Foundationalism is false; after all, foundational beliefs are arbitrary, they do not solve the epistemic regress problem, and they cannot exist withoutother (justified) beliefs. Or so some people say. In this essay, we assess some arguments based on such claims, arguments suggested in recent work by Peter Klein and Ernest Sosa.

ABSTRACT A Third-Person-Based or Third-Personal Judgment-Dependent account of mental content implies that, as an a priori matter, facts about a subject’s mental content are precisely captured by the judgments of a second-person or an interpreter. Alex Byrne, Bill Child, and others have discussed attributing such a view to Donald Davidson. This account significantly departs from a First-Person-Based or First-Personal Judgment-Dependent account, such as Crispin Wright’s, according to which, as an a priori matter, facts about intentional content are constituted by the (...) judgments of the subject herself, formed under certain optimal or cognitively ideal conditions. I will argue for two claims: (1) Attributing a Third-Personal Judgment-Dependent account to Davidson is unjustified; Davidson’s view is much closer to a non-reductionist First-Personal Judgment-Dependent account. (2) Third-Personal accounts rest on a misconstrual of the role of an interpreter in the First-Personal accounts; the notion of an interpreter still plays an essential role in the latter ones. (shrink)

One widely-endorsed argument in the experimental philosophy literature maintains that intuitive judgments are unreliable because they are influenced by the order in which thought experiments prompting those judgments are presented. Here, we explicitly state this argument from ordering effects and show that any plausible understanding of the argument leads to an untenable conclusion. First, we show that the normative principle is ambiguous. On one reading of the principle, the empirical observation is well-supported, but the normative principle is false. On the (...) other reading, the empirical observation has only weak support, and the normative principle, if correct, would impugn the reliability of deliberative reasoning, testimony, memory, and perception, since judgments in all these areas are sensitive to ordering in the relevant sense. We then reflect on what goes wrong with the argument. (shrink)

I propose a metaphysical position I call 'limited metaphysical realism', and I link it to a position in the philosophy of language I call 'psychologistic semantics'. Limited metaphysical realism asserts that there is a mind-independent, discourse-independent world, but posits a sparse ontology. Psychologistic semantics construes truth not as direct word/world correspondence, and not as warranted assertibility (or Putnam's "ideal" warranted assertibility), but rather as 'correct assertibility'. I argue that virtues of this package deal over each of the two broad positions (...) that have recently dominated metaphysics and philosophy of language--positions I call package deal metaphysical realism, and package deal anti-realism. (shrink)

I speak to some of Frederick Stoutland’s thinking over the years. In his last published paper, Stoutland brought together Davidson’s accounts of action and of perception, taking both to belong in a picture “of how we are related to the world” which “has its roots in the Cartesian revolution.” I suggest that Stoutland’s early criticisms of Davidson’s account of action expose the faults in such a picture. And I try to point up the attractions of a different picture in which (...) Davidson’s account of perception fits no better than his account of action. (shrink)

On rationalist infallibilism, a wide range of both (i) analytic and (ii) synthetic a priori propositions can be infallibly justified (or absolutely warranted), i.e., justified to a degree that entails their truth and precludes their falsity. Though rationalist infallibilism is indisputably running its course, adherence to at least one of the two species of infallible a priori justification refuses to disappear from mainstream epistemology. Among others, Putnam (1978) still professes the a priori infallibility of some category (i) propositions, while Burge (...) (1986, 1988, 1996) and Lewis (1996) have recently affirmed the a priori infallibility of some category (ii) propositions. In this paper, I take aim at rationalist infallibilism by calling into question the a priori infallibility of both analytic and synthetic propositions. The upshot will be twofold: first, rationalist infallibilism unsurprisingly emerges as a defective epistemological doctrine, and second, more importantly, the case for the a priori infallibility of one or both categories of propositions turns out to lack cogency. (shrink)

