Erkenntnis

  Causal slingshots are formal arguments advanced by proponents of an event ontology of token-level causation which, in the
 end, are intended to show two things: (i) The logical form of statements expressing causal dependencies on token level features
 a binary predicate ¦ causes ¦' and (ii) that predicate takes events as arguments. Even though formalisms are only revealing
 with respect to the logical form of natural language statements, if the latter are shown to be adequately captured within
 a corresponding formalism, proponents of slingshots usually take the adequacy of their formalizations for granted without
 justifying it. The first part of this paper argues that the most discussed version of a causal slingshot, viz. the one e.g.
 presented by Davidson (Essays on actions and events. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1980), can indeed be refuted for relying on
 an inadequate formal apparatus. In contrast, the formal means of Gödel's (The philosophy of Betrand Russell. New York, Tudor,
 1944) often neglected slingshot are shown to stand on solid ground in the second part of the paper. Nonetheless, I contend
 that Gödel's slingshot does only half the work friends of event causation would like it to do. It provides good reasons for
 (i) but not for (ii).
 
	

  The first explicit argument for the incompatibility of externalism in the philosophy of mind and a priori self-knowledge is
 Boghossian's discrimination argument. In this essay, I oppose the third premise of this argument, trying to show by means
 of a thought experiment that possessing the twater thought' is not an alternative, a fortiori not a relevant alternative,
 to having the water thought.' I then examine a modified version of Boghossian's argument. The attempt is made to substantiate
 the claim that the standard incompatibilist support for its second premise is untenable. Furthermore, a third Boghossian-style
 argument is rejected on the ground that either its second premise cannot be warranted in the way suggested by incompatibilists
 or its third premise is mistaken because having the twater thought' instead of the water thought' is not relevant. Finally,
 it is argued that the discrimination argument cannot be saved by invoking closure. The upshot of my discussion is that a compatibilist
 can dismiss Boghossian-style arguments for incompatibilism without having to deal with fundamental issues concerning self-knowledge
 and the nature of slow switching.
 
	

  This paper presents a naturalistic response to the challenge of epistemic relativism. The case of the Azande poison oracle
 is employed as an example of an alternative epistemic norm which may be used to justify beliefs about everyday occurrences.
 While a distinction is made between scepticism and relativism, an argument in support of epistemic relativism is presented
 that is based on the sceptical problem of the criterion. A response to the resulting relativistic position is then provided
 on the basis of a particularist response to scepticism combined with a naturalistic approach to the warrant of epistemic norms.
 It is argued that it is possible to comparatively assess the ability of epistemic norms to lead to epistemic aims. As against
 the epistemic relativist, it is possible to provide an objective basis for the choice between alternative epistemic norms.
 
	

  There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists. This paper illustrates
 the need for this division of labor through a historical example, and a formal model is presented to better analyze situations
 of this type. Analysis of this model reveals that a division of labor can be maintained in two different ways: by limiting
 information or by endowing the scientists with extreme beliefs. If both features are present however, cognitive diversity
 is maintained indefinitely, and as a result agents fail to converge to the truth. Beyond the mechanisms for creating diversity
 suggested here, this shows that the real epistemic goal is not diversity but transient diversity.
 
	

  Accounts of ontic explanation have often been devised so as to provide an understanding of mechanism and of causation. Ontic
 accounts differ quite radically in their ontologies, and one of the latest additions to this tradition proposed by Peter Machamer,
 Lindley Darden and Carl Craver reintroduces the concept of activity. In this paper I ask whether this influential and activity-based
 account of mechanisms is viable as an ontic account. I focus on polygenic scenarios'scenarios in which the causal truths depend
 on more than one cause. The importance of polygenic causation was noticed early on by Mill (1893). It has since been shown to be a problem for both causal-law approaches to causation (Cartwright 1983) and accounts of causation cast in terms of capacities (Dupré 1993; Glennan 1997, pp. 605“626). However, whereas mechanistic accounts seem to be attractive precisely because they promise to handle complicated
 causal scenarios, polygenic causation needs to be examined more thoroughly in the emerging literature on activity-based mechanisms.
 The activity-based account proposed in Machamer et al. (2000, pp. 1“25) is problematic as an ontic account, I will argue. It seems necessary to ask, of any ontic account, how well it
 performs in causal situations where'at the explanandum level of mechanism'no activity occurs. In addition, it should be asked how well the activity-based account performs in situations where there are
 too few activities around to match the polygenic causal origin of the explanandum. The first situation presents an explanandum-problem
 and the second situation presents an explanans-problem'I will argue'both of which threaten activity-based frameworks.
 
