Paul Silva
Biographic Data
| ID | 3780919 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Silva |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Silva |
| SIGNATURE | SILVA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4461-9513 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1957 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Legal Standards of Proof: When and Why Merely Statistical Evidence Can Satisfy Them
The relation of normic support offers a novel solution to the proof paradox: a paradox in evidence law arising from legal cases involving merely statistical evidence (Smith in Mind 127: 1193–1218, 2018). Central to the normic support solution has been the thesis that merely statistical evidence cannot confer normic support. However, it has been observed that there are exceptions to this: there exist cases where merely statistical evidence can giv…
The gendered politics of wartime assistance: Female leaders and military aid to Ukraine
Do female heads of government provide more military aid to wartime combatants than their male counterparts? Existing explanations center on threat, capacity, and domestic politics but overlook leader-level influences. We argue that because female executives face gendered expectations that cast them as dovish and insufficiently resolute, they have stronger incentives to adopt costly, risk-acceptant policies during crises. Military aid to Ukraine f…
The functional mind and the trinitarian God
Within the space of monotheistic options, trinitarian monotheism holds a puzzling place. It asserts that God is a single being who is, somehow, also three distinct persons. This form of monotheism has regularly been charged with being either inconsistent, unintelligible, or undermotivated – and possibly all three. While recent explorations of trinitarian monotheism have tended to rely on work in metaphysics, this paper turns to the philosophy of …
Evidence, reasons, and knowledge in the reasons-first program
Mark Schroeder’s Reasons First is admirable in its scope and execution, deftly demonstrating the theoretical promise of extending the reasons-first approach from ethics to epistemology. In what follows we explore how (not) to account for the evidence-that relation within the reasons-first program, we explain how factive content views of evidence can be resilient in the face of Schroeder’s criticisms, and we explain how knowledge from falsehood th…
Ignorance and awareness
Knowledge implies the presence of a positive relation between a person and a fact. Factual ignorance, on the other hand, implies the absence of some positive relation between a person and a fact. The two most influential views of ignorance hold that what is lacking in cases of factual ignorance is knowledge or true belief, but these accounts fail to explain a number of basic facts about ignorance. In their place, we propose a novel and systematic…
Strategic culture and competing visions for the EU's Russia strategy: Flexible Accommodation, Cooperative Deterrence, and Calibrated Confrontation
This article analyzes the national security strategies of EU member states in the 2009-2018 period, and conceptualizes three security strategies EU member states have adopted toward Russia - flexible accommodation, cooperative deterrence, and calibrated confrontation. It tests strategic culture hypotheses against those of realism and commercial liberalism to explain the variation of EU member states' security strategies toward Russia. While a rea…
Merely statistical evidence: When and why it justifies belief
It is one thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is sometimes insufficient for rational belief, as in typical lottery and profiling cases. It is another thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is always insufficient for rational belief. Indeed, there are cases where statistical evidence plainly does justify belief. This project develops a dispositional account of the normativity of statistical evidence, where the dispositions that …
Self-Fulfilling Beliefs: A Defence
Self-fulfilling beliefs are, in at least some cases, a kind of belief that is rational to form and hold in the absence of evidence. The rationality of such beliefs have significant implications for a range of debates in epistemology. Most startlingly, it undermines the idea that having sufficient evidence for the truth of p is necessary for it to be rational to believe that p. The rationality of self-fulfilling beliefs is here defended against th…
Propositional and Doxastic Justification: New Essays on Their Nature and Significance
Competing visions for the EU’s southern strategy: Restraint, preventative engagement, and selective intervention
The most powerful European Union (EU) member states have suffered devastating terrorist attacks in the past decades and identify Islamist terrorism as one of the most pressing threats to their national security. They recognize that instability in the southern neighbourhood has exacerbated the threat Islamist terrorism poses to their national security. Adopting an intergovernmental approach, I argue that member states’ southern strategies are a pr…
Possessing reasons: Why the awareness-first approach is better than the knowledge-first approach
In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline…
Basic knowledge and the normativity of knowledge: The awareness‐first solution
Many have found it plausible that knowledge is a constitutively normative state, i.e. a state that is grounded in the possession of reasons. Many have also found it plausible that certain cases of proprioceptive knowledge, memorial knowledge, and self‐evident knowledge are cases of knowledge that are not grounded in the possession of reasons. I refer to these as cases of basic knowledge . The existence of basic knowledge forms a primary objection…
A Bayesian explanation of the irrationality of sexist and racist beliefs involving generic content
Advocating for sexual rights at the UN: The Unfinished Business of Global Development
Twenty years ago, governments agreed that the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on all matters related to one's sexuality, free from coercion, discrimination and violence, is a fundamental human right. Since then, many aspects of sexual rights have been agreed by consensus at the global level, but the term "sexual rights" itself continues to be removed from negotiated outcomes and left out of international agreements, o…
An attempt to determine possible taxonomic significance of the properties of water extractable polysaccharides in red algae
Possessing reasons: Why the awareness-first approach is better than the knowledge-first approach
In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline…
Basic knowledge and the normativity of knowledge: The awareness‐first solution
Many have found it plausible that knowledge is a constitutively normative state, i.e. a state that is grounded in the possession of reasons. Many have also found it plausible that certain cases of proprioceptive knowledge, memorial knowledge, and self‐evident knowledge are cases of knowledge that are not grounded in the possession of reasons. I refer to these as cases of basic knowledge . The existence of basic knowledge forms a primary objection…
