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Baker, Lynne Rudder. On a causal theory of content
1989, Philosophical Perspectives 3:165-186.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: The project of explaining intentional phenomena in terms of nonintentional phenomena has become a central task in the philosophy of mind.' Since intentional phenomena like believing, desiring, intending have content essentially, the project is one of showing how semantic properties like content can be reconciled with nonsemantic properties like cause. As Jerry A. Fodor put it, The worry about representation is above all that the semantic (and/or the intentional) will prove permanently recalcitrant to integration in the natural order; for example that the semantic/intentional properties of things will fail to supervene upon their physical properties.
Comment: This paper provides a clear reconstruction and evaluation of Jerry Fodor's causal theory of content. It is helpful as primary and further reading in an undergraduate philosophy of mind course to discuss the problem of the naturalization of content.
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Balog, Katalin. Conceivability, possibility, and the mind-body problem
1999, Philosophical Review 108 (4):497-528.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: In (Chalmers, 1996), David Chalmers influentially argued that if physicalism is true then every positive truth is a priori entailed by the full physical description—this is called 'the a priori entailment thesis'. However, ascriptions of phenomenal consciousness are not so entailed and thus he concludes that Physicalism is false. As he puts it, 'zombies' are metaphysically possible. I attempt to show that this argument is refuted by considering an analogous argument in the mouth of a zombie. The conclusion of this argument is false so one of the premises is false. I argue at length that this shows that the original conceivability argument also has a false premise and so is invalid.
Comment: This paper is most suitable for further reading in any course which discusses consciousness and conceivability arguments. Note that this paper was chosen by The Philosopher's Annual as one of the ten best articles appearing in print in 2000 and so is reprinted in Volume XXIII of The Philosopher's Annual.
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Balog, Katalin. Jerry Fodor on Non-Conceptual Content
2009, Synthese, 170, 311-320
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser

Abstract: Proponents of non-conceptual content have recruited it for various philosophical jobs. Some epistemologists have suggested that it may play the role of “the given” that Sellars is supposed to have exorcised from philosophy. Some philosophers of mind (e.g., Dretske) have suggested that it plays an important role in the project of naturalizing semantics as a kind of halfway between merely information bearing and possessing conceptual content. Here I will focus on a recent proposal by Jerry Fodor. In a recent paper he characterizes non-conceptual content in a particular way and argues that it is plausible that it plays an explanatory role in accounting for certain auditory and visual phenomena. So he thinks that there is reason to believe that there is non-conceptual content. On the other hand, Fodor thinks that non-conceptual content has a limited role. It occurs only in the very early stages of perceptual processing prior to conscious awareness. My paper is examines Fodor’s characterization of non-conceptual content and his claims for its explanatory importance. I also discuss if Fodor has made a case for limiting non-conceptual content to non-conscious, sub-personal mental states.

Comment: Useful discussion of Fodor's view on non-conceptual content; I use the Fodor piece as main reading, and this as further reading.
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Barnes, Elizabeth. Arguments Against Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vagueness
2010, Philosophy Compass 5(11): 953-964.
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: In this paper, I'll examine some of the major arguments against metaphysical indeterminacy and vagueness. Metaphysical accounts of indeterminacy and vagueness have been decidedly unpopular, and this paper examines some of the major reasons for that unpopularity.
Comment: A really useful overview of the alleged problem of metaphysical indeterminacy, and the main arguments against it. Written extremely clearly, but dealing with complex subject matter, so suitable for either an advanced undergraduate or masters class (or a further reading in an intermediate undergraduate class).
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Barnes, Elizabeth, Ross Cameron. Back to the Open Future
2011, Philosophical Perspectives 25(1): 1-26.
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: Many of us are tempted by the thought that the future is open, whereas the past is not. The future might unfold one way, or it might unfold another; but the past, having occurred, is now settled. In previous work we presented an account of what openness consists in: roughly, that the openness of the future is a matter of it being metaphysically indeterminate how things will turn out to be. We were previously concerned merely with presenting the view and exploring its consequences; we did not attempt to argue for it over rival accounts. That is what we will aim to do in this paper.
Comment: This could be set as a further reading in an undergraduate metaphysics course, or an undergraduate course on the metaphysics of time. It would also work well as a core reading in a postgraduate course on the metaphysics of time paired with the authors' 'The Open Future: Bivalence, Determinism, and Ontology'.
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Barnes, Elizabeth. Going Beyond the Fundamental: Feminism in Contemporary Metaphysics
2014, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (3pt3):335-351
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Alison Fernandes
Abstract: Much recent literature in metaphysics attempts to answer the question, ‘What is metaphysics?' In this paper I argue that many of the most influential contemporary answers to this question yield the result that feminist metaphysics is not metaphysics. I further argue this result is problematic.
Comment: Useful for raising questions about the scope of metaphysics, issues to do with fundamentality, as well as the relation between feminism and metaphysics. An excellent paper to include at the end of an undergraduate course in metaphysics, or to include in a course on social ontology.
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Barnes, Elizabeth, Ross Cameron. The Open Future: Bivalence, Determinism, and Ontology
2009, Philosophical Studies 146(2): 291-309.
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: In this paper we aim to disentangle the thesis that the future is open from theses that often get associated or even conflated with it. In particular, we argue that the open future thesis is compatible with both the unrestricted principle of bivalence and determinism with respect to the laws of nature. We also argue that whether or not the future (and indeed the past) is open has no consequences as to the existence of (past and) future ontology.
Comment: This text might seem to be advanced because of the many issues it handles, but it's written so clearly that I think it could (if taught in detail as a core text) be suitable for an intermediate metaphysics class. In particular, the class could be split into three groups, with each group tasked with researching one of bivalence, determinism and eternalism, and explaining i) how they are alleged to conflict with the open future, and ii) how Barnes and Cameron argue that they aren't in fact in conflict with the thesis that the future is open.
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Barrett, Lisa F., Kristen A. Lindquist. The embodiment of emotion
2008, In Gün R. Semin & Eliot R. Smith (eds.), Embodied grounding: social, cognitive, affective, and neuroscientific approaches. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 237 - 262
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Added by: Maria Jimena Clavel Vazquez
Abstract:

Historically, almost all psychological theories of emotion have proposed that emotional reactions are constituted by the body in some fashion, but those theories utilized a common metaphor that the body and mind are separate and independent forces in an emotional episode. Current embodiment theories of the mind challenge this assumption, however, by suggesting that the body helps to constitute the mind in shaping an emotional response. We briefly review new theories of embodied cognition in light of accumulating findings from emotion research, to lay the foundation for novel hypotheses about how the conceptual system for emotion is constituted and used. Finally, we discuss how an embodied perspective can help to usher in a paradigm shift in scientific approaches to what emotions are and how they work

Comment: available in this Blueprint
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Battaly, Heather. Epistemic Self-Indulgence
2010, Metaphilosophy 41(1): 214-234.
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Added by: Rie Iizuka
Abstract: I argue in this essay that there is an epistemic analogue of moral self-indulgence. Section 1 analyzes Aristotle's notion of moral temperance, and its corresponding vices of self-indulgence and insensibility. Section 2 uses Aristotle's notion of moral self-indulgence as a model for epistemic self-indulgence. I argue that one is epistemically self-indulgent only if one either: (ESI1) desires, consumes, and enjoys appropriate and inappropriate epistemic objects; or (ESI2) desires, consumes, and enjoys epistemic objects at appropriate and inappropriate times; or (ESI3) desires and enjoys epistemic objects too frequently, or to an inappropriately high degree, or consumes too much of them. We need not look far to locate the epistemically self-indulgent: philosophers, especially skeptics, are likely candidates.
Comment: This is an interesting article offering an analysis on the concept of an intellectual vice: epistemic self-indulgence. It will give the students an overview of the concept of intellectual self-indulgence, and an initial idea of how we could understand and work on individual vices. By providing concrete examples, this paper would make it easier for students to understand what virtue epistemology aims to achieve.
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Battaly, Heather. Virtue Epistemology
2008, Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639-663.
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Added by: Rie Iizuka
Abstract: What are the qualities of an excellent thinker? A growing new field, virtue epistemology, answers this question. Section I distinguishes virtue epistemology from belief-based epistemology. Section II explains the two primary accounts of intellectual virtue: virtue-reliabilism and virtue-responsibilism. Virtue-reliabilists claim that the virtues are stable reliable faculties, like vision. Virtue-responsibilists claim that they are acquired character traits, like open-mindedness. Section III evaluates progress and problems with respect to three key projects: explaining low-grade knowledge, high-grade knowledge, and the individual intellectual virtues.
Comment: This is a very helpful survey article on virtue epistemology covering works published between 1990 to early 2000s. This paper is most appropriate for beginners, offering an overview of the main problems and helping understand different positions of virtue epistemology.
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Baum, Rob. Moral Good, the Self, and the M/other. Upholding Difference
2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 511-523
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Added by: Björn Freter

