Switch to: References

Citations of:

Constructing the World

Oxford: Oxford University Press (2012)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. (2 other versions)Levels: Descriptive, Explanatory, and Ontological.Christian List - 2017 - Noûs 53 (4):852-883.
    Scientists and philosophers frequently speak about levels of description, levels of explanation, and ontological levels. In this paper, I propose a unified framework for modelling levels. I give a general definition of a system of levels and show that it can accommodate descriptive, explanatory, and ontological notions of levels. I further illustrate the usefulness of this framework by applying it to some salient philosophical questions: (1) Is there a linear hierarchy of levels, with a fundamental level at the bottom? And (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  • Grounding, Conceivability, and the Mind-Body Problem.David Elohim - 2018 - Synthese 195 (2):919-926.
    This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths in light of a hyperintensional, ground-theoretic regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability—i.e., the epistemic possibility—thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Theories of Reference: What Was the Question?Panu Raatikainen - 2020 - In Andrea Bianchi (ed.), Language and reality from a naturalistic perspective: Themes from Michael Devitt. Cham: Springer. pp. 69–103.
    The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the central question of the philosophical theory of reference (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Why conceptual competence won’t help the non-naturalist epistemologist.Preston J. Werner - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (3-4):616-637.
    Non-naturalist normative realists face an epistemological objection: They must explain how their preferred route of justification ensures a non-accidental connection between justified moral beliefs and the normative truths. One strategy for meeting this challenge begins by pointing out that we are semantically or conceptually competent in our use of the normative terms, and then argues that this competence guarantees the non-accidental truth of some of our first-order normative beliefs. In this paper, I argue against this strategy by illustrating that this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Eightfold Way: Why Analyticity, Apriority and Necessity are Independent.Douglas Ian Campbell - 2017 - Philosophers' Imprint 17:1-17.
    This paper concerns the three great modal dichotomies: (i) the necessary/contingent dichotomy; (ii) the a priori/empirical dichotomy; and (iii) the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. These can be combined to produce a tri-dichotomy of eight modal categories. The question as to which of the eight categories house statements and which do not is a pivotal battleground in the history of analytic philosophy, with key protagonists including Descartes, Hume, Kant, Kripke, Putnam and Kaplan. All parties to the debate have accepted that some categories are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Dispositional and categorical properties, and Russellian Monism.Eric Hiddleston - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):65-92.
    This paper has two main aims. The first is to present a general approach for understanding “dispositional” and “categorical” properties; the second aim is to use this approach to criticize Russellian Monism. On the approach I suggest, what are usually thought of as “dispositional” and “categorical” properties are really just the extreme ends of a spectrum of options. The approach allows for a number of options between these extremes, and it is plausible, I suggest, that just about everything of scientific (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Impossible worlds and partial belief.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3433-3458.
    One response to the problem of logical omniscience in standard possible worlds models of belief is to extend the space of worlds so as to include impossible worlds. It is natural to think that essentially the same strategy can be applied to probabilistic models of partial belief, for which parallel problems also arise. In this paper, I note a difficulty with the inclusion of impossible worlds into probabilistic models. Under weak assumptions about the space of worlds, most of the propositions (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Almost Ideal: Computational Epistemology and the Limits of Rationality for Finite Reasoners.Danilo Fraga Dantas - 2016 - Dissertation, University of California, Davis
    The notion of an ideal reasoner has several uses in epistemology. Often, ideal reasoners are used as a parameter of (maximum) rationality for finite reasoners (e.g. humans). However, the notion of an ideal reasoner is normally construed in such a high degree of idealization (e.g. infinite/unbounded memory) that this use is unadvised. In this dissertation, I investigate the conditions under which an ideal reasoner may be used as a parameter of rationality for finite reasoners. In addition, I present and justify (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Ideal Reasoners don’t Believe in Zombies.Danilo Fraga Dantas - 2017 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 21 (1):41-59.
    The negative zombie argument concludes that physicalism is false from the premises that p ∧¬q is ideally negatively conceivable and that what is ideally negatively conceivable is possible, where p is the conjunction of the fundamental physical truths and laws and q is a phenomenal truth (Chalmers 2002; 2010). A sentence φ is ideally negatively conceivable iff φ is not ruled out a priori on ideal rational reflection. In this paper, I argue that the negative zombie argument is neither a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Frontloading Argument.Richard G. Heck - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (10):2583-2608.
