In the middle of the 20th century, it was a common Wittgenstein-inspired idea in philosophy that for a linguistic expression to have a meaning is for it to be governed by a rule of use. In other words, it was widely believed that meanings are to be identified with use-conditions. However, as things stand, this idea is widely taken to be vague and mysterious, inconsistent with “truth-conditional semantics”, and subject to the Frege-Geach problem. In this paper I reinvigorate the ideas (...) that meaningfulness is a matter of being governed by rules of use and that meanings are best thought of in terms of use-conditions. I will do this by sketching the Rule-Governance view of the nature of linguistic meaningfulness, showing that the view isn’t by itself subject to the two problems, and explain why the idea has had a lasting appeal to philosophers from Strawson to Kaplan and why we should find it continually attractive. (shrink)

Dispositionalism is the theory of modality that grounds all modal truths in powers: all metaphysically possible and necessary truths are to be explained by pointing to some actual power, or absence thereof. One of the main reasons to endorse dispositionalism is that it promises to deliver an especially desirable epistemology of modality. However, so far this issue has not be fully investigated with the care it is due. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap. We will cast (...) some doubts on whether the dispositionalist really is in a better position to explain our modal knowledge. In fact, we argue that there is a tension between some core tenets of a powers metaphysics and the very features that make dispositionalism the ideal backdrop for a desirable epistemology of modality. We conclude that this leaves dispositionalists who want to deliver the promised epistemology with a hard, currently unfulfilled, task. (shrink)

The problem of the status of metaphysics -- what it is and what it is for, what use it is - has been with us for millennia, at least since Plato took issue with the Sophists, and continues to the present day. Here I attempt an intervention in this perennial dispute, with the aim of providing some kind of rapprochement between the factions. This intervention is based on how Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) understood metaphysics and the position presented here is (...) thus called `Peircean realism'. The basic idea is that everyone has a metaphysics and has to have one, just to get by in everyday life, and this is no different for scientific inquirers in their professional work. The subject matter of metaphysics is thus presuppositions, whether it is what we rely on to go shopping or to discover the Higgs boson. We rely on these in our activities and expect them to have an effect on outcomes, so when our expectations are frustrated, doubt may be thrown on our presuppositions. We would thus like the ability to inquire into our presuppositions so as not to repeat mistakes, but our instinctive, evolved capacity for reasoning may not be up the job, since it is entwined with what we take for granted. Instead, Peirce develops a science of good reasoning that includes a theory of inquiry, which would allow us to scrutinise our presuppositions, to perform metaphysical inquiry. The starting point for this science of good reasoning is basic principles of combination and organisation, because these are involved in all activity, and these are Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. This is also where I start in the exposition of and argument for Peircean realism as a scientific -- that is, truth-directed -- metaphysics that provides the best possible general presuppositions to the natural and human sciences, the special sciences that deal with matters in their particularity; that Peircean realism is a viable metaphysics for those sciences. This exposition and argument comprises the first part of this thesis. In the second part, the case for Peircean realism is further bolstered by turning a critical eye on positions that are deficient from the Peircean point of view, in that they lack one or other category and thus starve the special sciences of the resources they need, or that they try to ignore metaphysics entirely. All this is meant to demonstrate that metaphysics is unavoidable, that we need all three of Peirce's categories for a viable metaphysics for the special sciences, and that Peircean realism is just such a metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, in order to account for the apparently substantive nature of definitional disputes, a commitment to what we call ‘Socratic essentialism’ is needed. We defend Socratic essentialism against a prominent neo-Carnapian challenge according to which apparently substantive definitional disputes always in some way trace back to disagreements over how expressions belonging to a particular language or concepts belonging to a certain conceptual scheme are properly used. Socratic essentialism, we argue, is not threatened by the possibility (...) that some apparently substantive definitional disputes may turn out to be verbal or conceptual, since this pluralist strategy, in our view, requires a commitment to more, rather than fewer, essences. What is more, a deflationary, metaphysically ‘light-weight’ construal of the essence-ascriptions in question leads to a peculiar conception of the pursuit of metaphysicians as behaving like deceptive (or self-deceived) grammarians pretending to be scientists. Moreover, this deflationary attitude, we argue, spreads beyond metaphysics and philosophy more broadly to apparently substantive definitional disputes in the sciences as well as other in other disciplines, such as art criticism. (shrink)