In order to illustrate the nature of the indeterminacy of meaning, Donald Davidson sometimes compares it to the fact that we can measure length or temperature on different scales. In the following paper I try to explain first why we are supposed to expect such an analogy, given the semantics of the word meaning and of the word length or temperature. In the second part I examine how close the analogy is by distinguishing different forms of indeterminacy of meaning (viz., (...) the indeterminacy of reference and the indeterminacy of truth) and ask whether both forms have an equivalent in a theory of measurement. I shall conclude that this is indeed the case. (shrink)

Reason, objectivity, and human nature are now suspect ideas. Among postmodern thinkers, Richard Rorty has advanced an especially forceful critique of these notions. Drawing partly on Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, Rorty contends that objectivity is no more than a metaphysical name for intersubjective agreement, and that “human nature” is an empty category, there being nothing beneath history and culture. Wittgenstein himself, however, recognized within the world's many civilizations “the common behavior of mankind,” without which Rorty's ethnocentric “solidarity” would be inconceivable. (...) This common form of life—the life of those who speak—encompasses countless human activities that presuppose and are interwoven with the concepts of reason and objectivity. (shrink)

Das Leben hat sich auf unserem Planeten zu einer unermesslichen Fülle von Formen ausdifferenziert, die in komplexen Weisen interagieren. Durch die Zerstörung unserer natürlichen Umwelt bedrohen wir das Wunder der globalen Biodiversität in seinem Fortbestand. Dabei verdrängen wir, dass auch die Menschheit weiter von der Produktivität jener Ökosysteme abhängig bleibt, zu denen sich das Leben evolutionär organisiert hat. Doch wie lässt sich überzeugend für den Erhalt von Biodiversität argumentieren? Sind Arten und Ökosysteme nur als Voraussetzungen gelingenden menschlichen Lebens schützenswert? Oder (...) haben sie darüber hinaus einen von uns unabhängigen Eigenwert? Andreas Hetzel gibt philosophisch fundierte Antworten auf diese Fragen und diskutiert konkrete Möglichkeiten des Biodiversitätsschutzes. (shrink)

David Chalmers has recently developed a novel strategy of refuting external world skepticism, one he dubs the structuralist solution. In this paper, I make three primary claims: First, structuralism does not vindicate knowledge of other minds, even if it is combined with a functionalist approach to the metaphysics of minds. Second, because structuralism does not vindicate knowledge of other minds, the structuralist solution vindicates far less worldly knowledge than we would hope for from a solution to skepticism. Third, these results (...) suggest that the problem of external world skepticism should perhaps be construed as two different problems, since the problem might turn out to require two substantively different solutions, one for knowledge of the kind that is not dependent on other minds and one for knowledge that is. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with an influential interpretationist argument for physicalism about intentionality based on the possibility of radical interpretation. The interpretationist defends the physicalist thesis that the intentional truths supervene on the physical truths by arguing that it is possible for a radical interpreter, who knows all of the physical truths, to work out the intentional truths about what an arbitrary agent believes, desires, and means without recourse to any further empirical information. One of the most compelling arguments for (...) the possibility of radical interpretation, associated most closely with David Lewis and Donald Davidson, gives a central role to decision theoretic representation theorems, which demonstrate that if an agent’s preferences satisfy certain constraints, it is possible to deduce probability and utility functions that represent her beliefs and desires. We argue that an interpretationist who wants to rely on existing representation theorems in defence of the possibility of radical interpretation faces a trilemma, each horn of which is incompatible with the possibility of radical interpretation. (shrink)

According to foundationalism, some beliefs are justified but do not depend for their justification on any other beliefs. According to access internalism, a subject is justified in believing some proposition only if that subject is aware of or has access to some reason to think that the proposition is true or probable. In this paper I discusses a fundamental challenge to internalist foundationalism often referred to as the Sellarsian dilemma. I consider three attempts to respond to the dilemma – phenomenal (...) conservatism, BonJour’s classical foundationalism, and Fumerton’s classical foundationalism. I argue that, of these three, only the last seems to avoid getting impaled on one or the other horn of the dilemma. I end by responding to some concerns with Fumerton’s account. (shrink)