A Bayesian explanation of the irrationality of sexist and racist beliefs involving generic content
Advocating for sexual rights at the UN: The Unfinished Business of Global Development
Twenty years ago, governments agreed that the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on all matters related to one's sexuality, free from coercion, discrimination and violence, is a fundamental human right. Since then, many aspects of sexual rights have been agreed by consensus at the global level, but the term "sexual rights" itself continues to be removed from negotiated outcomes and left out of international agreements, o…
An attempt to determine possible taxonomic significance of the properties of water extractable polysaccharides in red algae
Advocating for sexual rights at the UN: The Unfinished Business of Global Development
Twenty years ago, governments agreed that the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on all matters related to one's sexuality, free from coercion, discrimination and violence, is a fundamental human right. Since then, many aspects of sexual rights have been agreed by consensus at the global level, but the term "sexual rights" itself continues to be removed from negotiated outcomes and left out of international agreements, o…
A Bayesian explanation of the irrationality of sexist and racist beliefs involving generic content
Competing visions for the EU’s southern strategy: Restraint, preventative engagement, and selective intervention
The most powerful European Union (EU) member states have suffered devastating terrorist attacks in the past decades and identify Islamist terrorism as one of the most pressing threats to their national security. They recognize that instability in the southern neighbourhood has exacerbated the threat Islamist terrorism poses to their national security. Adopting an intergovernmental approach, I argue that member states’ southern strategies are a pr…
Possessing reasons: Why the awareness-first approach is better than the knowledge-first approach
In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline…
Basic knowledge and the normativity of knowledge: The awareness‐first solution
Many have found it plausible that knowledge is a constitutively normative state, i.e. a state that is grounded in the possession of reasons. Many have also found it plausible that certain cases of proprioceptive knowledge, memorial knowledge, and self‐evident knowledge are cases of knowledge that are not grounded in the possession of reasons. I refer to these as cases of basic knowledge . The existence of basic knowledge forms a primary objection…
Propositional and Doxastic Justification: New Essays on Their Nature and Significance
Merely statistical evidence: When and why it justifies belief
It is one thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is sometimes insufficient for rational belief, as in typical lottery and profiling cases. It is another thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is always insufficient for rational belief. Indeed, there are cases where statistical evidence plainly does justify belief. This project develops a dispositional account of the normativity of statistical evidence, where the dispositions that …
Self-Fulfilling Beliefs: A Defence
Self-fulfilling beliefs are, in at least some cases, a kind of belief that is rational to form and hold in the absence of evidence. The rationality of such beliefs have significant implications for a range of debates in epistemology. Most startlingly, it undermines the idea that having sufficient evidence for the truth of p is necessary for it to be rational to believe that p. The rationality of self-fulfilling beliefs is here defended against th…
Evidence, reasons, and knowledge in the reasons-first program
Mark Schroeder’s Reasons First is admirable in its scope and execution, deftly demonstrating the theoretical promise of extending the reasons-first approach from ethics to epistemology. In what follows we explore how (not) to account for the evidence-that relation within the reasons-first program, we explain how factive content views of evidence can be resilient in the face of Schroeder’s criticisms, and we explain how knowledge from falsehood th…
Ignorance and awareness
Knowledge implies the presence of a positive relation between a person and a fact. Factual ignorance, on the other hand, implies the absence of some positive relation between a person and a fact. The two most influential views of ignorance hold that what is lacking in cases of factual ignorance is knowledge or true belief, but these accounts fail to explain a number of basic facts about ignorance. In their place, we propose a novel and systematic…
Strategic culture and competing visions for the EU's Russia strategy: Flexible Accommodation, Cooperative Deterrence, and Calibrated Confrontation
This article analyzes the national security strategies of EU member states in the 2009-2018 period, and conceptualizes three security strategies EU member states have adopted toward Russia - flexible accommodation, cooperative deterrence, and calibrated confrontation. It tests strategic culture hypotheses against those of realism and commercial liberalism to explain the variation of EU member states' security strategies toward Russia. While a rea…
Legal Standards of Proof: When and Why Merely Statistical Evidence Can Satisfy Them
The relation of normic support offers a novel solution to the proof paradox: a paradox in evidence law arising from legal cases involving merely statistical evidence (Smith in Mind 127: 1193–1218, 2018). Central to the normic support solution has been the thesis that merely statistical evidence cannot confer normic support. However, it has been observed that there are exceptions to this: there exist cases where merely statistical evidence can giv…
The gendered politics of wartime assistance: Female leaders and military aid to Ukraine
Do female heads of government provide more military aid to wartime combatants than their male counterparts? Existing explanations center on threat, capacity, and domestic politics but overlook leader-level influences. We argue that because female executives face gendered expectations that cast them as dovish and insufficiently resolute, they have stronger incentives to adopt costly, risk-acceptant policies during crises. Military aid to Ukraine f…
The functional mind and the trinitarian God
Within the space of monotheistic options, trinitarian monotheism holds a puzzling place. It asserts that God is a single being who is, somehow, also three distinct persons. This form of monotheism has regularly been charged with being either inconsistent, unintelligible, or undermotivated – and possibly all three. While recent explorations of trinitarian monotheism have tended to rely on work in metaphysics, this paper turns to the philosophy of …
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy of language (4 works)