In this paper, I identify a central problem for conceptual engineering: the problem of showing concept-users why they should recognise the authority of the concepts advocated by engineers. I argue that this authority problem cannot generally be solved by appealing to the increased precision, consistency, or other theoretical virtues of engineered concepts. Outside contexts in which we anyway already aim to realise theoretical virtues, solving the authority problem requires engineering to take a functional turn and attend to the functions of (...) concepts. But this then presents us with the problem of how to specify a concept’s function. I argue that extant solutions to this function specification problem are unsatisfactory for engineering purposes, because the functions they identify fail to reliably bestow authority on concepts, and hence fail to solve the authority problem. What is required is an authoritative notion of conceptual function: an account of the functions of concepts which simultaneously shows why concepts fulfilling such functions should be recognised as having authority. I offer an account that meets this combination of demands by specifying the functions of concepts in terms of how they tie in with our present concerns. (shrink)

Even after Willard Quine’s critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Wilfrid Sellars maintained some forms of analyticity or truth in virtue of meaning. In this article, I aim to reconstruct (a) his neglected account of the analytic-synthetic distinction and the revisability of analytic sentences, (b) its connection to his inferentialist account of meaning, and (c) his response to Quine. While Sellars’s account of the revisability of analytic sentences bears certain similarities to Carnap’s and Grice and Strawson’s (...) accounts, it is still striking in that it is part of his broader picture of how our language develops dynamically in our ongoing inquiry. I aim to show how it relates to his account of how the diachronic continuity in meaning, language, or conceptual framework can be preserved through a revision of analytic sentences and to his evolutionary account of the development of our language or conceptual framework. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss a simple argument that modal metaphysics is misconceived, and responses to it. Unlike Quine's, this argument begins with the simple observation that there are different candidate interpretations of the predicate ‘could have been the case’. This is analogous to the observation that there are different candidate interpretations of the predicate ‘is a member of’. The argument then infers that the search for metaphysical necessities is misguided in much the way the ‘set-theoretic pluralist’ claims that the (...) search for the true axioms of set theory is. We show that the obvious responses to this argument fail. However, a new response has emerged that purports to prove, from higher-order logical principles, that metaphysical possibility is the broadest kind of possibility applying to propositions, and is to that extent special. We distill two lines of reasoning from the literature, and argue that their import depends on premises that any ‘modal pluralist’ should deny. Both presuppose that there is a unique typed hierarchy, which is what the modal pluralist, in the context of higher-order logic, should disavow. In other words, both presupposes that there is a unique candidate for what higher-order claims could mean. We consider the worry that, in a higher-order setting, modal pluralism faces an insuperable problem of articulation, collapses into modal monism, is vulnerable to the Russell-Myhill paradox, or even contravenes the truism that there is a unique actual world, and argue that these worries are misplaced. We also sketch the bearing of the resulting ‘Higher-Order Pluralism’ on the theory of content. One theme of the discussion is that, if Higher-Order Pluralism is correct, then there is no fixed metatheory from which to characterize higher-order reality. (shrink)

By defining God as a maximally great being Plantinga is able to devise an ontological argument which validly infers from the possibility of there being a God that there necessarily is a God. In this article I shall argue that Plantinga’s argument is not only question-begging, as several critics have complained, but circular in the strongest sense of the term. Based on reflections on the relation between the notions of coherence and possibility, I shall defend two arguments, previously proposed by (...) Tooley and Guleserian, against the existence of a maximally great being. The article concludes with some critical remarks on Plantinga’s rationale for conceiving God as such a being. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's conception of logical and conceptual truth is often thought to rival that of the logical positivists. This paper argues that there are important respects in which these conceptions complement each other. Analyticity, in the positivists' sense, coincides, not with Wittgenstein's notion of a grammatical proposition, but rather with his notion of a tautology. Grammatical propositions can usually be construed as analyticity postulates in Carnap's sense of the term. This account of grammatical and analytic propositions will be illustrated by appeal (...) to logical, conceptual and arithmetic truths. Its consequences for an analysis of corresponding modal notions will be indicated. (shrink)

I argue for the claim in the title. Along the way, I also address an independently interesting question: what is metaphysics, anyway? I think that the typical characterizations of metaphysics are inadequate, that a better one is available, and that the better one helps explain why metaphysics is no more problematic than the rest of philosophy.