Davidson claims that nothing can count as a reason for a belief except another belief. This claim is challenged by McDowell, who holds that perceptual experiences can count as reasons for beliefs. I argue that McDowell fails to take account of a distinction between two different senses in which something can count as a reason for belief. While a non-doxastic experience can count as a reason for belief in one of the two senses, this is not the sense which is (...) presupposed in Davidson's claim. While I focus on McDowell's view, the argument generalizes to other views which take experiences as reasons for belief. (shrink)

We prove that four theses commonly associated with coherentism are incompatible with the representation of a belief state as a logically closed set of sentences. The result is applied to the conventional coherence interpretation of the AGM theory of belief revision, which appears not to be tenable. Our argument also counts against the coherentistic acceptability of a certain form of propositional holism. We argue that the problems arise as an effect of ignoring the distinction between derived and non-derived beliefs, and (...) we suggest that the kind of coherence relevant to epistemic justification is the coherence of non-derived beliefs. (shrink)

John McDowell espouses a certain conception of the thinking subject: as an embodied, living, finite being, with a capacity for experience that can take in the world, and stand in relations of warrant to subjects' beliefs. McDowell presents this conception of the subject as requiring a related conception of the world: as not located outside the conceptual sphere. In this latter conception, idealism and common-sense realism are supposed to coincide. But I suggest that McDowell's conception of the subject scuppers this (...) intended coincidence. The upshot is a dilemma: McDowell can retain his conception of the subject, but lose the coincidence; or he can keep the coincidence, but abandon his conception of the subject. (shrink)

El renacimiento del interés por Hegel en el mundo filosófico se apoya en varios puntos: la superación del dualismo entre el esquema conceptual y el contenido, la disipación del mito de lo dado y el inferencialismo. En relación con el primer punto, John McDowell intenta superar aquel dualismo, echando mano de un Hegel cuya retórica requiere de una domesticación. Se intenta iluminar el alcance y algunas limitaciones de esta propuesta, en su intento por desmontar la filosofía del permanente movimiento entre (...) el mito de lo dado o la inmediatez, por un lado, y el coherentismo, por el otro. The revival of interest in Hegel in contemporary philosophical world is based on several reasons: the overcoming of the dualism between conceptual scheme and content, the dissipation of the myth of the given, and inferentialism. Regarding the first point, John McDowell tries to overcome this dualism by making use of Hegel, whose rhetoric requires domestication. The article seeks to illuminate the scope and some limitations of this proposal in its attempt to dismantle philosophy from a permanent movement between the myth of the given or immediacy, on the one hand, and coherentism, on the other. (shrink)

Philosophers of mind have recently sought to establish a theoret- ical use for nonconceptual content. Although there is disagreement about what nonconceptual content is supposed to be, this much is clear. A state with nonconceptual content is mental. Hence, while one may deny that refrigerators and messy rooms have conceptual capacities, their states, as physical and not mental, do not have nonconceptual content. A state with nonconceptual content is also intentional, which is to say that it represents a feature of (...) the world for a subject. It may be tempting to think of qualitative states as having nonconceptual content since they can be experienced by indi- viduals independently of their possession of the requisite concepts, e.g. someone could experience pains, itches or tingles without possessing the concept pain, itch or tingle. But on such a view, one would have to assume that qualitative states are representational since mental states cannot be candidates for nonconceptuality unless they have intentional properties.2. (shrink)

According to cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence, aspects of our linguistic behavior can be explained by ascribing to speakers cognition of truth theories. It's generally assumed on this approach that, however much context sensitivity speakers' languages contain, the cognized truththeories themselves can be adequately characterized context insensitively—that is, without using in the metalanguage expressions whose semantic value can vary across occasions of utterance. In this paper, I explore some of the motivations for and problems and consequences of dropping this (...) assumption. (shrink)