	

  Frank Jackson endorses epiphenomenalism because he thinks that his knowledge argument undermines physicalism. One of the most
 interesting criticisms of Jackson's position is what I call the ˜inconsistency objection'. The inconsistency objection says
 that Jackson's position is untenable because epiphenomenalism undermines the knowledge argument. The inconsistency objection has been defended by various philosophers independently, including Michael
 Watkins, Fredrik Stjernberg, and Neil Campbell. Surprisingly enough, while Jackson himself admits explicitly that the inconsistency
 objection is ˜the most powerful reply to the knowledge argument' he knows of, it has never been discussed critically. The
 aim of this paper is to evaluate the objection and to identify and consider its implications. The objection is alleged to
 be based on a causal theory of knowledge. I argue that the objection fails by showing that any causal theory of knowledge
 is such that it is either false or does not support the inconsistency objection. In order to defend my argument, I offer a
 hypothesis concerning phenomenal knowledge.
 
	

  It is widely held that, as Morgenbesser's case is usually taken to show, considerations of causal or probabilistic dependence
 should enter into the evaluation of counterfactuals. This paper challenges that idea. I present a modified version of Morgenbesser's
 case and show how probabilistic approaches to counterfactuals are in serious trouble. Specifically, I show how probabilistic
 approaches run into a dilemma in characterizing probabilistic independence. The modified case also illustrates a difficulty
 in defining causal independence. I close with a suggestion for a strategy to handle this difficulty.
 
	

  The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of degrees of causal contribution for actual events and examine the
 way in which it can be formally defined. This should go some way to filling out a gap in the legal and philosophical literature
 on causation. By adopting the conception of a cause as a necessary element of a sufficient set (the so-called NESS test) we
 show that the concept of degrees of causation can be given clear and even empirical meaning. We then apply a game theoretical
 framework to derive a measure of causal contribution. Our favoured measure turns out to be a generalised version of the normalized
 Penrose“Banzhaf index of voting power.
 
	

  It is generally assumed that everything that can be said about dependence with the notion of strong global supervenience can
 also be said with the notion of strong supervenience. It is argued here, however, that strong global supervenience has a metaphysically
 distinctive role to play. It is shown that when the relevant sets include relations, strong global supervenience and strong supervenience are distinct. It is then concluded that there are claims about dependence
 of relations that can be made with the global notion of strong supervenience but not with the local' (individual) one.
 
	

  Here, I defend the view that there is no sensible way to pin a truth-maker objection on presentism. First, I suggest that
 if we adopt truth-maker maximalism then the presentist can requisition appropriate ontological resources with impunity. Second,
 if we deny maximalism, then the presentist can sensibly restrict the truth-maker principle in order to avoid the demand for
 truth-makers for talk about the non-present.
 
	

  The Cable Guy will definitely come between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., and I can bet on one of two possibilities: that he will arrive
 between 8 and 12, or between 12 and 4. Since I have no more information, it seems (eminently) plausible to suppose the two
 bets are equally attractive. Yet Hajek has presented a tantalising argument that purports to show that the later interval
 is, initial appearances to the contrary, more choice worthy. In this paper, I rebut the argument.
 
	

Mereological Essentialism, Composition, and Stuff: A Reply to Kristie Miller
	

  Recently advocates of the propensity interpretation of fitness have turned critics. To accommodate examples from the population
 genetics literature they conclude that fitness is better defined broadly as a family of propensities rather than the propensity
 to contribute descendants to some future generation. We argue that the propensity theorists have misunderstood the deeper
 ramifications of the examples they cite. These examples demonstrate why there are factors outside of propensities that determine
 fitness. We go on to argue for the more general thesis that no account of fitness can satisfy the desiderata that have motivated
 the propensity account.
 