This paper has two related goals. First, we develop an expressivist account of negation which, in the spirit of Alan Gibbard, treats disagreement as semantically primitive. Our second goal is to make progress toward a unified expressivist treatment of modality. Metaethical expressivists must be expressivists about deontic modal claims. But then metaethical expressivists must either extend their expressivism to include epistemic and alethic modals, or else accept a semantics for modal expressions that is radically disjunctive. We propose that expressivists look (...) to Amie Thomasson’s work for a general strategy for offering a unified expressivist account of modality. Modals in general, we propose, are devices for expressing metalinguistic commitments within the object language, with deontic, epistemic, and metaphysical modals all expressing different kinds of metalinguistic commitments. (shrink)

This book discusses the problem of mathematical knowledge, and its broader philosophical ramifications. It argues that the problem of explaining the (defeasible) justification of our mathematical beliefs (‘the justificatory challenge’), arises insofar as disagreement over axioms bottoms out in disagreement over intuitions. And it argues that the problem of explaining their reliability (‘the reliability challenge’), arises to the extent that we could have easily had different beliefs. The book shows that mathematical facts are not, in general, empirically accessible, contra Quine, (...) and that they cannot be dispensed with, contra Field. However, it argues that they might be so plentiful that our knowledge of them is intelligible. The book concludes with a complementary ‘pluralism’ about modality, logic and normative theory, highlighting its revisionary implications. Metaphysically, pluralism engenders a kind of perspectivalism and indeterminacy. Methodologically, it vindicates Carnap’s pragmatism, transposed to the key of realism. (shrink)

Deflationists believe that the question “What is truth?” should be answered not by means of a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but by figuring out what use we make of the concept of truth, and the word ‘true’, in practice. This article accepts this methodology, and it thereby rejects pluralism about truth that is driven by ontological considerations. However, it shows that there are practical considerations for a pluralism about truth, formulated at the level of use. The theory (...) expounded by this article states that truth is a dual-purpose tool; it can be used as a device for transferring justificatory burdens and, for select areas of discourse, it can also be used as a standard, a norm. This contrast in how truth is used introduces a bifurcation in our discourse that is reminiscent of metaphysical divides traced by more traditional versions of alethic pluralism. However, my pluralism “at the level of use” states that truth is plural solely at the level of use. It is unified at both the conceptual as well as the metaphysical level. At those levels, the theory takes its cue from deflationism. As such, this theory is offered as a midway point and as a potential way forward in the debate between deflationism and pluralism. (shrink)

Distinctively mathematical explanations (DMEs) explain natural phenomena primarily by appeal to mathematical facts. One important question is whether there can be an ontic account of DME. An ontic account of DME would treat the explananda and explanantia of DMEs as ontic structures and the explanatory relation between them as an ontic relation (e.g., Pincock 2015, Povich 2021). Here I present a conventionalist account of DME, defend it against objections, and argue that it should be considered ontic. Notably, if indeed it (...) is ontic, the conventionalist account seems to avoid a convincing objection to other ontic accounts (Kuorikoski 2021). (shrink)

