Conceptual evaluation: epistemic

On a view implicitly endorsed by many, a concept is epistemically better than another if and because it does a better job at ‘carving at the joints', or if the property corresponding to it is ‘more natural' than the one corresponding to another. This chapter offers an argument against this seemingly plausible thought, starting from three key observations about the way we use and evaluate concepts from en epistemic perspective: that we look for concepts that play a role in explanations of things that cry out for explanation; that we evaluate not only ‘empirical' concepts, but also mathematical and perhaps moral concepts from an epistemic perspective; and that there is much more complexity to the concept/property relation than the natural thought seems to presuppose. These observations, it is argued, rule out giving a theory of conceptual evaluation that is a corollary of a metaphysical ranking of the relevant properties. conceptual ethics, explanation, naturalness, epistemic value, concept/property, semantic internalis

On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma

Critical legal scholarship challenges the liberal claim that modern western societies are characterized by the rule of law. The liberal conception of the rule of law, critical scholars contend, serves to mystify and legitimate the legal system and thereby obscure the real issues behind individual cases as well as the real nature of the legal system. Frequently, the claim that legal rules are indeterminate is the starting point for such a critique of the rule of law. What I call the indeterminacy thesis goes roughly like this: the existing body of legal doctrines-statutes, administrative regulations, and court decisions-permits a judge to justify any result she desires in any particular case. Put another way, the idea is that a competent adjudicator can square a decision in favor of either side in any given lawsuit with the existing body of legal rules. This article critiques the indeterminacy thesis as it has been developed in critical legal scholarship. Two assumptions related to the indeterminacy thesis are widely held by critical scholars. First, much critical scholarship assumes that the indeterminacy thesis always accurately describes legal phenomena. Second, critical scholarship frequently assumes that the indeterminacy thesis plays an important role in support of a related thesis, the mystification thesis- the claim that legal discourse conceals and reinforces relations of domination. I explore the problematic character of both of these critical claims and suggest that critical scholars have a long way to go in formulating indeterminacy as a workable proposition with real critical bite. Finally, I suggest that adherence to a strong view of indeterminacy is actually counterproductive to the program of critical scholarship

The philosophical significance of binary categories in Habermas’s discourse ethics

The philosophical programme associated with the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas has been widely discussed in the literature. The fact that Habermas has devoted a considerable part of his work to the elaboration of this philosophical programme indicates that discourse ethics can be regarded as a cornerstone of his communication-theoretic approach to society. In essence, Habermas conceives of discourse ethics as a philosophical framework which derives the coordinative power of social normativity from the discursive power of communicative rationality. Although there is an extensive literature on Habermas’s communication-theoretic account of society, almost no attention has been paid to the fact that the theoretical framework which undergirds his discourse ethics is based on a number of binary conceptual divisions. It is the purpose of this paper to shed light on the philosophical significance of these binary categories in Habermas’s discourse ethics and thereby demonstrate that their complexity is indicative of the subject’s tension-laden immersion in social reality

Epistemological Tensions in Bourdieu's Conception of Social Science

The main purpose of this paper is to explore Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of social science. To this end, the paper sheds light on the main epistemological presuppositions that undergird Bourdieu’s defence of reflexive sociology as a scientific endeavour. The predominant view in the literature is that, in most of his writings,Bourdieu has a tendency to embrace a positivist conception of social science. When examining Bourdieu’s conception of social science in more detail, however, it becomes clear that the assumption that he remains trapped in a positivist paradigm does not do justice to the complexity of his multifaceted account of social science. In order to illustrate the complexity of Bourdieu’s conception of social science, the following analysis scrutinises ten epistemological tensions which can be found in Bourdieu’s writings on the nature of knowledge production. In view of these epistemological tensions, a more fine-grained picture emerges which demonstrates that Bourdieu invites,and indeed compels, us to reflect upon the complexity of the various tension-laden tasks posed by the pursuit of a critical social science

Monetary policy regime shifts and inflation persistence

This paper reports the results of estimating a Markov-Switching New Keynesian (MSNK) model using Bayesian methods. The broadest and best fitting MSNK model is a four-regime model allowing independent changes in the regimes governing monetary policy and the volatility of the shocks. We use the estimates to investigate the mechanisms that lead to a decline in the persistence of inflation. We show that the population moment describing the serial correlation of inflation is a weighted average of the autocorrelation parameters of the exogenous shocks. Changes in the monetary or shock volatility regimes shift weight over these serial correlation parameters and affect the serial correlation properties of inflation. Estimation results indicate that a shift to a monetary regime that reacts more aggressively to inflation reduces the weight on the more persistent shocks, so lowers inflation persistence. Similarly, a shift to the low-volatility regime reduces the weight on the more persistent shocks and also contributes to reducing inflation persistence. Estimates of model-implied inflation persistence indicate that it began rising in the late 1960s and peaked around the Volcker disinflation. The subsequent decline in persistence is due to both a more aggressive monetary policy regime and less volatile shocks.

