In this paper I argue, contrary to Hartmut Kliemt, that it is possible to be both a Humean and, in James Buchanan’s sense, a contractarian. Hume sees principles of justice and political allegiance not as actual or hypothetical products of explicit agreement, but as conventions that have emerged spontaneously. However, it is fundamental to Hume’s analysis that conventions are mutually advantageo...

In an illuminating article, Beisbart (this volume) argues that the recently-popular thesis that the probabilities of statistical mechanics (SM) are Best System chances runs into a serious obstacle: there is no one axiomatization of SM that is robustly best, as judged by the theoretical virtues of simplicity, strength, and fit. Beisbart takes this 'no clear winner' result to imply that the proba...

OBJECTIVE Relation between patient age and Hounsfield Unit (HU),which is the linear attenuation coefficient, and Standardized Uptake Values (SUV) which is the amount of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) uptake, measured in the areas of interest drawn to prostate, seminal vesicles and testicles in F-18 FDG Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) images was investigated. MATER...

In this paper, I show that we should understand the direction of fit of beliefs and desires in normative terms. After rehearsing a standard objection to Smith’s analysis of direction of fit, I raise a similar problem for Humberstone’s analysis. I go on to offer my own account, according to which the difference between beliefs and desires is determined by the normative relations such states stan...

Abstract I explore the relationship between a prominent analysis of intrinsic properties, due to Langton and Lewis, phenomenon quantum entanglement. As argue, faces puzzle. The full classifies certain properties entangled particles as intrinsic. But when combined with an extremely plausible assumption about duplication, main part those non-intrinsic instead. conclude that much Lewis’s metaphysi...

This paper discusses recent attempts to use essentialist arguments based on the work of Kripke and Putnam to ground causal necessity in the world. I argue in particular that a recent argument by Alexander Bird relies on controversial intuitions about the natures of substances which no Humean would accept. While a case can be made that essentialism reflects some assumptions within scientific pra...

Kripke-Armstrong argument aims to establish that the defender of existence material objects? temporal parts cannot determine whether a lonely homogeneous disc made continuous matter is rotating around its axis or not. The perdurantist distinguish between these two possibilities by appealing different instantaneous velocities disc, since doing so he would violate Humean supervenience thesis. In ...

The paper considers the humean thesis according to which justice is an artificial virtue. Based on analysis of some conceptions presented in A Treatise Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Principles Morals, this text proposes that considered statement requires a qualification. notion artifice, context discussion about justice, should be understood light one fundamental relation between dispo...

On Humeís account of motivation, beliefs and desires are very di§erent kinds of propositional attitudes. Beliefs are cognitive attitudes, desires emotive ones. An agentís belief in a proposition captures the weight he or she assigns to this proposition in his or her cognitive representation of the world. An agentís desire for a proposition captures the degree to which he or she prefers its trut...