Far from being unwelcome or impossible in a mathematical setting, indeterminacy in various forms can be seen as playing an important role in driving mathematical research forward by providing “sources of newness” in the sense of Hutter and Farías :434–449, 2017). I argue here that mathematical coincidences, phenomena recently under discussion in the philosophy of mathematics, are usefully seen as inducers of indeterminacy and as put to work in guiding mathematical research. I suggest that to call a pair of mathematical (...) facts a coincidence is roughly to suggest that the investigation of connections between these facts isn’t worthwhile. To say of this pair, “That’s no coincidence!” is to suggest just the opposite. I further argue that this perspective on mathematical coincidence, which pays special attention to what mathematical coincidences do, may provide us with a better view of what mathematical coincidences are than extant accounts. I close by reflecting on how understanding mathematical coincidences as generating indeterminacy accords with a conception of mathematical research as ultimately aiming to reduce indeterminacy and complexity to triviality as proposed in Rota Indiscrete thoughts, Birkhäuser, 1997). (shrink)

Burgess (1997), building on Quine (1953), convincingly argued that claims in quantified modal logic cannot be understood as synonymous with or logically equivalent to claims about the analyticity of certain sentences. According to modal normativism, metaphysically necessary claims instead express or convey our actual semantic rules. In this paper, I show how the normativist can use Sidelle’s (1992a, 1995) neglected work on rigidity to account for two important phenomena in quantified modal logic: the necessity of identity and the substitutivity of (...) identicals into modal contexts. (shrink)

Normative discourse includes statements which appear to be truth-apt expressions of normative beliefs. But normative oughts do not seem to fit cleanly amongst the natural facts. This makes many naturalistically inclined philosophers sympathetic to some form of expressivist view that normative statements get their meaning from how they express desire-like attitudes. However, there are a serious semantic challenges for expressivism, which lead others to accept the idea that normative statements are representational of reality after all. This paper presents another option (...) that derives from the general program in the theory of meaning to emphasize the commissive role of language over any descriptive or expressive roles. Here this emphasis is used to sketch a version of metaethical inferentialism and contrast it with expressivism. I conclude with some observations about new perspectives this view offers on three other issues in metaethics. (shrink)

The problem analysed in this paper is whether we can gain knowledge by using valid inferences, and how we can explain this process from a model-theoretic perspective. According to the paradox of inference (Cohen & Nagel 1936/1998, 173), it is logically impossible for an inference to be both valid and its conclusion to possess novelty with respect to the premises. I argue in this paper that valid inference has an epistemic significance, i.e., it can be used by an agent to (...) enlarge his knowledge, and this significance can be accounted in model-theoretic terms. I will argue first that the paradox is based on an equivocation, namely, it arises because logical containment, i.e., logical implication, is identified with epistemological containment, i.e., the knowledge of the premises entails the knowledge of the conclusion. Second, I will argue that a truth-conditional theory of meaning has the necessary resources to explain the epistemic significance of valid inferences. I will explain this epistemic significance starting from Carnap’s semantic theory of meaning and Tarski’s notion of satisfaction. In this way I will counter (Prawitz 2012b)’s claim that a truth-conditional theory of meaning is not able to account the legitimacy of valid inferences, i.e., their epistemic significance. (shrink)

Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related (...) fields get up to speed on open research-level problems. (shrink)

Modal primitivists hold that some modal truths are primitively true. They thus seem to face a special epistemological problem: how can primitive modal truths be known? The epistemological objection has not been adequately developed in the literature. I undertake to develop the objection, and then to argue that the best formulation of the epistemological objection targets all realists about modality, rather than the primitivist alone. Furthermore, the moves available to reductionists in response to the objection are also available to primitivists. (...) I conclude by suggesting that extant theories of the epistemology of modality are not sensitive to the question of primitivism versus reductionism. (shrink)

There are three theories in the epistemology of modality that have received sustained attention over the past 20 years: conceivability-theory, counterfactual-theory, and deduction-theory. In this paper we argue that all three face what we call the problem of modal epistemic friction. One consequence of the problem is that for any of the three accounts to yield modal knowledge, the account must provide an epistemology of essence. We discuss an attempt to fend off the problem within the context of the internalism (...) versus externalism debate about epistemic justification. We then investigate the effects that the PMEF has on reductive and non-reductive theories of the relation between essence and modality. (shrink)