Abstract: This chapter employs the relevant ethical phenomenologies of Buber, Lévinas, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche as well as the philosophical psychoanalysis of Lacan to examine the moral good of difference and to determine the rationale of treating either self or other as more deserving of good. Difference and otherness are not synonymous. Following the Socratic style of dialogue, the chapter emerges from a conversation with a Zulu man who perceives the author as a privileged, white, female South African other due to the failure of the self to understand the actual difference of the other. There also seems, the author acknowledges, to be a pre-existing and fundamental moral value in regard to relating with and comprehending the other as both self-like and necessarily not-self, a moral value emerging from the Christian overdetermination of many South Africans including the Zulu man – the author is, again, “other” (not privileged, not white, not South African, and not Christian). To this end, Levitical and Deuteronomic texts are invoked as a shared philosophical basis for understanding the difference between self and other. From these analyses, the chapter shows that we other violently, when we do not understand our difference. But when we take time to stop and reflect and listen, we can reach agreement that we are completely different in a positive sense – a strategic rethinking of “otherness.” This important and essential form of difference is theorized in the chapter as “m/othering,” illustrating the original forming of identity on which we tend to base perceptions of the other. Difference is shown to be not only desirable but possibly imperative for cultural growth.
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Beebe, Helen. Does Anything Hold the Universe Together?
2006, Synthese 149(3): 509-533.
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Added by: Laura Jimenez
Abstract: According to 'regularity theories' of causation, the obtaining of causal relations depends on no more than the obtaining of certain kinds of regularity. Regularity theorists are thus anti-realists about necessary connections in nature. Regularity theories of one form or another have constituted the dominant view in analytic Philosophy for a long time, but have recently come in for some robust criticism, notably from Galen Strawson. Strawson's criticisms are natural criticisms to make, but have not so far provoked much response from regularity theorists. The paper considers and rebuts Strawson's objections. For example, Strawson claims that if there were no necessary connections in nature, we ought continually to find the regularity of the Universe surprising. I argue that the fact that the Universe is regular is something we take ourselves (fallibly) to know, and hence, in the light of this knowledge, its continued orderliness is not at all surprising
Comment: An excellent discussion of regularity theories of causation and some key challenges to those theories. Presupposes knowledge of Lewis (1973, 1979), as well as Hume's views. Would work well in a class on causation, or perhaps in a class on metaphysics more broadly, and could form part of the reading for a week about regularity theories. The paper is rich enough to be covered in a postgraduate course as well.
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Beebee, Helen. Hume on Causation
2006, Routledge
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Added by: Laura Jimenez
Publisher’s Note: Hume on Causation is the first major work dedicated to Hume’s views on causation in over fifteen years, and it argues that Hume does not subscribe to any of these three views. It places Hume’s interest in causation within the context of his theory of the mind and his theory of causal reasoning, arguing that Hume’s conception of causation derives from his conception of the nature of the inference from causes to effects.
Comment: This book serves as an excellent introduction to, and critical survey of, Hume's views on causation. It will be useful in undergraduate and postgraduate courses which cover Hume's views. Chapter 1 "Hume's Targets" gives historical context to Hume's views and would work well as further reading in a week covering Hume and causation. The other chapters focus on specific interpretations or aspects of Hume's work and thus could be more useful in a postgraduate course on Hume, or causation. This will also be of course to postgraduate students who want to research Hume and/or causation.
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Beebee, Helen, McCallion, Anne-Marie. In Defence of Different Voices
2020, Symposion 7(2), 149-177
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael Greer
Abstract: Louise Antony draws a now well-known distinction between two explanatory models for researching and addressing the issue of women’s underrepresentation in philosophy – the ‘Different Voices’ (DV) and ‘Perfect Storm’ (PS) models – and argues that, in view of PS’s considerably higher social value, DV should be abandoned. We argue that Antony misunderstands the feminist framework that she takes to underpin DV, and we reconceptualise DV in a way that aligns with a proper understanding of the metaphilosophical framework that underpins it. On the basis of that reconceptualisation – together with the rejection of her claim that DV posits ‘cognitive’ differences between women and men – we argue that Antony’s negative assessment of DV’s social value is mistaken. And, we argue, this conclusion does not depend on endorsing the relevant feminist metaphilosophical framework. Whatever our metaphilosophical commitments, then, we should all agree that DV research should be actively pursued rather than abandoned.
Comment (from this Blueprint): Helen Beebee and Anne-Marie McCallion argue that Antony misunderstands the conceptual commitments of the different voices model. Once the confusion is removed, the authors claim, it becomes clear that its pursuit is of positive social value.
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Beebee, Helen. The non-governing conception of laws of nature
2000, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56: 571-594.
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Added by: Jamie Collin
Abstract: Recently several thought experiments have been developed (by John Carroll amongst others) which have been alleged to refute the Ramsey-Lewis view of laws of nature. The paper aims to show that two such thought experiments fail to establish that the Ramsey-Lewis view is false, since they presuppose a conception of laws of nature that is radically at odds with the Humean conception of laws embodied by the Ramsey- Lewis view. In particular, the thought experiments presuppose that laws of nature govern the behavior of objects. The paper argues that the claim that laws govern should not be regarded as a conceptual truth, and shows how the governing conception of laws manifests itself in the thought experiments. Hence the thought experiments do not constitute genuine counter-examples to the Ramsey-Lewis view, since the Humean is free to reject the conception of laws which the thought experiments presuppose.
Comment: Good primary or secondary reading for advanced undergraduate or graduate philosophy of science or metaphysics courses; or any course where laws of nature are relevant (for instance, a course considering the contemporary impact of Hume).
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