	

  In the last 30 years repeated attempts have been made to develop a proof-sketch Kripke gave for essentialism about material
 origins into a cogent argument. I argue that there are general reasons that all such attempts have failed, and so we should
 likewise expect future attempts to fail.
 
	

  The present paper surveys the three most prominent accounts in contemporary debates over how sound reduction should be executed.
 The classical Nagelian model of reduction derives the laws of the target-theory from the laws of the base theory plus some auxiliary premises (so-called bridge laws)
 connecting the entities of the target and the base theory. The functional model of reduction emphasizes the causal definitions of the target entities referring to their causal relations to base entities. The new-wave model of reduction deduces not the original target theory but an analogous image of it, which remains inside the vocabulary of the base theory.
 One of the fundamental motivations of both the functional and the new-wave model is to show that bridge laws can be evaded.
 The present paper argues that bridge laws'in the original Nagelian sense'are inevitable, i.e. that none of these models can
 evade them. On the one hand, the functional model of reduction needs bridge laws, since its fundamental concept, functionalization,
 is an inter-theoretical process dealing with entities of two different theories. Theoretical entities of different theories
 (in a general heterogeneous case) do not have common causal relations, so the functionalization of an entity'without bridge
 laws'can only be executed in the framework of its own theory. On the other hand, the so-called images of the new-wave account
 cannot be constructed without the use of bridge laws. These connecting principles are needed to guide the process of deduction
 within the base theory; without them one would not be able to recognize if the deduced structure was an image of the target
 theory.
 
	

Marcel Weber: Philosophy of Experimental Biology
	

  It is a commonly held view that Dedekind's construction of the real numbers is impredicative. This naturally raises the question
 of whether this impredicativity is justified by some kind of Platonism about sets. But when we look more closely at Dedekind's
 philosophical views, his ontology does not look Platonist at all. So how is his construction justified? There are two aspects
 of the solution: one is to look more closely at his methodological views, and in particular, the places in which predicativity
 restrictions ought to be applied; another is to take seriously his remarks about the reals as things created by the cuts,
 instead of considering them to be the cuts themselves. This can lead us to make finer-grained distinctions about the extent
 to which impredicative definitions are problematic, since we find that Dedekind's use of impredicative definitions in analysis
 can be justified by his (non-Platonist) philosophical views.
 
	

  It is a commonplace within philosophy that the ontology of institutions can be captured in terms of constitutive rules. What
 exactly such rules are, however, is not well understood. They are usually contrasted to regulative rules: constitutive rules
 (such as the rules of chess) make institutional actions possible, whereas regulative rules (such as the rules of etiquette)
 pertain to actions that can be performed independently of such rules. Some, however, maintain that the distinction between
 regulative and constitutive rules is merely a linguistic one. In this paper I present the status account of constitutive rules
 in order to address this criticism. According to the status account constitutive rules pertain to institutional statuses and
 statuses are to be understood in terms of status rules. Status rules concern the enabling and constraining roles of institutions,
 and constitutive rules specify the preconditions that have to be met in order for them to play these roles. Even though I
 end up endorsing the claim that the distinction mentioned is a linguistic one, I go on to argue that there is an underlying
 reality that constitutive rules serve to make apparent.
 
	

  Michael Devitt has argued that a satisfactory explanation of the authority of linguistic intuitions need not assume that they
 are derived from tacit knowledge of principles of grammar. Devitt's Modest Explanation is based on a controversial construal
 of linguistic intuitions as meta-linguistic central-processor judgements. I will argue that there are non-judgemental responses
 to linguistic strings, linguistic seemings, which are evidence for linguistic theories. Devitt cannot account for their epistemic
 authority. This spoils his ˜modest explanation'. Devitt's opponent, the Voice of Competence View, is back in business.
 
	

Editorial