A generalized anisotropic model for super dense stars

A static anisotropic relativistic fluid sphere model with regular geometry and finite hydrostatic functions is presented. In the interior of the sphere, the density, radial pressure and tangential pressure are positives, monotonically decreasing with increasing radius and the radial pressure vanishes at the surface of the matter distribution and is joined continuously to the exterior Schwarzschild’s solution at this surface. The speeds of the radial and tangential sound are positive and lower than the speed of light, that is, the causal condition is not violated, and also the behavior of these guarantees that the model is potentially stable. Furthermore, the range of the compactness ratio is characteristic of compact stars and it is shown that the effect of the anisotropy generates that the speed of the radial sound can behave as a function monotonically increasing or monotonically decreasing.

Two Informational Theories of Memory: a case from Memory-Conjunction Errors

The causal and simulation theories are often presented as very distinct views about declarative memory, their major difference lying on the causal condition. The causal theory states that remembering involves an accurate representation causally connected to an earlier experience (the causal condition). In the simulation theory, remembering involves an accurate representation generated by a reliable memory process (no causal condition). I investigate how to construe detailed versions of these theories that correctly classify memory errors (DRM, “lost in the mall”, and memory-conjunction errors) as misremembering or confabulation. Neither causalists nor simulationists have paid attention to memory-conjunction errors, which is unfortunate because both theories have problems with these cases. The source of the difficulty is the background assumption that an act of remembering has one (and only one) target. I fix these theories for those cases. The resulting versions are closely related when implemented using tools of information theory, differing only on how memory transmits information about the past. The implementation provides us with insights about the distinction between confabulatory and non-confabulatory memory, where memory-conjunction errors have a privileged position.

Analogical Inference in Gustav Theodor Fechner’s Inductive Metaphysics

Gustav Theodor Fechner was one of the main proponents of inductive metaphysics in the 19th century. The idea of inductive metaphysics is to use empirical sources and inductive forms of inference in metaphysics. Although this sounds like a research program which might well appeal to scientifically minded philosophers, some of Fechner’s metaphysical conclusions look very suspicious from a scientific viewpoint. For example, Fechner famously argues that the planets and stars are animated by a soul and that the same holds for the whole universe. In the present article it is shown that Fechner’s mystical cosmological views are based on a principle of analogy which is too permissive and that as a result of that his central argument to the conclusion that the earth is animated by a soul is not correct. As the article argues, the principle Fechner bases his inference on has to be supplemented by a causal condition along the lines of Mary Hesse’s account of analogical inferences, a condition Fechner at least implicitly recognizes but fails to meet.

The Reliability Challenge in Moral Epistemology

The Reliability Challenge to moral non-naturalism has received substantial attention recently in the literature on moral epistemology. While the popularity of this particular challenge is a recent development, this form of the challenge can be traced back to a skeptical challenge in the philosophy of mathematics raised by Paul Benacerraf. The current Reliability Challenge is widely regarded as the most sophisticated way to develop this skeptical line of thinking, making the Reliability Challenge the strongest epistemic challenge to normative non-naturalism. In this chapter, I argue that the innovations that have occurred since Benacerraf’s statement of the challenge are misconceived and confused in a number of ways. The Reliability Challenge is not the most potent epistemic challenge to moral non-naturalism. The most potent challenge comes from the fact that there is a causal condition on knowledge—or, more precisely, a becaual condition—that non-natural moral facts cannot satisfy.

Revisiting the Egyptian Uprising of 2011: Exploring the Role of Relational Networks within the Cairo-Based Political Opposition

Revisiting the Egyptian Uprising of 2011, I argue that strong relational networks linking actors in the broader Cairo-based political opposition—a conglomerate of prodemocracy movement organizations—should be understood as a necessary, albeit insufficient, causal condition for the diffusion of protest. These networks fulfilled two essential functions. 1) They were critical in terms of professionally socializing a new generation of activists—many of whom would become early riser participants during the initial protests on January 25, 2011. 2) The networks allowed for critically important coordination of and mobilization for the protests as they cut across boundaries of individual social and protest movement organizations. Based on 55 semi-structured interviews, I trace the genesis of these relational networks during the first decade of the new millennium, showing how a coalition of actors sought to capitalize on a transnational demonstration effect triggered by the Tunisian Revolution. This group—linked by dense relational networks—then functioned as early risers during the initial stages of the uprising and encouraged other segments of Egyptian society to join the protests and to openly challenge a regime that had often been regarded as impenetrable to popular demands for socio-political change from below.

Actions, Explanations, and Causes

This chapter defends a causalist position on the explanation of intentional human actions. It defends the thesis that one necessary condition for an adequate explanation of such an action is that the explanation cite a cause of the action. Various options for a required causal condition are identified, including causation by reasons, by beliefs, desires, or intentions, by neural realizers of mental states of these kinds, or by facts about something the agents believed, desired, or intended. Leading anticausalist proposals are rebutted. A major problem highlighted for these proposals features cases in which an agent who has two or more reasons for performing a certain action performs it for only one of those reasons.