In Ontology Made Easy (2015), I defend the idea that there are ‘easy’ inferences that begin from uncontroversial premises and end with answers to disputed ontological questions. But what do easy inferences really get us? Bueno and Cumpa (this journal, 2020) argue that easy inferences don’t tell us about the natures of properties—they don’t tell us what properties are. Moreover, they argue, by accepting an ontologically neutral quantifier we can also resist the conclusion that properties or numbers exist. Here I (...) address these two issues in turn—in ways that help clarify both the scope and results of easy ontology.First, it is important to see that easy inferences were never intended to address modal questions. Modal questions are addressed by a different part of the total deflationary view—modal normativism. So understood, metaphysical modal questions nonetheless do not provide a remaining area for serious metaphysical inquiry. Second, I argue that we have reason to resist adopting an ontologically neutral quantifier, if we aim to answer ontological questions (without begging the question). Addressing these issues helps to clarify both what does (and does not) follow from easy inferences, and how they form part of a larger deflationary metametaphysical view. (shrink)

Those who aim to give an account of modal knowledge face two challenges: the integration challenge of reconciling an account of what is involved in knowing modal truths with a plausible story about how we can come to know them, and the reliability challenge of giving a plausible account of how we could have evolved a reliable capacity to acquire modal knowledge. I argue that recent counterfactual and dispositional accounts of modal knowledge cannot solve these problems regarding specifically metaphysical modal (...) truths—leaving us with the threat of skepticism about large portions of metaphysics, and certain other areas of philosophy. I argue, however, that both of these problems look insuperable only if we assume that metaphysical modal discourse serves a describing or tracking function. If we adopt instead a normativist approach to metaphysical modal discourse, which sees the basic function of modal discourse as giving us perspicuous ways of conveying, reasoning with, and renegotiating semantic rules, the problems show up very differently. The modal normativist can give a plausible response to both of the classic problems of how we can come to know metaphysical modal truths. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere for a deflationary conception of metaphysics, which takes well-formed metaphysical questions to be answerable using nothing more mysterious than empirical information and descriptive and normative conceptual work. Here I examine the ways in which our practices of metaphysics should change, if we adopt the deflationary reconception of metaphysics. Adopting this approach does not mean abandoning metaphysics, but it does lead to important differences regarding which debates and positions are worth taking seriously. It also requires us to (...) reevaluate which criteria for choosing metaphysical views are appropriate – particularly where debates about existence are concerned. (shrink)

We argued that formal objections to the error theory overgeneralize and therefore fail. Christine Tiefensee and Gregory Wheeler deny this. We argue that they are wrong, for two reasons. The first concerns how we should adjudicate conflicts between formal and substantive commitments. The second concerns an overlooked tension between formal objections and non-error-theoretic views. Our discussion shows that the commitments behind formal objections to the error theory, such as the dual schema, should be regarded as much more contentious than is (...) often assumed. (shrink)

Grounding has become all the rage in recent philosophical work and metaphilosophical discussions. While I agree that the concept of ground marks something useful, I am skeptical about the metaphysical weight many imbue it with, and the picture of ‘worldly layering’ that grounding talk inspires. My skepticism centers around the fact that grounding involves necessitation, combined with reasons for thinking matters of necessity are matters of logical or conceptual (semantic, psychological) relations. I sketch an argument for deflationism about ground based (...) on this sort of deflationism about necessity and essence. I also note that in at least some cases, the considerations supporting modal deflationism directly support deflationism about whatever grounding relations may obtain in these cases. (shrink)

I defend a novel pragmatist account of truth that I call ‘truth from the agent point of view’ or ‘agential truth’, drawing on insights from Hilary Putnam. According to the agential view, as inquirers, when we take something to be truth-apt, we are taking ourselves and all other thinkers to be accountable to getting right a shared target that is independent of any individual's or community's view of that target. That we have this relationship to truth is what enables our (...) practices of disagreement and agreement, even when subject to the glare of self-conscious reflection, and represents a crucial ingredient in our capacity for rational thought. The resulting account shares elements with Huw Price's and Cheryl Misak's views, but also has important advantages over both. It also yields a surprising conclusion—that our best pragmatist account of truth may well be a version of the correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)