    Maybe the most important argument in David Chalmers’s monumental book Constructing the World is the one he calls the ‘Frontloading Argument’, which is used in Chapter 4 to argue for the book’s central thesis, A Priori Scrutability. And, at first blush, the Frontloading Argument looks very strong. I argue here, however, that it is incapable of securing the conclusion it is meant to establish.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Inference Without Reckoning.Susanna Siegel - 2019 - In Magdalena Balcerak Jackson & Brendan Jackson (eds.), Reasoning: New Essays on Theoretical and Practical Thinking. Oxford University Press. pp. 15-31.
    I argue that inference can tolerate forms of self-ignorance and that these cases of inference undermine canonical models of inference on which inferrers have to appreciate (or purport to appreciate) the support provided by the premises for the conclusion. I propose an alternative model of inference that belongs to a family of rational responses in which the subject cannot pinpoint exactly what she is responding to or why, where this kind of self-ignorance does nothing to undermine the intelligence of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Structuralism as a Response to Skepticism.David J. Chalmers - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy 115 (12):625-660.
    Cartesian arguments for global skepticism about the external world start from the premise that we cannot know that we are not in a Cartesian scenario such as an evil-demon scenario, and infer that because most of our empirical beliefs are false in such a scenario, these beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Veridicalist responses to global skepticism respond that arguments fail because in Cartesian scenarios, many or most of our empirical beliefs are true. Some veridicalist responses have been motivated using verificationism, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • (1 other version)The Combination Problem for Panpsychism.David Chalmers - 2017 - In Brüntrup Godehard & Jaskolla Ludwig (eds.), Panpsychism. Oxford University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   98 citations  
  • (1 other version)Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem.David Chalmers - 2019 - In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge. pp. 353-373.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   45 citations  
  • Introduction: The Character of Physicalism.Andreas Elpidorou - 2018 - Topoi 37 (3):435-455.
    The aim of this editorial introduction is twofold. First, Sects. 1–8 offer a critical introduction to the metaphysical character of physicalism. In those sections, I present and evaluate different ways in which proponents of physicalism have made explicit the metaphysical dependence that is said to hold between the non-physical and the physical. Some of these accounts are found to be problematic; others are shown to be somewhat more promising. In the end, some important lessons are drawn and different options for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • A Dilemma for Russellian Monists About Consciousness.Adam Pautz - 2015
    I develop a new argument against Russellian Monism about consciousness.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Kumārila and Knows-Knows.Daniel Immerman - 2018 - Philosophy East and West 68 (2):408-422.
    This essay defends a principle that promises to help illuminate the nature of reflective knowledge. The principle in question belongs to a broader category called knows-knows principles, or KK principles for short. Such principles say that if you know some proposition, then you're in a position to know that you know it.KK principles were prominent among various historical philosophers and can be fruitfully integrated with many views in contemporary epistemology and beyond—and yet almost every contemporary analytic epistemologist thinks that they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Epistemology of Modality.Margot Strohminger & Juhani Yli-Vakkuri - 2017 - Analysis 77 (4):825-838.
    This article surveys recent developments in the epistemology of modality.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Consciousness and Intentionality.Angela Mendelovici & David Bourget - 2020 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 560-585.
    Philosophers traditionally recognize two main features of mental states: intentionality and phenomenal consciousness. To a first approximation, intentionality is the aboutness of mental states, and phenomenal consciousness is the felt, experiential, qualitative, or "what it's like" aspect of mental states. In the past few decades, these features have been widely assumed to be distinct and independent. But several philosophers have recently challenged this assumption, arguing that intentionality and consciousness are importantly related. This article overviews the key views on the relationship (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • (1 other version)Inferentialism.Florian Steinberger & Julien Murzi - 2017 - In Steinberger Florian & Murzi Julien (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Language. pp. 197-224.
