By Jaime Harrell
In this paper, I examine David Lewisʼ treatment of vagueness as a problem of “semantic indecision” and conclude that this position on vagueness is inconsistent with the metaphysics of his theory of modal realism. To reach this, I employ a thought experiment in which an exact counterpart of Lewis is subjected to a series of possible worlds treatments designed to satisfy Lewisʼ criteria for counterparthood and test the limits of semantic treatments of higher-order vagueness. I find that Lewisʼ suggestions for dealing with vagueness fails to pick out counterparts at several points in this series, even when given a satisfactorily precisified set of criteria for the qua relation.

By Edmund Zagorin
ABSTRACT: The evolution of artistic expression is often understood to be co-productive with a certain apprehended teleology of culture: “progress”, a notion itself instantiated by false axiomatic assumptions concerning biological evolution. These meditations will seek to critically interrogate teleological assumptions by de-structively mapping the future evolution of artistic expression through a radically empirical attention to the flows of cultural raw materials, media-structures, mediums, memes and messages. By attending to processes associated with growing media digitzation, inter-connectedness and fragmenting attention span, these meditations will seek to illuminate a cultural …

By Joseph N. Rees
ABSTRACT: Many commentators are extremely critical of Heidegger’s ambiguous conflation of Being-with and das Man in Being and Time. The text of Division One, Chapter Four shifts between an ethically neutral and ontologically necessary account of Dasein’s Being-with-others and an ethically saturated and contingent account of the same phenomenon, leaving the reader confused as to whether Heidegger is accepting sociality as a necessary and inexorable condition of human existence or a pervasive yet ultimately contingent impediment to authentic existence. …

By Raafay Syed
John Stuart Mill, one of the most prominent British philosophers of the 19th century, has had a tremendous influence on political philosophy, ethical theory, and much of the liberal thought which has dominated contemporary Western culture. His libertarian viewpoints are espoused in his essay On Liberty, which is an unwavering defense of individual liberty and freedom from limitations imposed by society. A few years later, Mill published his essay Utilitarianism, in which he argues that utility is the fundamental principle of morality. The principle of utility, or the …

By Alex Ehrlich & AJ Durwin
Abstract: Ever since Plato described knowledge in the Theaetetus and the Meno, three criteria, namely justification, truth, and belief (JTB), have composed the traditional philosophical definition of knowledge. In his 1963 paper “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Edmund Gettier attempts to disestablish the traditional definition of knowledge. He utilizes a thought experiment in which a person appears to meet the knowledge criteria yet still does not seem to have knowledge. In this paper we clarify and specify the definition of knowledge, breaking the justification criterion …