If ethical reflection on which concepts to use has an avatar, it must be Nietzsche, who took more seriously than most the question of what concepts one should live by, and regarded many of our inherited concepts as deeply problematic. Moreover, his eschewal of traditional attempts to derive the one right set of concepts from timeless rational foundations renders his conceptual ethics strikingly modern, raising the prospect of a Nietzschean alternative to Wittgensteinian non-foundationalism. Yet Nietzsche appears to engage in two (...) seemingly contrary modes of concept evaluation: one looks to concepts’ effects, the other to what concepts express. I offer an account of the expressive character of concepts which unifies these two modes and accounts for Nietzsche’s seemingly bifurcating interests. His fundamental concern is with the effects concepts are likely to have going forward, and it is precisely this concern that motivates his preoccupation with what concepts express. He evaluates concepts by asking for whom they have a point, working back from a concept via the need it fills to the conditions that engender that need and thereby render the concept pointful. For a concept to be pointful is for it to serve the concerns of its users through its effects. But even when it is not pointful, a concept expresses the presuppositions of its pointfulness, which we can work back to by asking who would have need of such a concept. What emerges is a powerful approach to conceptual ethics that looks beyond the formal virtues and vices of concepts at the presuppositions we buy into by using them. (shrink)

According to linguistic conventionalism, necessities are to be explained in terms of the conventionally adopted rules that govern the use of linguistic expressions. A number of influential arguments against this view concerns the ‘Truth-Contrast Thesis’. This is the claim that necessary truths are fundamentally different from contingent ones since they are not made true by ‘the facts’. Instead, they are supposed to be something like ‘true in virtue of meaning’. This thesis is widely held to be a core commitment of (...) the conventionalist position, and the view is frequently rejected on the grounds that this thesis is untenable. I argue that this line of reasoning is mistaken. While the thesis should be rejected, it is not, I argue, entailed by linguistic conventionalism – nor was it invariably accepted by the paradigmatic conventionalists. (shrink)

Annalisa Coliva (Int J Study Skept 10(3–4):346–366, 2020) asks, “Are there mathematical hinges?” I argue here, against Coliva’s own conclusion, that there are. I further claim that this affirmative answer allows a case to be made for taking the concept of a hinge to be a useful and general-purpose tool for studying mathematical practice in its real complexity. Seeing how Wittgenstein can, and why he would, countenance mathematical hinges additionally gives us a deeper understanding of some of his latest thoughts (...) on mathematics. For example, a view of how mathematical hinges relate to Wittgenstein’s well-known river-bed analogy enables us to see how his way of thinking about mathematics can account nicely for a “dynamics of change” within mathematical research—something his philosophy of mathematics has been accused of missing (e.g., by Robert Ackermann (Wittgenstein’s city, The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1988) and Mark Wilson (Wandering significance: an essay on conceptual behavior, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006). Finally, the perspective on mathematical hinges ultimately arrived at will be seen to provide us with illuminating examples of how our conceptual choices and theories can be ungrounded but nevertheless the right ones (in a sense to be explained). (shrink)

The fourteen papers in this collection offer a variety of original contributions to the epistemology of modality. In seeking to explain how we might account for our knowledge of possibility and necessity, they raise some novel questions, develop some unfamiliar theoretical perspectives, and make some intriguing proposals. Collectively, they advance our understanding of the field. In Part I of this Introduction, I give some general background about the contemporary literature in the area, by sketching a timeline of the main tendencies (...) of the past twenty-five years or so, up to the present debates. Next, I focus on four features that largely characterize the latest literature, and the papers in the present collection in particular: (i) an endorsement of the importance of essentialism; (ii) a shift to a “metaphysics-first” approach to modal epistemology; (iii) a focus on metaphysical modality as opposed to other kinds of modality; and (iv) a preference for non-uniform modal epistemology. In Part II, I present the individual papers in the volume. These are organized around the following four chapters, based on their topic: (A) Skepticism & Deflationism; (B) Essentialism; (C) Non-Essentialist Accounts; (D) Applications. -/- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: Francesco Berto; Stephen Biggs & Jessica Wilson; Justin Clark-Doane; Philip Goff; Bob Hale; Frank Jackson; Mark Jago; Boris Kment; Antonella Mallozzi; Graham Priest; Gabriel Rabin; Amie Thomasson; Anand Vaidya & Michael Wallner; Jennifer Wang. -/- The volume is dedicated to the memory of Bob Hale. -/- . (shrink)

