project Implicit website to give individualized feedback to visitors who complete online IAT's there, and (c) the content and effectiveness of implicit bias training. My guests are psychologists Calvin Lai, Brian Nosek, Mike Olson, Keith Payne, and Simine Vazire, as well as journalist Jesse Singal. LINKS --Interpreting correlation coefficients (by Deborah J. Rumsey) (https://www.dummies.com/education/math/statistics/how-to-interpret-a-correlation-coefficient-r/) --Project Implicit (where you can take an IAT) (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) --Brian Nosek's departmental web page (https://med.virginia.edu/faculty/faculty-listing/ban2b/) --Calvin Lai's departmental web page (https://psychweb.wustl.edu/lai) --"Psychology's favorite tool for measuring racism isn't up to the job" (Jesse Singal, in The Cut) (https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-tool-isnt-up-to-the-job.html) --Keith Payne's departmental web page (http://bkpayne.web.unc.edu/) --Michael Olson's departmental web page (https://psychology.utk.edu/faculty/olson.php) --Simine Vazire's departmental web page (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/people/svazire) --The Black Goat (podcast on which Simine Vazire is a co-host) (http://www.theblackgoatpodcast.com/) --"Understanding and and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity (Greenwald, Poehlmann, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009) (http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/GPU&B.meta-analysis.JPSP.2009.pdf) --"Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects" (Greenwald, Banaji, & Nosek, 2015) (https://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/Greenwald,Banaji&Nosek.JPSP.2015.pdf) --"Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: Small effects sizes of unknown societal significance" (Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Mitchell, & Tetlock, 2015) (https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/44267412/Using_the_IAT_to_predict_ethnic_and_raci20160331-25218-20vauz.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1530481600&Signature=lS5rybckXwezHZrqSzHTlW%2FgKtI%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DUsing_the_IAT_to_predict_ethnic_and_raci.pdf) --"Arbitrary metrics in psychology" (Blanton & Jaccard, 2006) (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.314.2818&rep=rep1&type=pdf) --"The bias of crowds: How implicit bias bridges personal and systemic prejudice" (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017; access is subscription-controlled) (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1047840X.2017.1335568) --"Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test" (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) (http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/burke_b/Senior/BLINK%20replication/IAT.pdf) --A summary of David Hume's thoughts on the association of ideas (http://www.livingphilosophy.org.uk/philosophy/David_Hume/the_Association_of_Ideas.htm) --Two Psychologists Four Beers (podcast featuring psychologists Yoel Inbar and Mickey Inzlicht) (https://fourbeers.fireside.fm/) --Very Bad Wizards (podcast featuring psychologist David Pizarro and philosopher Tamler Sommers) (https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/) Cover art credit: "Still Life with Bottles, Wine, and Cheese," John F. Francis (1857; public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copyright tag: PD-US) Special Guests: Brian Nosek, Calvin Lai, Jesse Singal, Keith Payne, Michael Olson, and Simine Vazire.

On April 12, 2018, Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, two African-American men, were arrested for trespassing at a Philadelphia Starbucks (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/14/602556973/starbucks-police-and-mayor-weigh-in-on-controversial-arrest-of-2-black-men-in-ph). They were waiting for another person to join them for a meeting, when a manager called the police because they hadn't made a purchase. In the face of ensuing controversy, Starbucks closed stores nationwide one afternoon at the end of May in order to hold anti-bias training sessions (https://www.npr.org/2018/05/17/611909506/starbucks-training-focuses-on-the-evolving-study-of-unconscious-bias) for employees. As in this case and elsewhere (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/implicit-bias-training-salt-lake/548996/), the topic of implicit racial bias has captured many imaginations. Implicit bias has been studied by many social psychologists, and one particular measure, the Implicit Association Test (or IAT) has often been used in that research. It has also been used by practitioners, often for purposes of raising participants' awareness of their own biases. And millions have completed IAT's online at the Project Implicit website. In this episode, I talk with six people who have all thought about the IAT, with the conversation covering such topics as (a) what kinds of mental associations might be revealed by performance on the IAT, (b) how reliable is it as a measure, and (c) whether or not the research debates surrounding the IAT are an example of good science. My guests are psychologists Calvin Lai, Brian Nosek, Mike Olson, Keith Payne, and Simine Vazire, as well as journalist Jesse Singal. LINKS --Scientific American Frontiers episode on implicit bias (https://cosmolearning.org/documentaries/scientific-american-frontiers-796/7/) --Project Implicit (where you can take an IAT) (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) --Brian Nosek's departmental web page (https://med.virginia.edu/faculty/faculty-listing/ban2b/) --Calvin Lai's departmental web page (https://psychweb.wustl.edu/lai) --Michael Olson's departmental web page (https://psychology.utk.edu/faculty/olson.php) --Keith Payne's departmental web page (http://bkpayne.web.unc.edu/) --Simine Vazire's departmental web page (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/people/svazire) --"Psychology's favorite tool for measuring racism isn't up to the job" (Jesse Singal, in The Cut) (https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-tool-isnt-up-to-the-job.html) --"Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects" (Greenwald, Banaji, & Nosek, 2015) (https://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/Greenwald,Banaji&Nosek.JPSP.2015.pdf) --"Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: Small effects sizes of unknown societal significance" (Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Mitchell, & Tetlock, 2015) (https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/44267412/Using_the_IAT_to_predict_ethnic_and_raci20160331-25218-20vauz.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1530481600&Signature=lS5rybckXwezHZrqSzHTlW%2FgKtI%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DUsing_the_IAT_to_predict_ethnic_and_raci.pdf) --A summary of David Hume's thoughts on the association of ideas (http://www.livingphilosophy.org.uk/philosophy/David_Hume/the_Association_of_Ideas.htm) Cover art credit: "Still Life with Bottles, Wine, and Cheese," John F. Francis (1857; public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copyright tag: PD-US) Special Guests: Brian Nosek, Calvin Lai, Jesse Singal, Keith Payne, Michael Olson, and Simine Vazire.

