Boghossian argued that externalism is incompatible with a transparency thesis according to which we can know a priori whether any two of our occurrent thoughts have the same or distinct content, and that this transparency thesis is integral to our commonsense conception of rationality, which requires the apriority of our logical abilities. Stalnaker offered a detailed compatibilist response to Boghossian. Boghossian criticized this response, and Stalnaker replied. But the outcome of that important discussion remained unclear, partly because it was unclear (...) how to understand the amended transparency thesis at which Stalnaker was gesturing. My aim in this paper is to settle the matter. I wish to clarify the terms of the debate, also by highlighting the relevant commitments of Stalnaker’s two-dimensionalist account, and to show that his compatibilist response, which appeals to diagonal propositions, is unsuccessful. (shrink)

According to internalism about rationality, the ir/rationality of a subject depends only on how things appear from her subjective perspective. According to culpabilism, rationality is a normative standard such that violations of rationality are (at least sometimes) blameworthy. According to a classical line of reasoning, culpabilism entails internalism. I argue that, to the contrary, culpabilism entails that internalism is false. The internalist cannot accommodate the possibility of culpable irrationality.

In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning‐transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content‐externalism, I argue that “in the head” are only logical and formal abilities. That is what I call “bite the bullet and swallow it too.”.

Anti-individualists hold that having a thought with a certain intentional content is a relational rather than an intrinsic property of the subject. Some anti-individualists also hold that thought-content serves to explain the subject’s cognitive perspective. Since there seems to be a tension between these two views, much discussed in the philosophical literature, attempts have been made to resolve it. In an attempt to reconcile these views, and in relation to perception-based demonstrative thoughts, Stalnaker (Our knowledge of the internal world, Oxford (...) University Press, Oxford, 2008) argues that an anti-individualist account of the facts that determine thought-content can be reconciled with a suitably qualified version of a principle of epistemic transparency. Acknowledging this, and in agreement with the view that thought-content should serve to explain the subject’s cognitive perspective, I argue that, his intentions notwithstanding, this view of transparency of thought-contents does not serve to explain the subject’s cognitive perspective on Stalnaker’s own terms and that the intricacies involved in his argumentation for saving his anti-individualist project are indirectly supportive of an individualist account of the subject’s cognitive perspective. In so doing, I leave intact some of his key claims that are plausible in their own right. (shrink)

In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning‐transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content‐externalism, I argue that “in the head” are only logical and formal abilities. That is what I call “bite the bullet and swallow it too.”.

How do we inferentially unify separately acquired empirical information into a single comprehensive picture of the lives of persistent particulars? This paper argues that hidden in such inferences is a Fregean puzzle that can only be solved by individuating our demonstratives thoughts in terms of object-dependent Fregean Senses. I begin by characterizing some constraints on a non-skeptical account of our inferential unification of empirical information. I then go on to show that traditional Fregean views of Sense cannot explain the rationality (...) of such inferences; the consequence of which would be widespread skepticism concerning fundamental aspects of our empirical worldview. I show how the theory of object-dependent Senses can account for the rationality of the puzzling inferences. Lastly, I consider the alternative that we abandon a Fregean explanation of the rationality of inferences. While not fully dismissing that option, I briefly raise, what I take to be, a daunting challenge that uniquely faces non-Fregean views of rational inference. (shrink)

A possible way out to Kripke’s Puzzle About Belief could start from the rejection of the notion of epistemic transparency. Epistemic transparency seems, indeed, irremediably incompatible with an externalist conception of mental content. However, Brandom’s inferentialism could be considered a version of externalism that allows, at least in some cases, to save the principle of transparency. Appealing to a normative account of the content of our beliefs, from the inferentialist’s standpoint, it is possible to state that a content is transparent (...) when name-components of that content are a priori associated with some application conditions and, at the same time, reflection alone provides an a priori access to those application conditions, with no need of any empirical investigation. Nevertheless, such requirements are only met in trivial cases. The aim of this paper is to argue that some application conditions of that sort, albeit trivial, can be ontologically ampliative. As a result, the related contents can be regarded as transparent in a substantial and rich way. (shrink)