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals that involve some metaphysical impossibility. Modal normativism is a non-descriptivist account of metaphysical necessity and possibility according to which modal claims, e.g. ‘necessarily, all bachelors are unmarried’, do not function as descriptive claims about the modal nature of reality but function as normative illustrations of constitutive rules and permissions that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary, e.g. ‘bachelor’. In this paper, I assume modal normativism and develop a novel account of counterpossibles and claims about metaphysical similarity (...) between possible and impossible worlds. I argue that considerations of metaphysical similarity between various impossible worlds and the actual world only require us to tacitly consider how the actual constitutive rules that govern the use of our terms change in order to accommodate the description of some hypothetical impossible scenario. I then argue for my account by raising worries for alternative epistemic and realist accounts of counterpossibles and showing how my account avoids those worries. (shrink)

Many theorists of conceptual engineering appeal to the functions, roles, purposes or aims of concepts to articulate how conceptual engineering ought to be done. The functional approach to conceptual engineering is well-motivated: It promises a good account of the limits of revision, and of what makes some concept good. In this paper, I raise a problem for the functional approach which concerns the existence of harmful and methodologically insignificant concept functions. I examine whether we can deal with these problematic functions (...) by adopting a technical notion of function. I thus review the prospects for using the notions of a contextually stable function, of a designed function, of a proper function, and of a system function as our operative notion of function. None of them help us resolve the problem. On this basis, I argue that advocates of the functional approach should be committed to a comparatively weak claim, according to which functions must be assessed case-by-case, and that we are best served by employing an unsophisticated notion of function, according to which the function of a concept just is something the concept is used for. (shrink)

Accounts of scientific explanation disagree about what’s required for a cause, law, or other fact to be a reason why an event occurs. In short, they disagree about the conditions for explanatory relevance. Nonetheless, most accounts presuppose that claims about explanatory relevance play a descriptive role in tracking reality. By rejecting the need for this descriptivist assumption, I develop an expressivist account of explanatory relevance and explanation: to judge that an answer is explanatory is to express an attitude ofbeing for (...) being satisfied by that answer. I show how expressivism vindicates ordinary scientific discourse about explanation, including claims about the objectivity and mind-independence of explanations. By avoiding commitment to ontic relevance relations, I rehabilitate an irrealist conception of explanation. (shrink)

This paper clarifies and answers the following question: is technology morally neutral? It is argued that the debate between proponents and opponents of the Neutrality Thesis depends on different underlying assumptions about the nature of technological artifacts. My central argument centres around the claim that a mere physicalistic vocabulary does not suffice in characterizing technological artifacts as artifacts, and that the concepts of function and intention are necessary to describe technological artifacts at the right level of description. Once this has (...) been established, I demystify talk about the possible value-ladenness of technological artifacts by showing how these values can be empirically identified. I draw from examples in biology and the social sciences to show that there is a non-mysterious sense in which functions and values can be empirically identified. I conclude from this that technology can be value-laden and that its value-ladenness can both derive from the intended functions as well as the harmful non-intended functions of technological artifacts. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson contributed to many philosophical domains, including the philosophy of language, the history of philosophy, metaphysics, moral philosophy and philosophical methodology. Most of his contributions in these areas have influenced contemporary debates, either because his views are still defended or because they are still considered worthy of detailed responses. His views on the philosophy of logic have been only rarely discussed, however. My aim in this paper is threefold. First, I provide a systematic account of Strawson’s philosophy of logic. (...) I argue that Strawson is an important predecessor of logical expressivism, a contemporary position in the philosophy of logic most notably defended by Robert Brandom. My main focus is on Strawson’s largely-neglected 1982 paper ‘Logical Form and Logical Constants’, which contains his most mature ideas on the topic. Second, while Strawson’s position is of historical and independent philosophical interest, I argue that he leaves many points unclear. Finally, I propose several clarifications of Strawson’s position. (shrink)