    This article offers an overview of inferential role semantics. We aim to provide a map of the terrain as well as challenging some of the inferentialist’s standard commitments. We begin by introducing inferentialism and placing it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. §2 focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of inferential role semantics: the case of the logical constants. We discuss some of the (alleged) benefits (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Quinean holism, analyticity, and diachronic rational norms.Brett Topey - 2018 - Synthese 195 (7):3143-3171.
    I argue that Quinean naturalists’ holism-based arguments against analyticity and apriority are more difficult to resist than is generally supposed, for two reasons. First, although opponents of naturalism sometimes dismiss these arguments on the grounds that the holistic premises on which they depend are unacceptably radical, it turns out that the sort of holism required by these arguments is actually quite minimal. And second, although it’s true, as Grice and Strawson pointed out long ago, that these arguments can succeed only (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • (1 other version)Forms of Luminosity: Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.David Elohim - 2017 - Dissertation, Arché, University of St Andrews
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. David Elohim examines the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • (1 other version)Forms of Luminosity: Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.David Elohim - 2017
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. David Elohim examines the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A Metasemantic Challenge for Mathematical Determinacy.Jared Warren & Daniel Waxman - 2020 - Synthese 197 (2):477-495.
    This paper investigates the determinacy of mathematics. We begin by clarifying how we are understanding the notion of determinacy before turning to the questions of whether and how famous independence results bear on issues of determinacy in mathematics. From there, we pose a metasemantic challenge for those who believe that mathematical language is determinate, motivate two important constraints on attempts to meet our challenge, and then use these constraints to develop an argument against determinacy and discuss a particularly popular approach (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • A Defense of Russellian Descriptivism.Brandt H. van der Gaast - unknown
    In this dissertation, I defend a Russellian form of descriptivism. The main supporting argument invokes a relation between meaning and thought. I argue that the meanings of sentences are the thoughts people use them to express. This is part of a Gricean outlook on meaning according to which psychological intentionality is prior to, and determinative of, linguistic intentionality. The right approach to thought, I argue in Chapter 1, is a type of functionalism on which thoughts have narrow contents. On this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)The Compatibility of the Structure-and-Dynamics Argument and Phenomenal Functionalism about Space.Luke Roelofs - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (S1):44-52.
    Chalmers (2002) argues against physicalism in part using the premise that no truth about consciousness can be deduced a priori from any set of purely structural truths. Chalmers (2012) elaborates a detailed definition of what it is for a truth to be structural, which turns out to include spatiotemporal truths. But Chalmers (2012) then proposes to define spatiotemporal terms by reference to their role in causing spatial and temporal experiences. Stoljar (2015) and Ebbers (Ms) argue that this definition of spatiotemporal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Vagueness and Zombies: Why ‘Phenomenally Conscious’ has No Borderline Cases.Jonathan A. Simon - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (8):2105-2123.
    I argue that there can be no such thing as a borderline case of the predicate ‘phenomenally conscious’: for any given creature at any given time, it cannot be vague whether that creature is phenomenally conscious at that time. I first defend the Positive Characterization Thesis, which says that for any borderline case of any predicate there is a positive characterization of that case that can show any sufficiently competent speaker what makes it a borderline case. I then appeal to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Phenomenal Intentionality.David Bourget & Angela Mendelovici - 2016 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Phenomenal intentionality is a kind of intentionality, or aboutness, that is grounded in phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, experiential feature of certain mental states. The phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT), is a theory of intentionality according to which there is phenomenal intentionality, and all other kinds of intentionality at least partly derive from it. In recent years, PIT has increasingly been seen as one of the main approaches to intentionality.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • How I learned to stop worrying and love probability 1.Daniel Greco - 2015 - Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1):179-201.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   81 citations  
  • Experiences are Representations: An Empirical Argument (forthcoming Routledge).Adam Pautz - 2016 - In Bence Nanay (ed.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Perception. New York: Routledge.
    In this paper, I do a few things. I develop a (largely) empirical argument against naïve realism (Campbell, Martin, others) and for representationalism. I answer Papineau’s recent paper “Against Representationalism (about Experience)”. And I develop a new puzzle for representationalists.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • A New Epistemic Argument for Idealism.Robert Smithson - 2017 - In K. Pearce & T. Goldschmidt (eds.), Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 17-33.