There is a long tradition of drawing metaphysical conclusions from investigations into language. This paper concerns one contemporary variation on this theme: the alleged ontological significance of cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence. According to such accounts, human speakers’ linguistic behavior is in part empirically explained by their cognizing a truth-theory. Such a theory consists of a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to lexical items, a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to complex expressions on the basis (...) of their structure and the semantic values of their constituents, and a finite number of production schemata. The theory enables the derivation of truth-conditions for each sentence of the language: something of roughly the form ‘S is true iff P’.1 The claim that speakers stand in a cognitive relation to such theories is advanced, not as a conceptual analysis of semantic competence or understanding, but rather as an empirical hypothesis about human speakers in particular, one part of a broader empirical account of our linguistic competence and cognition generally. It therefore must mesh with the rest of our theorizing in these areas and whatever relevant data from neighboring inquiries there may be. The precise nature of the cognitive relation a speaker is supposed to bear to a truththeory is a matter of some dispute. I speak of ‘‘cognizing’’ (following. (shrink)

Meta‐analysis: the glass eye of evidence‐based practice?Meta‐analysis was developed as a technique for combining the results of many different quantitative studies: it is often used to produce quantitative estimates of causal relations and/or association between variables. Meta‐analysis is sometimes regarded as a central component of evidence‐based practice. We draw attention to an incompatibility in the epistemology and methods of reasoning in quantitative meta‐analysis and the epistemology and reasoning implicit in expert practice. We argue that this may be because the common (...) perception of meta‐analysis appeals to truth as correspondence; we suggest that rejecting the naïve realism that underpins truth as correspondence allows meta‐analysis to be understood in terms of truth as coherence. We can then develop an account of meta‐analysis that does not depend upon reduction to a mathematical procedure but is an attempt to maximise coherence in beliefs about what works that is consistent with clinical reasoning in expert practice. (shrink)

The standard taxonomy of theories of epistemic justification generates four positions from the Foundationalism v. Coherentism and Internalism v. Externalism disputes. I develop a new taxonomy driven by two other distinctions: Fundamentalism v. Non-Fundamentalism and Actual-Result v. Proper-Aim conceptions of epistemic justification. Actual-Result theorists hold that a belief is justified only if, as an actual matter of fact, it is held or formed in a way that makes it more likely than not to be true. Proper-Aim theorists hold that a (...) belief is justified only if it is held or formed in a way that it proper or correct insofar as truth is the aim or norm. Fundamentalists hold that which particular ways of holding or forming beliefs that confer justification is knowable a priori; epistemic principles are a priori necessary truths. Non- Fundamentalists disagree; epistemic principles are empirical contingent truths. The new taxonomy generates four positions: Cartesianism, Reliabilism, Intuitionism, and Pragmatism. The first two are Actual-Result; the second two are Proper-Aim. The first and third are Fundamentalist, the second and fourth are Non-Fundamentalist. The new taxonomy illuminates much of the current debate in the theory of epistemic justification. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that RadicalInterpretation (RI), taken to be a methodological doctrine regarding the conditions under which an interpretation of an utterance is both warranted and correct, has unacceptable implications for the conditions on (ascriptions of) understanding. The notion of understanding at play is that which underwrites the testimonial transmission of knowledge. After developing this notion I argue that, on the assumption of RI, hearers will fail to have such understanding in situations in which we should want to (...) maintain otherwise. The overall effect of the argument is to provide a heretofore unexamined source of motivation for anti-individualistic approaches to the semantics of utterances. (shrink)

