My Critique of Russell’s Theory of Descriptions

Russell’s ‘On Denoting’ contained a powerfully presented form of what later was called the ‘Theory of Descriptions,’ which I later criticised in ‘On Referring’. But Russell’s aims and mine were totally discrepant. He was concerned with formal logic and the philosophy of mathematics; I solely with the actual use and function of definite singular descriptions in ordinary linguistic communication

Affective Experience, Desire, and Reasons for Action

What is the role of affective experience in explaining how our desires provide us with reasons for action? When we desire that p, we are thereby disposed to feel attracted to the prospect that p, or to feel averse to the prospect that not-p. In this paper, we argue that affective experiences – including feelings of attraction and aversion – provide us with reasons for action in virtue of their phenomenal character. Moreover, we argue that desires provide us with reasons for action only insofar as they are dispositions to have affective experiences. On this account, affective experience has a central role to play in explaining how desires provide reasons for action

Refining trace metal temperature proxies in cold-water scleractinian and stylasterid corals

The Li/Mg, Sr/Ca and oxygen isotopic (O) compositions of many marine biogenic carbonates are sensitive to seawater temperature. Corals, as cosmopolitan marine taxa with carbonate skeletons that can be precisely dated, represent ideal hosts for these geochemical proxies. However, efforts to calibrate and refine temperature proxies in cold-water corals (<20 °C) remain limited. Here we present skeletal Li/Mg, Sr/Ca, O and carbon isotope (C) data from live-collected specimens of aragonitic scleractinian corals (Balanophyllia, Caryophyllia, Desmophyllum, Enallopsammia, Flabellum, Lophelia, and Vaughanella), both aragonitic and high-Mg calcitic stylasterid genera (Stylaster and Errina), and shallow-water high-Mg calcite crustose coralline algae (Lithophyllum, Hydrolithon, and Neogoniolithon). We interpret these data in conjunction with results from previously explored taxa including aragonitic zooxanthellate scleractinia and foraminifera, and high-Mg calcite octocorals. We show that Li/Mg ratios covary most strongly with seawater temperature, both for aragonitic and high-Mg calcitic taxa, making for reliable and universal seawater temperature proxies. Combining all of our biogenic aragonitic Li/Mg data with previous calibration efforts we report a refined relationship to temperature: Li/MgAll Aragonite = (). This calibration now permits paleo-temperature reconstruction to better than ±3.4 °C (95% prediction intervals) across biogenic aragonites, regardless of taxon, from 0 to 30 °C. For taxa in this study, aragonitic stylasterid Li/Mg offers the most robust temperature proxy (Li/MgStylasterid (Arag) = ()) with a reproducibility of ±2.3 °C. For the first time, we show that high-Mg calcites have a similar exponential relationship with temperature, but with a lower intercept value (Li/Mg = ()). This calibration opens the possibility of temperature reconstruction using high-Mg calcite corals and coralline algae. The commonality in the relationship between Li/Mg and temperature transcends phylogeny and suggests abiogenic trace metal incorporation mechanism

Moving Stories: Agency, Emotion and Practical Rationality

What is it to be an agent? One influential line of thought, endorsed by G. E. M. Anscombe and David Velleman, among others, holds that agency depends on practical rationality—the ability to act for reasons, rather than being merely moved by causes. Over the past 25 years, Velleman has argued compellingly for a distinctive view of agency and the practical rationality with which he associates it. On Velleman’s conception, being an agent consists in having the capacity to be motivated by a drive to act for reasons. Your bodily movements qualify as genuine actions insofar as they are motivated in part by your desire to behave in a way that makes sense to yourself. However, there are at least two distinct ways of spelling out what this drive towards self-intelligibility consists in, both present in Velleman’s work. It might consist in a drive towards intelligibility in causal-psychological terms: roughly, a drive to maximize the rational coherence of your psychological states. Alternatively, it might consist in a drive towards narrative intelligibility: a drive to make your ongoing activity conform to a recognizable narrative structure, where that structure is understood emotionally. Velleman originally saw these options as basically equivalent, but later came to prioritize the drive towards causal-psychological intelligibility over that towards narrative intelligibility. I argue that this gets things the wrong way round—we should instead understand our capacities to render ourselves intelligible in causal-psychological terms as built upon a bedrock of emotionally suffused narrative understanding. In doing so, we resolve several problems for Velleman’s view, and pave the way for an embodied, embedded and affective account of practical rationality and agency. According to the picture that emerges, practical rationality is essential to agency, narrative understanding is essential to practical rationality, and the rhythms and structures patterning the ebb and flow of our emotional lives are essential to narrative understanding

What the disjunctivist is right about

There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this chal- lenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommo- date an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists

Military maladaptation : counterinsurgency and the politics of failure

Tactical learning is critical to battlefield success, especially in a counterinsurgency. This article tests the existing model of military adaption against a ‘most-likely’ case: the British Army’s counterinsurgency in the Southern Cameroons (1960–61). Despite meeting all preconditions thought to enable adaptation – decentralization, leadership turnover, supportive leadership, poor organizational memory, feedback loops, and a clear threat – the British still failed to adapt. Archival evidence suggests politicians subverted bottom-up adaptation, because winning came at too high a price in terms of Britain’s broader strategic imperatives. Our finding identifies an important gap in the extant adaptation literature: it ignores politics.PostprintPeer reviewe