    Many idealists have thought that realism raises epistemological problems. The worry is that, if it is possible for truths about ordinary objects to outstrip our experiences in the ways that realists typically suppose, we could never be justified in our beliefs about objects. Few contemporary theorists find this argument convincing; philosophers have offered a variety of responses to defend the epistemology of our object judgments under the assumption of realism. But in this paper, I offer a new type of epistemic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Philosophy as Total Axiomatics: Serious Metaphysics, Scrutability Bases, and Aesthetic Evaluation.Uriah Kriegel - 2016 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (2):272-290.
    What is the aim of philosophy? There may be too many philosophical branches, traditions, practices, and programs to admit of a single overarching aim. Here I focus on a fairly traditional philosophical project that has recently received increasingly sophisticated articulation, especially by Frank Jackson (1998) and David Chalmers (2012). In §1, I present the project and suggest that it is usefully thought of as ‘total axiomatics’: the project of attempting to axiomatize the total theory of the world. In §2, I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Fundamentality and the Mind-Body Problem.Philip Goff - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (4):881-898.
    In the recent metaphysics literature, a number of philosophers have independently endeavoured to marry sparse ontology to abundant truth. The aim is to keep ontological commitments minimal, whilst allowing true sentences to quantify over a vastly greater range of entities than those which they are ontologically committed to. For example, an ontological commitment only to concrete, microscopic simples might be conjoined with a commitment to truths such as ‘There are twenty people working in this building’ and ‘There are prime numbers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Structure and Dynamics Argument against Materialism.Torin Alter - 2015 - Noûs 50 (4):794-815.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  • Philosophy as conceptual engineering: Inductive logic in Rudolf Carnap's scientific philosophy.Christopher F. French - 2015 - Dissertation, University of British Columbia
    My dissertation explores the ways in which Rudolf Carnap sought to make philosophy scientific by further developing recent interpretive efforts to explain Carnap’s mature philosophical work as a form of engineering. It does this by looking in detail at his philosophical practice in his most sustained mature project, his work on pure and applied inductive logic. I, first, specify the sort of engineering Carnap is engaged in as involving an engineering design problem and then draw out the complications of design (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Questions of Ontology.Kathrin Koslicki - 2016 - In Stephan Blatti & Sandra Lapointe (eds.), Ontology after Carnap. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press UK.
    Following W.V. Quine’s lead, many metaphysicians consider ontology to be concerned primarily with existential questions of the form, “What is there?”. Moreover, if the position advanced by Rudolf Carnap, in his seminal essay, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology ”, is correct, then many of these existential ontological questions ought to be classified as either trivially answerable or as “pseudo-questions”. One may justifiably wonder, however, whether the Quinean and Carnapian perspective on ontology really does justice to many of the most central concerns (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • A Hierarchy of Armchairs: Gerald Gaus on Political Thought Experiments.Nenad Miscevic - 2013 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 9 (1):52-63.
    The paper places the work of G. Gaus into the tradition of political thought experimenting. In particular, his strategy of modeling moral decision by the heuristic device of idealized Members of the Public is presented as an iterated thought experiment, which stands in marked contrast with more traditional devices like the veil of ignorance. The consequences are drawn, and issues of utopianism and realism briefly discussed.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Excluded Knowledge.Christian Ryan Lee - 2016 - Synthese 193 (8):1-26.
    Does vagueness exclude knowledge? After arguing for an affirmative answer to this question, I consider a fascinating objection. Barnett offers purported counterexamples to the following: Vagueness as to whether p entails that nobody knows whether p. These putative counterexamples, were they successful, would establish that standard accounts of vagueness are mistaken. I defend three central theses: First, whenever it is vague whether p competent speakers would be ambivalent about whether p when considering whether p, and such ambivalence would exclude knowledge (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Deductive-Nomological Account of Metaphysical Explanation.Tobias Wilsch - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1):1-23.
    The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   56 citations  
  • Sensorama: A Phenomenalist Analysis of Spacetime and Its Contents.Michael Pelczar - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    How does the modern scientific conception of time constrain the project of assigning the mind its proper place in nature? On the scientific conception, it makes no sense to speak of the duration of a pain, or the simultaneity of sensations occurring in different parts of the brain. Such considerations led Henri Poincaré, one of the founders of the modern conception, to conclude that consciousness does not exist in spacetime, but serves as the basic material out of which we must (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • A Note on the Definition of Physicalism.Ben Blumson & Weng Hong Tang - 2015 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):10-18.