Contra recent, inflationary views, the paper submits a deflationary approach to legal ontology. It argues, in particular, that to answer ontological questions about legal entities, we only need conceptual analysis and empirical investigation. In developing this proposal, it follows Amie Thomasson’s ‘easy ontology’ and her strategy for answering whether ordinary objects exist. The purpose of this is to advance a theory that, on the one hand, does not fall prey to sceptical views about legal reality (viz., that ontological truths about (...) legal entities are established by metaphysical principles); and, on the other, is compatible with common-sense jurisprudence (viz., that there in fact exist legal entities, and they all have important practical implications). While this methodology is common to legal philosophers interested in elucidating the ‘artifactual nature’ of law, the paper departs from their projects by taking a step forward in connecting this deflationary approach to legal ontology with an expressivist account of legal discourse, thus providing enough resources to satisfy the general ambition of jurisprudence, viz., to establish the conditions for the analysis of legal reality and its normative character. (shrink)

Easy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two-stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity (...) of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering involves revising our concepts. It can be pursued as a specific philosophical methodology, but is also common in ordinary, non-philosophical, contexts. How does our capacity for conceptual engineering fit into human cognitive life more broadly? I hold that conceptual engineering is best understood alongside practices of conceptual exploration, examples of which include conceptual supposition (i.e., suppositional reasoning about alternative concepts), and conceptual comparison (i.e., comparisons between possible concept choices). Whereas in conceptual engineering we aim to change the concepts (...) we use, in conceptual exploration, we reason about conceptual possibilities. I approach conceptual exploration via the linguistic tools we use to communicate about concepts, using metalinguistic negotiation, convention-shifting conditionals, and metalinguistic comparatives as my key examples. I present a linguistic framework incorporating conventions that can account for this communication in a unified way. Furthermore, I argue that conceptual exploration helps undermine skepticism about conceptual engineering itself. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that truth is always evaluated using our actual linguistic conventions, even when considering counterfactual scenarios in which different conventions are adopted. This principle has been invoked in a number of philosophical arguments, including Kripke’s defense of the necessity of identity and Lewy’s objection to modal conventionalism. But it is false. It fails in the presence of what Einheuser (2006) calls c-monsters, or convention-shifting expressions (on analogy with Kaplan’s monsters, or context-shifting expressions). We show that c-monsters naturally (...) arise in contexts, such as metalinguistic negotiations, where speakers entertain alternative conventions. We develop an expressivist theory—inspired by Barker (2002) and MacFarlane (2016) on vague predications and Einheuser (2006) on counterconventionals—to model these shifts in convention. Using this framework, we reassess the philosophical arguments that invoked the conventional wisdom. (shrink)

Counterpossibles, counterfactuals conditional with impossible antecedents, are notoriously contested; while the standard view makes them trivially true, some authors argue that they can be non-trivially true. In this paper, I examine the use of counterfactuals in the context of games, and argue that there is a case to be made for their non-triviality in a restricted sense. In particular, I examine the case of retro problems in chess, where it can happen that one is tasked with evaluating counterfactuals about illegal (...) positions. If we understand illegality as a type of restricted impossibility, those counterfactuals are non-trivial counterpossibles. I suggest that their non-triviality stems from their role in practices of rule coordination and revision, and suggest that this model could be generalized to counterpossibles in different domains. I then compare the approach to the accounts of Vetter 2016 and Locke 2019. (shrink)

According to traditional logical expressivism, logical operators allow speakers to explicitly endorse claims that are already implicitly endorsed in their discursive practice — endorsed in virtue of that practice’s having instituted certain logical relations. Here, I propose a different version of logical expressivism, according to which the expressive role of logical operators is explained without invoking logical relations at all, but instead in terms of the expression of discursive-practical attitudes. In defense of this alternative, I present a deflationary account of (...) the expressive role of vocabulary by which we ascribe logical relations. (shrink)