Does Phenomenology Ground Mental Content?

I develop several new arguments against claims about "cognitive phenomenology" and its alleged role in grounding thought content. My arguments concern "absent cognitive qualia cases", "altered cognitive qualia cases", and "disembodied cognitive qualia cases". However, at the end, I sketch a positive theory of the role of phenomenology in grounding content, drawing on David Lewis's work on intentionality. I suggest that within Lewis's theory the subject's total evidence plays the central role in fixing mental content and ruling out deviant interpretations. However I point out a huge unnoticed problem, the problem of evidence: Lewis really has no theory of sensory content and hence no theory of what fixes evidence. I suggest a way of plugging this hole in Lewis's theory. On the resulting theory, which I call " phenomenal functionalism", there is a sense in which sensory phenomenology is the source of all determinate intentionality. Phenomenal functionalism has similarities to the theories of Chalmers and Schwitzgebe

Does it matter (for equilibrium determinacy) what price index the central bank targets?

What inflation rate should the central bank target? The authors address determinacy issues related to this question in a two-sector model in which prices can differ in equilibrium. They assume that the degree of nominal price stickiness can vary across sectors and that labor is immobile. This paper’s contribution is to demonstrate that a modified Taylor principle holds in this environment. If the central bank elects to target sector A and responds to price movements in this sector with a coefficient greater than unity, then this policy rule will ensure determinacy across all sectors. These results have at least two implications: First, the equilibrium-determinacy criterion does not imply a preference for any particular inflation measure. Second, since the Taylor principle applies at the sectoral level, the principle is unnecessary at the aggregate level.Monetary policy ; Inflation (Finance) ; Banks and banking, Central

Meadian reflections on the existential ambivalence of human selfhood

This paper examines the existential ambivalence of human selfhood by drawing upon George Herbert Mead’s distinction between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. In order to make a case for the centrality of this conceptual distinction, the paper offers a comprehensive account of a variety of different meanings which the notions of the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ are given in Mead’s analysis of the self. The distinction between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ has been extensively discussed in the literature, but neither supporters nor detractors of Mead’s symbolic interactionism have provided a detailed study of its multifaceted significance for the constitution of selfhood. The paper seeks to demonstrate that Mead’s analytical separation between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ allows us to shed light on the multilayered ambivalence of the human self, that is, on the existential significance of various opposing forces which pervade every ordinary subject’s relation to the world

Effects and Propositions

The quantum logical and quantum information-theoretic traditions have exerted an especially powerful influence on Bub's thinking about the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. This paper discusses both the quantum logical and information-theoretic traditions from the point of view of their representational frameworks. I argue that it is at this level, at the level of its framework, that the quantum logical tradition has retained its centrality to Bub's thought. It is further argued that there is implicit in the quantum information-theoretic tradition a set of ideas that mark a genuinely new alternative to the framework of quantum logic. These ideas are of considerable interest for the philosophy of quantum mechanics, a claim which I defend with an extended discussion of their application to our understanding of the philosophical significance of the no hidden variable theorem of Kochen and Specker.Comment: Presented to the 2007 conference, New Directions in the Foundations of Physic

Federal Reserve Policy viewed through a Money Supply Lens

This paper examines whether the U.S. Federal Reserve has adjusted high-powered money supply in response to macroeconomic indicators. Applying ex-post and real-time data for the postwar period, we provide evidence that nonborrowed reserves responded to expected inflation and the output-gap. While the output-gap feedback has always been negative, the response of money supply to changes in inflation varies considerably across time. The inflation feedback is negative in the post-1979 period and positive, albeit smaller than one, in the pre-1979 period. Applying a standard macroeconomic model, these roperties are shown to be consistent with a welfare maximizing policy, and to ensure equilibrium determinacy. Viewed through the money supply lens, the Fed has thus never allowed for endogenous fluctuations, which contrasts conclusions drawn from federal funds rate analyses.Nonborrowed reserves, monetary policy reaction functions, real-time data, determinacy