It is fairly conventional now to think of the 'science of man' as possibly the signal intellectual achievement of the Enlightenment in Scotland. David Hume coined the phrase  and attached it to his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he placed the study of human nature on empirical (or experimental) foundations. On this basis Hume was to develop a powerful theory of justice, political obligation, morality, beauty, and natural religion - all of it held together as the functions of what Hume calls, in the common way, sympathy. Adam Smith was an early and acute reader of Hume's Treatise, and his theories about language, property and progress can be seen to complete the Humean project and create the science of man that Hume had promised. In time, it was to be sustained by Smith's own theory of sentiment and socialibilty, based on Humean premises, but significantly different from our own. In this lecture, Nick Phillipson challenges these reasonable inferences about Hume and Smith, and asks whether we really want to think of Hume as the author of a "projet manqué", and whether we want to think of Smith as someone who was simply tweaking Humean language?

Scott and I got into some epistemology and skepticism in our talk. He took the stance of a Humean empiricist, I took my semi-nihilist view. It was all fun and polite, I learned a lot, I hope you guys will … Continue reading →

Hannes Leitgeb (LMU/MCMP) gives a talk at "Progic 2013", the Sixth Workshop on Combining Probability and Logic (17-18 Sept, 2013), titled "The Humean Thesis on Belief. Belief and Stable Probability".

Barry Loewer is the guest lecturer for this class. Tim starts by recapitulating the notion of typicality introduced in the previous lecture. Tim, David and Barry then engage in a debate about Tim's view of the nature of statistical explanation. Barry then gives a summary of the difference between his and David's view of statistical mechanics and Tim's view. He starts by arguing that one main point of contention is the "imperialistic" nature of his and David's project. A second main point of contention is the nature of laws and time, which is the topic for the remainder of the lecture. Barry contrasts two conceptions of laws. The first one is the Humean view of laws on which laws of nature are reducible to facts about the Humean mosaic, which goes hand-in-hand (Barry claims) with a view of time on which time doesn't have an intrinsic direction. The second is Tim's view, on which laws of nature are a primitive category in our ontology, and which (Barry argues) goes naturally with a view of time on which it has an intrinsic direction.

Part 4 of 7 in Marianne Talbot's "A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners". In this episode we reflect on Hume's account of morality and his rejection of reason as the source of morality.

Part 4 of 7 in Marianne Talbot's "A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners". In this episode we reflect on Hume's account of morality and his rejection of reason as the source of morality.

Part 4 of 7 in Marianne Talbot's "A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners". In this episode we reflect on Hume's account of morality and his rejection of reason as the source of morality.

Part 4 of 7 in Marianne Talbot's "A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners". In this episode we reflect on Hume's account of morality and his rejection of reason as the source of morality.

Sinhababu defends a Humean theory of motivation.

Sinhababu defends a Humean theory of motivation.

I propose a non-Humean theory of causation with “tendencies” as causal connections. Not, however, as “necessary connexions”: causes are not sufficient, they do not necessitate their effects. The theory is designed to be, not an analysis of the concept of causation, but a description of what is the case in typical cases of causa-tion. I therefore call it a metaphysical theory of causation, as opposed to a semantic one.