The idea that there are conceptual schemes, relative to which we conceptualize experience, and empirical content, the “raw” data of experience that get conceptualized through our conceptual schemes into beliefs or sentences, is not new. The idea that there are neither conceptual schemes nor empirical content, however, is. Moreover, it is so new, that only four arguments have so far been given against this dualism, with Donald Davidson himself presenting versions of all four. In this paper, I show that in (...) both the general and Davidson’s specific form the first three arguments against scheme-content dualism rely on the fourth. From many there is just one. Then I show that the fate of the first three arguments against scheme-content dualism hangs on that of the fourth. Finally I present four reasons why the fourth argument fails. For the sake of the dualism’s detractors, therefore, one can only hope that forthcoming arguments against scheme-content dualism fare better than those given so far. (shrink)

According to Donald Davidson, linguistic meaning is determined by the principle of charity. Because of Davidson's semantic behaviourism, charity's significance is both epistemic and metaphysical: charity not only provides the radical interpreter with a method for constructing a semantic theory on the basis of his data, but it does so because it is the principle metaphysically determining meaning. In this paper, I assume that charity does determine meaning. On this assumption, I investigate both its epistemic and metaphysical status: is charity (...) a priori or a posteriori? And what kind of necessity does it have? According to Davidson himself, charity is an a priori truth and its necessity is conceptual: it is essential to, or constitutive of, our common concepts of meaning and belief. Not only does this generate tension within Davidson's own, Quine-inspired epistemology, but there is independent reason to think of charity as an empirical truth. Even so, charity might be essential to belief and meaning in the sense of being an a posteriori necessity. I conclude that our ordinary modal intuitions might well support charity's psychological-nomological necessity, but that they do not reach all the way to metaphysical necessity. (shrink)

In this chapter, we critically examine the most important extant ways of understanding and motivating the idea that reasons for belief are normative. First, we examine the proposal that the distinction between explanatory and so-called normative reasons that is commonly drawn in moral philosophy can be rather straightforwardly applied to reasons for belief, and that reasons for belief are essentially normative precisely when they are normative reasons. In the course of this investigation, we explore the very nature of the reasons-for-belief (...) relation, as well as the ontology of such reasons. Second, we examine the idea that the normativity derives from the internal connection between reasons for belief and epistemic justification, distinguishing between two distinct normativist accounts of justification, a weaker and a stronger one. We argue that neither line of argument is compelling. Pending further arguments, we conclude that normativism about reasons for belief is not supported. (shrink)

According to intentionalism, perceptual experience is a mental state with representational content. When it comes to the epistemology of perception, it is only natural for the intentionalist to hold that the justificatory role of experience is at least in part a function of its content. In this paper, I argue that standard versions of intentionalism trying to hold on to this natural principle face what I call the “defeasibility problem”. This problem arises from the combination of standard intentionalism with further (...) plausible principles governing the epistemology of perception: that experience provides defeasible justification for empirical belief, and that such justification is best construed as probabilification. After exploring some ways in which the standard intentionalist could deal with the defeasibility problem, I argue that the best option is to replace standard intentionalism by what I call “phenomenal intentionalism”. Where standard intentionalism construes experiences as of p as having the content p, phenomenal intentionalism construes experiences as of p as having “phenomenal” or “looks contents”: contents of the form Lp. (shrink)

According to intentionalism, perceptual experience is a mental state with representational content. When it comes to the epistemology of perception, it is only natural for the intentionalist to hold that the justificatory role of experience is at least in part a function of its content. In this paper, I argue that standard versions of intentionalism trying to hold on to this natural principle face what I call the “defeasibility problem”. This problem arises from the combination of standard intentionalism with further (...) plausible principles governing the epistemology of perception: that experience provides defeasible justification for empirical belief, and that such justification is best construed as probabilification. After exploring some ways in which the standard intentionalist could deal with the defeasibility problem, I argue that the best option is to replace standard intentionalism by what I call “phenomenal intentionalism”. Where standard intentionalism construes experiences as of p as having the content p, phenomenal intentionalism construes experiences as of p as having “phenomenal” or “looks contents”: contents of the form Lp. (shrink)

In previous work, I have suggested a doxastic account of perceptual experience according to which experiences form a kind of belief: Beliefs with what I have called “phenomenal” or “looks-content”. I have argued that this account can not only accommodate the intuitive reason providing role of experience, but also its justificatory role. I have also argued that, in general, construing experience and perceptual beliefs, i.e. the beliefs most directly based on experience, as having different contents best accounts for the defeasibility (...) of experiential reasons. In this paper, I shall have a closer look at the evidential or inferential relation between looks-propositions and the contents of perceptual beliefs and argue for a form of what I shall call “Pollockianism” about experiential reasons: such reasons are good unless defeated. Questions to be investigated include: Does the resulting picture of perceptual justification contain an externalist element? Is it compatible with Bayesianism? And how does it do with respect to problems that have been raised for other forms of Pollockianism such as dogmatism or phenomenal conservatism? (shrink)

As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experience plays a crucial (...) role in the central arguments of the Critique. For, again as most readers of the Critique know, Kant aims to show how we can have synthetic a priori knowledge by showing that the categories, or pure concepts of the understanding, are conditions of the possibility of experience. This means that, whether or not Kant is concerned with the notion of experience for its own sake, his account of a priori knowledge carries with it at least some commitments regarding the character of experience. If the account of a priori knowledge is to be successful, then experience has to be the kind of thing for which the categories can, in principle, serve as conditions of possibility. More specifically, experience must involve not only the senses, but also thought or understanding, for otherwise the claim that it presupposes a certain specific set of concepts is simply unintelligible. And indeed at least some parts of the Critique, in particular the so-called subjective deduction in the first edition, and the briefer passages which correspond to it in the second edition, seem to be intended to show how this requirement is met. That is, they are concerned not so much with showing that experience is governed by the categories, as with elaborating a view of experience as involving conceptual activity überhaupt. (shrink)

The view that the content of experience is conceptual is often felt to conflict with the empiricist intuition that experience precedes thought, rather than vice versa. This concern is explicitly articulated by Ayers as an objection both to McDowell and Davidson, and to the conceptualist view more generally. The paper aims to defuse the objection in its general form by presenting a version of conceptualism which is compatible with empiricism. It proposes an account of observational concepts on which possession of (...) such a concept involves more than the ability for perceptual discrimination, but less than the capacity to employ the concept in inferences: it consists in the capacity to perceptually discriminate objects with the awareness that one is discriminating as one ought. This understanding of concept-possession allows us make sense of experiences' having conceptual content without supposing that the subject must grasp the relevant concepts prior to having those experiences. (shrink)

If we use “introspection” just as a label for that essentially first-person way we have of knowing about our own mental states, then it’s pretty obvious that if there is such a thing as introspection, we know on that basis what we believe, and want, and intend, at least in many ordinary cases. I assume there is such a thing as introspection. So I think the hard question is how it works. But can you know that you know on the (...) basis of introspection? Well, that all depends on how introspection works. I present one account of how introspection works and argue that on that account, you can know that you know ordinary empirical things on the basis of introspection. As far as how we know about them is concerned, there’s no principled difference between the factive and non-factive mental states. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to discuss the nature of nonconceptual, as opposed to conceptual, states and their content, by exploring the suggestion that the distinction between the conceptual and the nonconceptual be mapped onto the distinction between the linguistic and the nonlinguistic. This approach gives special relevance to our intuitions about the cognitive relationship between small children and adults, especially regarding the acquisition of concepts, in the course of normal cognitive development. Assuming that there is a developmental challenge (...) to be met, the paper considers both the conceptualist and nonconceptualist strategies used to meet it; and concludes that conceptualism is a more satisfying option. (shrink)

The methodology implicit in empirically grounded social scientific studies of religion naturally allies with forms of semantic holism. However, a well known argument which questions whether holism in general is consistent with the fact that languages are learnable can be extended into an epistemological one which questions whether holism is consistent with an empirical methodology. In other words, there is question whether holism, in fact, makes social science possible. I diagnose the assumptions on which that objection rests, pointing out that (...) they are not necessary for semantic holism per se. I argue that a form of semantic holism along the lines advocated by W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson can avoid the objection. Moreover, when seen in this light, it has the resources to withstand an even deeper methodological problem. In so doing, though, several important but overlooked implications for the study of religion emerge. (shrink)

This article argues that — despite the value of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders in a contingent and relative sense — there is no fundamental insider—outsider problem. We distinguish weak and strong versions of 'insiderism' (privileged versus monopolistic access to knowledge) and then sociological and religious versions of the latter. After reviewing critiques of the sociological version, we offer a holistic semantic critique of the religious version (i.e. the view that religious experience and/or language offers sui generis access to knowledge). (...) We argue that all evidence for mental states is overt, public, and observable, and, hence, that there can be no significant difference in the access to knowledge of insiders and outsiders. (shrink)

In this paper, I use the predictive processing theory of perception to tackle the question of how perceptual states can be rationally involved in cognition by justifying other mental states. I put forward two claims regarding the epistemological implications of PP. First, perceptual states can confer justification on other mental states because the perceptual states are themselves rationally acquired. Second, despite being inferentially justified rather than epistemically basic, perceptual states can still be epistemically responsive to the mind-independent world. My main (...) goal is to elucidate the epistemology of perception already implicit in PP. But I also hope to show how it is possible to peacefully combine central tenets of foundationalist and coherentist accounts of the rational powers of perception while avoiding the well-recognized pitfalls of either. (shrink)

I argue that an experience’s sensuous elements play an ineliminable role in our being intentionally directed upon an entity through perception. More specifically, I argue that whenever we appreciate a sensuous element in experience, we appreciate an intrinsic and irreducibly phenomenal aspect of experience that I call phenomenal presence – an aspect of experience that I show is central to its presentational character – and that the appreciation of phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality. If an experience is to (...) possess intentionality, the experience itself must make an entity available as an object of perceptually-based singular beliefs and the experiencing subject, by virtue of undergoing the experience, must in some sense be able to appreciate that it has done so. Phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality because it plays an ineliminable role in making an entity available to its subject in this way. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

The concept of second nature plays a central role in McDowell's project of reconciling thought's external constraint with its spontaneity or autonomy: our conceptual capacities are natural in the sense that they are fully integrated into the natural world, but they are a second nature to us since they are not reducible to elements that are intelligible apart from those conceptual capacities. Rather than offering a theory of second nature and an account of how we acquire one, McDowell suggests that (...) Aristotle's account of ethical character formation as the acquisition of a second nature serves as a model that can reassure us that thought's autonomy does not threaten its naturalness. However, far from providing such reassurance, the Aristotelian model of second nature actually generates an anxiety about how the acquisition of such autonomous conceptual abilities could be possible. (shrink)

RESUMEN Una vez que el foco de la reflexión pasa de las teorías ideales a la aplicación de la justicia social, centrada en las instituciones de las sociedades democráticas, se requiere prestar especial atención a los estilos de vida. Estos tienen una alta incidencia en cómo la justicia es realizada y afectan tanto a la desigualdad económica como a la disponibilidad de los recursos naturales. En nuestras sociedades es posible establecer restricciones a los estilos de vida, especialmente en aquellos casos (...) en que, por el efecto de algunas dinámicas sociales, aquellos se desacoplan de las concepciones del bien. Se defiende que, en tales casos, la base normativa que permite exigir el respeto a los estilos de vida se disuelve y por ello es posible justificar su restricción. ABSTRACT Now that the focus of reflection has shifted from ideal theories to the application of social justice, centered on the institutions of democratic societies, it is necessary to pay special attention to lifestyles, since they not only influence the realization of justice, but also have an effect on economic inequality and the availability of natural resources. In our societies, it is possible to place restrictions on lifestyles, especially in those cases in which, influenced by certain social dynamics, they disengage from conceptions of the good. The article argues that, in those cases, the normative base grounding the demand that lifestyles be respected is dissolved, thus justifying their restriction. (shrink)

O propósito deste ensaio é mostrar que a versão de infinitismo epistemológico defendida por Peter Klein é uma forma de externalismo. São apresentados os problemas mais importantes que o infinitismo deve resolver e também a diferença fundamental entre internalismo e externalismo em epistemologia. Como conclusão, é apresentada uma indicação sobre a melhor maneira de entender o infinitismo e como superar os problemas que surgem da forma externalista de infinitismo defendida por Klein.

A perennial epistemological question is whether things can be known just as they are in the absence of any awareness of them. This epistemological question is posterior to ontological considerations and more specific ones pertaining to mind. In light of such considerations, the author propounds a naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge of things in themselves, one that makes crucial use of the work of Brentano. After introducing the resources provided by Brentano’s study of mind, the author reveals the ontological (...) framework in which it takes place. Doing so is instrumental to illuminating acquaintance, the state that enables the direct engagement of a mind and some other thing. The author discusses this state and shows how it has the epistemic heft, with a Brentanian account of judgment, to provide the foundations of one’s knowledge of the world. A naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge is open to a compelling objection; the author presents this objection with the means of undermining it. In conclusion, the author recurs to the opening theme of the primacy of ontology and suggests that familiar misgivings about knowing things in themselves are all based on questionable—and ultimately untenable—ontological presuppositions. (shrink)

Tarski's theory of truth brings out the question of whether he intended his theory to be a correspondence theory of truth and whether, whatever his intentions, his theory is in fact a correspondence theory. The aim of this paper is to answer both questions. The answer to the first question depends on Tarski's relevant assertions on semantics and his conception of truth. In order to answer the second question Popper's and Davidson's interpretations of Tarski's truth theory are examined; to this (...) end both Tarski's definition of truth in terms of satisfaction and the T-sentences are taken into account. (shrink)

Quine's ethical views typify what might seem to be natural sympathies between empiricism and ethical noncognitivism. LikeAyer, he sees a case for noncognitivism rooted in an epistemic discontinuity between ethics and science. Quine argues that the absence of genuine moral observation sentences, and thus the absence of empirical checkpoints for the resolution of theoretical disputes, renders ethics, as he terms it, “methodologically infirm” However, recent papers in this journal make clear that Quine appears to be voicing mutually incompatible commitments to (...) both noncognitivism and cognitivism. Here I argue that Davidson's theory of interpretation offers promising ways to resolve these tensions. His constructive program fleshes out the implications of Quine's largely destructive critique of intensional semantics and contains a fairly well‐articulated account of evaluative semantics, one which seems to combine cognitivist and noncognitivist elements harmoniously. Moreover, it is argued that Davidson's long‐standing differences with Quine over the epistemological status Quine accords observation sentences with do not undermine Quine's metaethical critique. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatives claim that seemings are sui generis mental states and can thus provide foundational non-doxastic justification for beliefs. Many of their critics deny this, claiming, instead, that seemings can be reductively analyzed in terms of other mental states—either beliefs, inclinations to believe, or beliefs about one’s evidence—that cannot provide foundational non-doxastic justification. In this paper, I argue that no tenable semantic reduction of ‘seems’ can be formulated in terms of the three reductive analyses that have been proposed by critics (...) of phenomenal conservatism. This is because Moore-paradoxical statements are generated when each of the reductive analyses is substituted for ‘seems’ in statements like ‘The stick is straight, but it does not seem to me that it’s straight.’ Since the latter statement is not Moore-paradoxical, the three proposed reductive analyses of ‘seems’ are unsuccessful. Absent a successful semantic reduction, however, there is no good reason to think a successful metaphysical reduction of seemings is forthcoming. Thus, there is an additional reason, unnoticed in the existing literature, to think that seemings are sui generis mental states. (shrink)