This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious whether and to what extent we should expect particular "symmetries" across the orders, and so whether (as Williamson (2013) argues) “the default preference is for a uniform metaphysics, on which being is contingent at all orders or none.”

Critics of contemporary metaphysics argue that it attempts to do the hard work of science from the ease of the armchair. Physics, not metaphysics, tells us about the fundamental facts of the world, and empirical psychology is best placed to reveal the content of our concepts about the world. Exploring and understanding the world through metaphysical reflection is obsolete. In this paper, I will show why this critique of metaphysics fails, arguing that metaphysical methods used to make claims about the world are similar to scientific methods used to make claims about the world, but that the subjects of metaphysics are not the subjects of science. Those who argue that metaphysics uses a problematic methodology to make claims about subjects better covered by natural science get the situation exactly the wrong way around: metaphysics has a distinctive subject matter, not a distinctive methodology. The questions metaphysicians address are different from those of scientists, but the methods employed to develop and select theories are similar. In the first section of the paper, I will describe the sort of subject matter that metaphysics tends to engage with. In the second section of the paper, I will show how metaphysical theories are classes of models and discuss the roles of experience, common sense and thought experiments in the construction and evaluation of such models. Finally, in the last section I will discuss the way these methodological points help us to understand the metaphysical project. Getting the right account of the metaphysical method allows us to better understand the relationship between science and metaphysics, to explain why doing metaphysics successfully involves having a range of different theories, to understand the role of thought experiments involving fictional worlds, and to situate metaphysical realism in a scientifically realist context.

The problems of the meaning and function of negation are disentangled from ontological issues with which they have been long entangled. The question of the function of negation is the crucial issue separating relevant and paraconsistent logics from classical theories. The function is illuminated by considering the inferential role of contradictions, contradiction being parasitic on negation. Three basic modelings emerge: a cancellation model, which leads towards connexivism, an explosion model, appropriate to classical and intuitionistic theories, and a constraint model, which includes relevant theories. These three modelings have been seriously confused in the modern literature: untangling them helps motivate the main themes advanced concerning traditional negation and natural negation. Firstly, the dominant traditional view, except around scholastic times when the explosion view was in ascendency, has been the cancellation view, so that the mainstream negation of much of traditional logic is distinctively nonclassical. Secondly, the primary negation determinable of natural negation is relevant negation. In order to picture relevant negation the traditional idea of negation as otherthanness is progressive) refined, to nonexclusive restricted otherthanness. Several pictures result, a reversal picture, a debate model, a record cabinet (or files of the universe) model which help explain relevant negation. Two appendices are attached, one on negation in Hegel and the Marxist tradition, the other on Wittgenstein's treatment of negation and contradiction.

The issue of a logic foundation for African thought connects well with the question of method. Do we need new methods for African philosophy and studies? Or, are the methods of Western thought adequate for African intellectual space? These questions are not some of the easiest to answer because they lead straight to the question of whether or not a logic tradition from African intellectual space is possible. Thus in charting the course of future direction in African philosophy and studies, one must be confronted with this question of logic. The author boldly takes up this challenge and becomes the first to do so in a book by introducing new concepts and formulating a new African culture-inspired system of logic called Ezumezu which he believes would ground new methods in African philosophy and studies. He develops this system to rescue African philosophy and, by extension, sundry fields in African Indigenous Knowledge Systems from the spell of Plato and the hegemony of Aristotle. African philosophers can now ground their discourses in Ezumezu logic which will distinguish their philosophy as a tradition in its own right. On the whole, the book engages with some of the lingering controversies in the idea of (an) African logic before unveiling Ezumezu as a philosophy of logic, methodology and formal system. The book also provides fresh arguments and insights on the themes of decolonisation and Africanisation for the intellectual transformation of scholarship in Africa. It will appeal to philosophers and logicians—undergraduates and post graduate researchers—as well as those in various areas of African studies.

The chapter portrays how contextual examples are relevant to methods of teaching that empower understanding. Focusing on argument from Vine Deloria, jr’s Red Earth, White Lies, Native students inspire one another to learn critical thinking skills, as they discover ways to determine whether Deloria’s concerns with the logic of Western thought are shown to be justified. In the context of teaching about a particular critical thinking fallacy, students grasp the application of logical skills in their own meaningful
cultural context. The point driven home is that the meaningful and culturally relevant contextual content of examples used to teach critical thinking can excite and inspire Native students to learn. Thus philosophers can reinforce the acquisition of critical thinking skills for Native students by using meaningful, familiar content to reinforce understanding and praxis, for the recognition of cognitively false conclusions. This chapter implies an ethical maxim: using examples only from Western thought to teach critical thinking skills may prejudice students of other traditions in their acquisition of these skills.

Despite emerging attention to Indigenous philosophies both within and outside of feminism, Indigenous logics remain relatively underexplored and underappreciated. By amplifying the voices of recent Indigenous philosophies and literatures, I seek to demonstrate that Indigenous logic is a crucial aspect of Indigenous resurgence as well as political and ethical resistance. Indigenous philosophies provide alternatives to the colonial, masculinist tendencies of classical logic in the form of paraconsistent—many-valued—logics. Specifically, when Indigenous logics embrace the possibility of true contradictions, they highlight aspects of the world rejected and ignored by classical logic and inspire a relational, decolonial imaginary. To demonstrate this, I look to biology, from which Indigenous logics are often explicitly excluded, and consider one problem that would benefit from an Indigenous, paraconsistent analysis: that of the biological individual. This article is an effort to expand the arenas in which allied feminists can responsibly take up and deploy these decolonial logics.

How should we characterize the interaction between moral and aesthetic values in the context of
environmental aesthetics? This question is important given the urgency of many environmental
problems and the particular role played by aesthetic value in our experience of environment. To
address this question, we develop a model of Environmental Virtue Aesthetics (EVA) that, we argue,
offers a promising alternative to current theories in environmental aesthetics with respect to the
relationship between aesthetics and ethics. EVA counters environmental aesthetic theories that focus
more narrowly on scientific knowledge and ground aesthetic value in ways that obfuscate pluralistic
modes of appreciation of and relationships with natural and semi-natural environments. To develop
EVA, we work with a revised notion of respect and engage with ideas concerning the development of
aesthetic sensibilities, care, and virtuous aesthetic appreciation. EVA has the potential to support
forms of human-nature co-flourishing, as well as constituting an aesthetic grounding for ecological
citizenship.

The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap’s views that make him seem like much less of a straight-forwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.

Do individuals have moral duties to fulfil all the demands of their jobs? In this paper, we discuss how to understand such ‘occupational duties’ and their normative bases, with a specific focus on duties that go beyond contractually agreed upon duties. Against views that reduce occupational duties to contractual duties, we argue that they often have greater moral weight, based on skills, roles, and the duty of social cooperation. We discuss what it would take to make sure that individuals are not unfairly overburdened by such occupational duties, distinguishing between choice conditions (voluntariness, availability of alternatives, full information) and conditions concerning the role and the social structures within which such duties are embedded (feasible role design, existence of support structures, employee voice). These conditions, however, are not fulfilled for many existing jobs, especially for jobs typically occupied by structurally disadvantaged groups such as women or ethnic minorities. This leads to a dilemma between the claims of those who depend on the occupational duties to be fulfilled, and the rights of those who hold these occupations and are unfairly overburdened. We conclude by arguing for the need for structural reform to dissolve this dilemma.