    Physicalism is incompatible with what is known as the possibility of zombies, that is, the possibility of a world physically like ours, but in which there are no conscious experiences. But it is compatible with what is known as the possibility of ghosts, that is, the possibility of a world which is physically like ours, but in which there are additional nonphysical entities. In this paper we argue that a revision to the traditional definition of physicalism designed to accommodate the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Hidden Nature Physicalism.William S. Robinson - 2016 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (1):71-89.
    Hidden nature physicalists hold that an experiential quality and its hidden nature are the same property – even though they agree that our experiences are of experiential qualities but are not, in the same sense, experiences of their hidden natures. This paper argues that physicalists must be committed to ultimately giving accounts that involve no non-extensional relations, and that this commitment leads to an inability to explain how our experiences could be of experiential qualities, but not of their hidden natures.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Ideal rationality and logical omniscience.Declan Smithies - 2015 - Synthese 192 (9):2769-2793.
    Does rationality require logical omniscience? Our best formal theories of rationality imply that it does, but our ordinary evaluations of rationality seem to suggest otherwise. This paper aims to resolve the tension by arguing that our ordinary evaluations of rationality are not only consistent with the thesis that rationality requires logical omniscience, but also provide a compelling rationale for accepting this thesis in the first place. This paper also defends an account of apriori justification for logical beliefs that is designed (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   77 citations  
  • Objectivity and understanding: a new reading of Carnap’s Aufbau.Iulian D. Toader - 2015 - Synthese 192 (5):1543-1557.
    This paper argues that Carnap's project in the Aufbau is best considered as an attempt to determine the conditions for both objectivity and understanding, thus aiming at refuting the skeptical contention that objectivity and understanding are incompossible ideals of science.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Two-dimensionalism and the social character of meaning.Derek Ball - 2013 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):567-595.
    This paper develops and critiques the two-dimensionalist account of mental content developed by David Chalmers. I first explain Chalmers's account and show that it resists some popular criticisms. I then argue that the main interest of two-dimensionalism lies in its accounts of cognitive significance and of the connection between conceivability and possibility. These accounts hinge on the claim that some thoughts have a primary intension that is necessarily true. In this respect, they are Carnapian, and subject to broadly Quinean attack. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Lowe on Modal Knowledge.Joachim Horvath - 2014 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 3 (3):208-217.
    In recent work, E. J. Lowe presents an essence-based account of our knowledge of metaphysical modality that he claims to be superior to its main competitors. I argue that knowledge of essences alone, without knowledge of a suitable bridge principle, is insufficient for knowing that something is metaphysically necessary or metaphysically possible. Yet given Lowe's other theoretical commitments, he cannot account for our knowledge of the needed bridge principle, and so his essence-based modal epistemology remains incomplete. In addition to that, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • The A Posteriori Armchair.Daniel Nolan - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (2):211-231.
    A lot of good philosophy is done in the armchair, but is nevertheless a posteriori. This paper clarifies and then defends that claim. Among the a posteriori activities done in the armchair are assembling and evaluating commonplaces; formulating theoretical alternatives; and integrating well-known past a posteriori discoveries. The activity that receives the most discussion, however, is the application of theoretical virtues to choose philosophical theories: the paper argues that much of this is properly seen as a posteriori.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Real acquaintance and physicalism.Philip Goff - 2015 - In Paul Coates & Sam Coleman (eds.), Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception, and Consciousness. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • The Contents of Consciousness: Reply to Hellie, Peacocke and Siegel.David J. Chalmers - 2013 - Analysis 73 (2):345-368.
    This is a reply to commentaries on my book, The Character of Consciousness, by Benj Hellie, Christopher Peacocke, and Susanna Siegel. The reply to Hellie focuses on issues about acquaintance and transparency. The reply to Peacocke focuses on externalism about spatial experience. The reply to Siegel focuses on whether there can be Frege cases in perceptual experience.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • Conceptual mastery and the knowledge argument.Gabriel Rabin - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 154 (1):125-147.
    According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge, in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations