Analytic philosophy was introduced in Latin America in the mid-twentieth century. Its development has been heterogeneous in different countries of the region but has today reached a considerable degree of maturity and originality, with a strong community working within the analytic tradition in Latin America. This entry describes the historical development of analytic philosophy in Latin America and offers some examples of original contributions by Latin American analytic philosophers.

Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

Normativism in the theory of meaning and content is the view that linguistic meaning and/or intentional content are essentially normative. As both normativity and its essentiality to meaning/content can be interpreted in a number of different ways, there is now a whole family of views laying claim to the slogan “meaning/content is normative”. In this essay, we discuss a number of central normativist theses, and we begin by identifying different versions of meaning normativism, presenting the arguments that have been put (...) forth for and against them. (shrink)

is true, there is a truth-maker (e.g., a fact) with which it is identical and the truth of the former consists in its identity with the latter. The theory is best understood as a reaction to the correspondence theory, according to which the relation of truth-bearer to truth-maker is correspondence. A correspondence theory is vulnerable to the nagging suspicion that if the best we can do is make statements that merely correspond to the truth, then we inevitably fail to capture (...) the reality they are about and thus fall short of the truth we aim at. An identity theory is designed to overcome this suspicion. (shrink)

An idiolect, if there is such a thing, is a language that can be characterised exhaustively in terms of intrinsic properties of some single person at a time, a person whose idiolect it is at that time. The force of ‘intrinsic’ is that the characterisation ought not to turn on features of the person's wider linguistic community. Some think that this notion of an idiolect is unstable, and instead use ‘idiolect’ to describe a person's incomplete or erroneous grasp of their (...) language, where this latter is inherently social. Several important debates have featured discussion of individualistic, personal, or private languages. Some are considered in other entries (see the entries on the language of thought hypothesis, private language, and reference). This entry will concentrate on two influential and broadly idiolectal positions in the philosophy of language and linguistics: Noam Chomsky's preference for I-languages over E-languages (Section 2), and Donald Davidson's rejection of languages conceived as shared conventional structures that make communication possible (Section 3). David Lewis's claim that languages are a convention is a common target for both, and is outlined in an Appendix. The entry begins (Section 1) with some general remarks about the ontology of languages. Contents: 1. Idiolects and Language Individuation; 2. Chomsky on E-languages and I-languages; 2.1 The Origins of Chomsky's Distinction: Competence vs. Performance; 2.2 The Distinction Elaborated; 2.3 Why I-languages? Why Not E-languages?; 2.4 Criticisms of Chomsky's Preference for I-languages Over E-languages; 3. Davidson's Claim That There Are No Such Things As Languages; 3.1 What Davidson Aims to Show; 3.2 The Argument From Malaprops and Related Phenomena; 3.3 Reaction to Davidson's Argument; Bibliography; Other Internet Resources; Related Entries. (shrink)

This paper offers both exegetical and systematic reconsiderations of Donald Davidson’s view on metaphor. In his essay What Metaphors Mean, Davidson argued against the idea that metaphors have any kind of propositional content beyond the literal meaning of the relevant sentence. Apart from this negative claim, Davidson also made a constructive proposal by suggesting that metaphor’s distinctive effect is to prompt a mental state of seeing-as. These two points seem connected insofar as Davidson makes the following assumptions. First, metaphors cause (...) their distinctive effects in an a-rational way. Second, seeing-as is a nonpropositional mental state. If we side with Davidson in thinking of meaning as rational and propositional, then it follows that metaphors’ distinctive effects cannot be an instance of meaning. They have the wrong format and are brought about in the wrong way. Against this background, I distinguish a strong reading and a modest reading of Davidson’s wrong-kind objection to metaphorical meaning. By taking into account some of Davidson’s later pronouncements on the matter, this paper aims to show that Davidson did not hold on to the strong version of the wrong-kind objection. This would open up the way to conceiving of metaphorical meaning in terms of speaker’s meaning, were it not for the fact that Davidson sticks to the wrong-way objection. The two concluding sections examine the cogency of the wrong-way objection as applied to metaphorical speaker’s meaning, and offer a model for thinking about the a-rational mental causation Davidson thought metaphors exhibit. (shrink)

Tim Crane's ‘Cosmic Hermeneutics vs. Emergence: The Challenge of the Explanatory Gap’ claims that non‐reductive physicalism must either close the explanatory gap, addressing the challenge famously posed by Levine's argument, or become identical to emergentism. Since no way to close the gap is available, the result is that there can be no interesting philosophical position intermediate between physicalism and emergentism. This chapter argues that if we look at the relation between physicalism and emergentism from the vantage point of reduction, Crane's (...) analysis is rather persuasive. However, if we switch from reduction to causality, its conclusions appear more disputable. In particular, if we shift from ‘novelty and explanation’ to ‘novelty and causality’ as key features of emergent properties, we may introduce a distinction between two kinds of emergentism (moderate and radical) based on their attitude towards the causal inheritance principle. If the causal inheritance principle is accepted (some versions of) moderate emergentism may be considered as non‐trivial forms of non‐reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Part 1 of the thesis questions the traditional relation model of intentionality. After fixing reference on the target phenomenon, intentionality, and explaining my interest in it, I ask what sorts of things intentionality might be a relation to. I consider ordinary objects, properties, propositions and hybrid views, and conclude all make the intentional relation appear rather mysterious. From there, I move on to examine the relation view’s most prominent proponents, the tracking theorists—pointing out some challenges such views face, and concluding (...) that it might be worthwhile looking into alternatives to the relation view. Part 2 asks whether the newly emerging phenomenal intentionality movement can provide a viable alternative to the relation model of intentionality. After focusing on a specific kind of phenomenal intentionality theory—something I call modificationism—I examine three such accounts. From there I go on to discuss some common complaints/challenges these kinds of views face, and consider how they might be addressed within the modificationist framework. In Part 3, I address what I call the problem of cognitive contact: how do our contentful mental states manage to make cognitive contact with the ordinary objects (e.g. tables and chairs) that they appear to. The problem is particularly acute for any version of phenomenal intentionality that denies the relation view, and has been given very little attention in the literature. I consider how a modificationist might address this problem, and conclude that though some avenues appear promising, there is nevertheless a great deal of work to be done if modificationism, and phenomenal intentionality theory, is to overcome this problem. (shrink)

This essay explores Gadamer’s ambivalent relationship with modernity. Gadamer is a prominent critic of the Enlightenment project. His criticisms are both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, representationalism is at the center of modern epistemology for Gadamer. Practically, Gadamer sees the demotion of prudence (phronesis) as fundamental to the “bad” Enlightenment. Gadamer’s attempt to revive an appreciation of rhetoric is a way to the join the theoretical and practical dimensions of speech and life. The central representative philosopher of the Enlightenment for Gadamer (...) is Kant. The antithetical thinker is Aristotle. Gadamer would have his Kant and his Aristotle too. The tension between these is at the heart of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

I develop and argue for a novel theory of the mental state of identity confusion. I also argue that this mental state can corrupt the proper function of singular terms in linguistic communication. Finally, I propose a theory according to which identity confusion should be treated as a the source of a new sort of linguistic performance error, similar to malapropism, slips of the tongue, and so-called intentional obfuscation (inducing false belief by manipulating language in specific ways). -/- Going into (...) a bit more detail, I start by arguing that contemporary analytic philosophy, and philosophy of language in particular, has been dominated by a ‘puzzle-driven’ methodology. This tradition, I claim, seeks to provide a coherent system for describing semantic features of all conceivable cases where a speaker is confused about the identity or distinctness of an object. On my view, identity confusion is a mental state of an agent who either believes falsely that a is identical to b or believes falsely that a is not identical to b. I show how many influential arguments in philosophy – e.g., Kripke on semantic reference and speaker’s reference – are invalidated because of false assumptions about the state of identity confusion. -/- More positively, I assume an ‘explanation-driven’ approach, combining strands in Gricean intentionalism and Ruth Millikan’s teleosemantics. On this view, confused speakers are ‘sub-optimal’: their mental state disrupts the proper function of the relevant singular terms in their idiolects. Furthermore, I flesh out a theoretically fruitful notion of ‘edenic reference,’ which idealizes away from confusion in defining the optimal or stabilizing function of singular terms. I argue that speakers must satisfy certain broadly cognitive constraints if their utterances are to play a role in explaining the maintenance of a practice of using a singular term in a linguistic community. (shrink)

This paper argues that the obvious validity of certain inferences involving indirect speech reports as premises and truth or falsity ascriptions as conclusions is incompatible with Davidson's so-called "paratactic" analysis of the logical form of indirect discourse. Besides disqualifying that analysis, this problem is also claimed to indicate that the analysis is doubly in tension with Davidson's metasemantic views. Specifically, it can be reconciled neither with one of Davidson's key assumptions regarding the adequacy of the kind of semantic theory he (...) recommends nor with one of his key assumptions regarding the inadequacy of a kind of semantic theory he rejects. (shrink)

This book is about whether reference to an individual is the essential feature of a proper name -- a widely held view -- or whether referring to an individual is simply a contingent feature. Three questions need resolving, then. First, whether all names in particular contexts are themselves referring devices. Second, whether recognizing names types and the consequent issue of their ambiguity can be resolved simply by distinguishing between name types and tokens thereof. Last, whether names are ever referential in (...) the way Kripke and others have convincingly argued. The answer to first two questions is negative. The answer to third is a qualified "yes." I explain the theory that allows for these answers in the manuscript, as well as addressing other issues such as: the problem of fictional names; descriptive names; empty names; what an act of naming consists of; an account of ontological commitment; and the data that suggests that names are predicates. (shrink)

Recently it has been argued that autocatalytic theory could be applied to the origin of culture. Here possible application to a theory of meaning in the philosophy of language, called radical interpretation, is commented upon and compared to previous applications.

This thesis is, in part, a defence of a broad-based approach to epistemology. We should be wary of taking too narrow a focus and thus neglecting important aspects of knowledge. If we are too focused on one methodology then we are likely to miss insights that can come about from a different perspective. With this in mind, I investigate two particular methodologies in detail: Kornblith’s naturalism and Craig’s ‘genealogical’ approach. Kornblith emphasises the importance of looking at knowledge in the context (...) of the natural world, thus stressing the continuity between animal and human knowledge. Craig, on the other hand, focuses on a distinctly human aspect of knowledge: the importance of enquiry and the sharing of information. As such, the two theories of knowledge that are developed have different emphases. I argue that by bringing them together we can better understand what knowledge is. This leads us to the other main contribution of this thesis, which is a defence of the role of reflection in epistemology. This has often been neglected in contemporary epistemology, primarily because of the effectiveness of externalist theories of knowledge. The focus on externalism has lead to reflection being sidelined. I do not argue that reflection is necessary for knowledge, but rather want to bring back attention to the important role that it plays in human life. Reflectively accessible justification is necessary for our knowledge claims and therefore plays a vital role in enquiry. If we add reflectively accessible justification to knowledge then it is both more stable and more valuable. Even if it is not necessary for knowledge, reflection should not be neglected. (shrink)

This paper defends Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis , a proposed empirical methodology for explicating philosophical concepts. This methodology attributes to our shared concepts whatever application conditions they would need to have in order best to continue delivering benefits in the ways they have regularly delivered benefits in the past. In the first stage of my argument I argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis has what I call normative authority : we have practical and epistemic reason to adopt the explications that it delivers (...) even if we think doing so requires stipulative revisions in the meanings of our concepts. I then use this normative authority to argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis also has what I call descriptive authority : when we understand concept-meaning in the way we ought to understand it (in the way licensed by the normative authority of Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis) we see that, rather than being revisionary, Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis is a semantically conservative tool that uncovers (what we should think of as being) the meanings our concepts already have. (shrink)

Not every metaphor can be literally paraphrased by a corresponding simile – the metaphorical meaning of ‘Juliet is the sun’, for example, is not the literal meaning of ‘Juliet is like the sun’. But every metaphor can be literally paraphrased, since if ‘metaphorically’ is prefixed to a metaphor, the result says literally what the metaphor says figuratively – the metaphorical meaning of ‘Juliet is the sun’, for example, is the literal meaning of ‘metaphorically, Juliet is the sun’.

In this dissertation on Hilary Putnam's philosophy, I investigate his development regarding meaning and necessity, in particular mathematical necessity. Putnam has been a leading American philosopher since the end of the 1950s, becoming famous in the 1960s within the school of analytic philosophy, associated in particular with the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. Under the influence of W.V. Quine, Putnam challenged the logical positivism/empiricism that had become strong in America after World War II, with influential exponents such (...) as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach. Putnam agreed with Quine that there are no absolute a priori truths. In particular, he was critical of the notion of truth by convention. Instead he developed a notion of relative a priori truth, that is, a notion of necessary truth with respect to a body of knowledge, or a conceptual scheme. Putnam's position on necessity has developed over the years and has always been connected to his important contributions to the philosophy of meaning. I study Hilary Putnam's development through an early phase of scientific realism, a middle phase of internal realism, and his later position of a natural or commonsense realism. I challenge some of Putnam’s ideas on mathematical necessity, although I have largely defended his views against some other contemporary major philosophers; for instance, I defend his conceptual relativism, his conceptual pluralism, as well as his analysis of the realism/anti-realism debate. (shrink)

In the framework of the current revival of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy as well as American pragmatism, social practices are seen as determining the conceptual content of our beliefs. This position amounts to an inferential semantics with inferential relations supervening on social norms and these norms, in turn, supervening on normative attitudes. The paper elaborates on the distinction between social practices and social behaviour. Three conceptions of social practices are considered: (1) social practices as being reducible to social behaviour; (2) social (...) norms as constituting some sort of a link between physical and intentional states because the normative sphere has a wider scope than the conceptual sphere; and (3) the self-sufficiency of social practices in the sense that the normative and the conceptual sphere are identical and selfcontained. Key words: social practices, norms, beliefs, social behaviour.. (shrink)

Like so many sciences, linguistics originated from philosophy's rib. It reached maturity and attained full independence only in the twentieth century (for example, it is a well-known fact that the first linguistics department in the UK was founded in 1944); though research which we would now classify as linguistic (especially leading to generalizations from comparing different languages) was certainly carried out much earlier. The relationship between philosophy and linguistics is perhaps reminiscent of that between an old-fashioned mother and her emancipated (...) daughter, and is certainly asymmetric. And though from philosophy's rib, empirical investigation methods have ensured that linguistics has evolved (just as in the case of the more famous rib) into something far from resembling the original piece of bone. Another side of the same asymmetry is that while linguistics focuses exclusively on language (or languages), for philosophy language seems less pervasive - philosophy of language being merely one branch among many. However, during the twentieth century this asymmetry was substantially diminished by the so called linguistic turn1, undergone by numerous philosophers – this turn was due to the realization that as language is the universal medium for our grasping and coping with the world, its study may provide the very key for all other philosophical disciplines. As for the working methods, we could perhaps picture the difference between a philosopher of language and a linguist by means of the following simile. Imagine two researchers both asked to investigate an unknown landscape. One hires a helicopter, acquires a birds-eye view of the whole landscape and draws a rough, but comprehensive map. The other takes a camera, a writing pad and various instruments, and walks around, taking pictures and making notes of the kinds of rocks, plants and animals which he finds. Whose way is the more reasonable? Well, one wants to say, neither, for they seem to be complementary.. (shrink)

In questo articolo parlo della influenza di Einstein su Wittgenstein a partire da alcuni problemi che si pongono all’olismo. L’olismo è stato spesso collegato a Wittgenstein, almeno in forma di “olismo locale”. L’olismo è però soggetto a due tipi di paradossi: il paradosso della comunicazione per l’olismo semantico e il paradosso del relativismo concettuale per l’olismo epistemologico. Dopo aver presentato brevemente i due paradossi, confronto le risposte di Davidson, in difesa dell’olismo, con quelle di Wittgenstein (o di tipo wittgensteiniano). Da (...) questo confronto nasce un problema nell’interpretazione di Wittgenstein. Infatti, dalle sue risposte ai due paradossi emerge una tensione nella sua visione dei giochi linguistici e in particolare nei suoi esperimenti mentali, che sono stati tradizionalmente interpretati in modi contrapposti. La mia proposta è che una rilettura di alcune riflessioni di Wittgenstein su Einstein e la relatività può aiutare a cogliere meglio il significato di questa tensione. (shrink)

The paper argues that the objects of belief should not be conceived as sets of possible worlds or propositions of set of centered possible worlds or egocentric propositions (this is the propositional conception), but rather as sets of pairs consisting of a centered world and a sequence of objects (this is the intentional conception of the objects of belief). The paper explains the deep significance of this thesis for the framework of two-dimensional semantics, indeed for any framework trying to adequately (...) relate semantics and epistemology (which is here construed as what I call the Congruence Principle). I give three arguments for this thesis, two preliminary indecisive ones by way of examples, and third theoretical one alluding to a deep principle of philosophical psychology (which I call the Invariance Principle). This paper is an improved and up-dated version of my paper No. 25. It will appear in Causation, Coherence, and Concepts. A Collection of Essays of mine. (shrink)

As is shown in the introduction of the book, the notion "illocutionary act" is used with quite a number of essentially different meanings; consequently, it is quite unclear what an "illocutionary act" is actually supposed to be. This problem is the starting point of the thesis. An argument is stated, to the effect that the introduction and use of scholarly terms like, for instance, "illocutionary act", or "performative sentence", is not entirely arbitrary. It is argued that technical terms should not (...) be re-defined without a reason, but in the absence of reasons to the contrary should be used in the way in which they have originally been introduced. This argument is applied to the notion "illocutionary act". John L. Austin is the one who introduced this notion. Consequently, his conception of these acts should be adopted unless there are good reasons to the contrary. Therefore the book provides a detailed analysis of Austin's account, and his original conception of these acts is reconstructed. The most popular alternative account of "illocutionary acts" is John R. Searle's. Therefore, secondly, the book provides an analysis of Searle's famous account of "illocutionary acts" - the first really detailed one available, including Searle's own work. It is shown that what Searle presents is in fact extremely sketchy, and can certainly not be viewed, as it often is, as an elaborated theory. It is further argued that the fundamental assumptions about language which Searle intends to illustrate with his account of "illocutionary acts" are mistaken, so that in general a theory following the lines Searle suggests is doomed to failure. Finally it is shown that Searle's account of "illocutionary acts", as far as it goes, is not an adequate adoption of the conception Austin introduced. Hence Searle's account is no reasonable alternative to Austin's account. (shrink)

According to a prevalent view among philosophers formal logic is the philosopher’s main tool to assess the validity of arguments, i.e. the philosopher’s ars iudicandi. By drawing on a famous dispute between Russell and Strawson over the validity of a certain kind of argument – of arguments whose premises feature definite descriptions – this paper casts doubt on the accuracy of the ars iudicandi conception. Rather than settling the question whether the contentious arguments are valid or not, Russell and Strawson, (...) upon discussing the proper logical analysis of definite descriptions, merely contrast converse informal validity assessments rendered explicit by nonequivalent logical for-malizations. (shrink)

The 20 sup > th /sup > century has been a tumultuous time in psychology -- a century in which the discipline struggled with basic questions about its intellectual identity, but nonetheless managed to achieve spectacular growth and maturation. It’s not surprising, then, that psychology has attracted sustained philosophical attention and stimulated rich philosophical debate. Some of this debate was aimed at understanding, and sometimes criticizing, the assumptions, concepts and explanatory strategies prevailing in the psychology of the time. But much (...) philosophical work has also been devoted to exploring the implications of psychological findings and theories for broader philosophical questions like: Are humans really rational animals? How malleable is human nature? and Do we have any innate knowledge or innate ideas? One particularly noteworthy fact about philosophy of psychology in the 20 sup > th /sup > century is that, in the last quarter of the century, the distinction between psychology and the philosophy of psychology began to dissolve as philosophers played an increasingly active role in articulating and testing empirical theories about the mind and psychologists became increasingly interested in the philosophical underpinnings and implications of their work. Our survey is divided into five sections, each focusing on an important theme in 20 sup > th /sup > century psychology which has been the focus of philosophical attention and has benefited from philosophical scrutiny. (shrink)

This essay introduces ‘The Puzzle of Faith,’ which highlights an apparent tension between faith and belief. To resolve this tension, I will present a solution to The Puzzle of Faith by identifying the sort of cognitive attitude that is sufficient for faith. I will argue two theses. That the cognitive attitude in religious faith need not be belief in the philosopher’s regimented sense, but it can be an attitude which I call creedal acceptance. If there are cases in which faith (...) entails belief, then these ‘beliefs’ are different from the evidentially vulnerable beliefs talked about in philosophical literature. My second thesis is a linguistic thesis, which seeks to argue that the way the word belief is used in everyday speech does not typically refer to belief in the philosopher’s sense, but refers to something closer to what I am calling creedal acceptance. (shrink)

Take a strip of paper with 'once upon a time there'‚ written on one side and 'was a story that began'‚ on the other. Twisting the paper and joining the ends produces John Barth’s story Frame-Tale, which prefixes 'once upon a time there was a story that began'‚ to itself. I argue that the ability to understand this sentence cannot be explained by tacit knowledge of a recursive theory of truth in English.

A critical review of the main themes arising out of recent literature on the semantics of ordinary event talk. The material is organized in four sections: (i) the nature of events, with emphasis on the opposition between events as particulars and events as universals; (ii) identity and indeterminacy, with emphasis on the unifier/multiplier controversy; (iii) events and logical form, with emphasis on Davidson’s treatment of the form of action sentences; (iv) linguistic applications, with emphasis on issues concerning aspectual phenomena, the (...) telicity/atelicity distinction, the treatment of statives, and temporal quantification. (shrink)

It has been argued by several philosophers that a deflationary conception of truth, unlike more robust conceptions of truth, cannot properly account for the nature of moral discourse. This is due to what I will call the “quick route problem”: There is a quick route from any deflationary theory of truth and certain obvious features of moral practice to the attribution of truth to moral utterances. The standard responses to the quick route problem are either to urge accepting a conception (...) of truth more robust than deflationism (Boghossian 1990), or to revise deflationary accounts in order to block straightforward attribution of truth to moral utterances (Field 1994). I contend that neither of these standard responses is well-motivated, for it is a merit of deflationary accounts rather than a defect that such accounts present a quick route to moral truth. (shrink)

The chapter distinguishes between a weak and a strong form of ontological naturalism. Strong ontological naturalism is the view that all truths can be deduced, at least in principle, from truths about physical entities at the lowest level of organization, for example, truths about the elementary particles and forces. Weak ontological naturalism is the view that only physical properties can be causally efficacious. Strong ontological naturalism entails weak ontological naturalism but not vice versa. I then argue that the existence of (...) a truth property is consistent with weak ontological naturalism, as truth is not causally efficacious. After considering several prominent theories of truth, I argue that the only theories of truth that are consistent with strong ontological naturalism are deflationary doctrines that deny that there is a substantial truth property but these theories are not suitable adjoints to strong naturalism, as folks with strong naturalist inclinations normally want to posit the existence of substantial natural properties. Yet if the truth property itself is insubstantial, so are claims about the existence of substantial natural properties. I conclude by arguing that the result that there cannot be a naturalistic theory of truth is unsurprising, as there are independent reasons for thinking that the basic semantic notions must be treated an irreducible, primitive properties. (shrink)

[This is an old version which is superseded by the published version. I keep it here for the record, as it has been cited.] A strict dichotomy between the force / mode of speech acts and intentional states and their propositional content has been a central feature of analytical philosophy of language and mind since the time of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. Recently this dichotomy has been questioned by philosophers such as Peter Hanks (2015, 2016) and Francois Recanati (2016), (...) who argue that we can't account for propositional unity independently of the forceful acts of speakers and propose new ways of responding to the notorious 'Frege point' by appealing to a notion of force cancellation. In my paper I will offer some supplementary criticisms of the traditional view, but also a way of reconceptualizing the force-content distinction which allows us to preserve certain of its features, and an alternative response to the Frege point that rejects the notion of force cancellation in favor of an appeal to intentional acts that create additional forms of unity at higher levels of intentional organization: acts such as questioning a statement or order, or merely putting it forward or entertaining it; pretending to state or order; or conjoining or disjoining statements or orders. This allows us to understand how we can present a forceful act without being committed to it. In contrast, the Frege point confuses a lack of commitment to with a lack of commitment or force in what is put forward. (shrink)

When I talk about the objects of belief I do not mean, e.g., the sun to which my thought that the sun will rise tomorrow refers; I do not mean the objects we think about. I take objects rather in a general philosophical sense; they simply are the bearers of properties and the relata of relations. I am thus concerned with the objects that are related by the belief relation „_a_ believes that _p_“. In this scheme „ _a _“ represents (...) a person or an epistemic subject; but I am not going to discuss what a person is. „ _p _“ or „that _p _“ represents an object, namely the object of belief; and I am going to discuss what this is. In other words, I am interested in belief contents – to use a less neutral, narrower and equally unclear term. (shrink)

Purpose: Demonstrate that cognitive and social approaches towards understanding do not at all oppose but rather they complement each other. Constructivist concepts of understanding paved the way to conceive of understanding as a cognitive-social "mechanism" which mutually regulates processes of social structuration and, at the same time, cognitive constructions and processing. Findings: Constructivist approaches bridge the gap between the cognitive and the social faces of understanding. They demonstrate how comprehension and cultivation, cognition and cultural reproduction are mutually linked to each (...) other by the cognitive-social "mechanism" of understanding. As a consequence, the unavoidable immunisation against communicative demands from others jeopardizes the achievements of our communicative culture. Practical implications: Communicators are even more responsible for success or failure of communication than recipients. Moreover, as educators they are responsible for both cultural reproduction and the reinforcement of creativity and innovation. This double bind can only be managed with strong and resistant personal relations. All construction of meaning and all interpretation should be conceived of as a pro-construction, a hypothetical provisional reading made for the tough going of public or scholarly discourse. Original value: Concept of understanding integrating philosophical, psychological and sociological approaches within a constructivist theory of communication and reception. (shrink)

This thesis addresses philosophical problems concerning improper assertions. The first part considers the issue of defining lying: here, against a standard view, I argue that a lie need not intend to deceive the hearer. I define lying as an insincere assertion, and then resort to speech act theory to develop a detailed account of what an assertion is, and what can make it insincere. Even a sincere assertion, however, can be improper (e.g., it can be false, or unwarranted): in the (...) second part of the thesis, I consider these kinds of impropriety. An influential hypothesis maintains that proper assertions must meet a precise epistemic standard, and several philosophers have tried to identify this standard. After reviewing some difficulties for this approach, I provide an innovative solution to some known puzzles concerning the permissibility of false assertions. In my view, assertions purport to aim at truth, but they are not subject to a norm that requires speakers to assert a proposition only if it is true. (shrink)

Donald Davidson and John Searle famously differ, among other things, on the issue of animal thoughts. Davidson seems to be a latter-day Cartesian, denying any propositional thought to subhuman animals, while Searle seems to follow Hume in claiming that if we have thoughts, then animals do, too. Davidson’s argument centers on the idea that language is necessary for thought, which Searle rejects. The paper argues two things. Firstly, Searle eventually argues that much of a more complex thought does depend on (...) language, which reduces a distance between himself and Davidson. Secondly, some of Davidson’s suggestions are promising – in particular the idea that we may lack a vocabulary to capture the contents of animal thoughts. Based on this insight, one might, pace Davidson, grant thoughts to animals. However, this does not mean, pace Searle, that it should be possible to construe even the simplest of such thoughts as propositional. Perhaps we need to move beyond Davidson and Searle by developing a theory of nonpropositional thought for animals. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy -epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each of these (...) dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the anti-reductionist thesis supports a case for the uselessness of intentional idioms in the interpretation of highly flexible, self-modifying agents that I refer to as “hyperplastic” agents. An agent is hyperplastic if it can make arbitrarily fine changes to any part of its functional or physical structure without compromising its agency or its capacity for hyperplasticity. Using Davidson’s anomalous monism (AM) as an exemplar of anti-reductionism, I argue that AM implies that no hyperplastic could (...) use intentional psychology to predict its future intentional states or the psychological consequences of self-alterations. This is because AM implies there would be no laws allowing the hyperplastic to infer the psychological consequences of its self-alterations. This implies that no generalisations linking current to future psychological states would hold either - these could always be defeated by a self-intervention carried out by the hyperplastic. By the same token, neither hyperplastics nor human interpreters could use intentional psychology to understand the behaviour of other hyperplastics. Radical interpretation of hyperplastic agents - if such there were - would be impossible. It follows that were humans to become hyperplastic posthumans, intentional psychology would have to be instrumentally eliminated because neither the capacity nor the linguistic idiom for attributing propositional attitudes would retain predictive or hermeneutic utility. (shrink)

A satisfactory solution to the problem of consciousness would take the form of a simple yet fully general model that specifies the precise conditions under which any given state of consciousness occurs. Science has uncovered numerous correlations between consciousness and neural activity, but it has not yet come anywhere close to this. We are still looking for the Newtonian laws of consciousness. -/- One of the main difficulties with consciousness is that we lack a language in which to formulate illuminating (...) generalizations about it. Philosophers and scientists talk about "what it’s like", sensations, feelings, and perceptual states such as seeing and hearing. This language does not allow a precise articulation of the internal structures of conscious states and their inter-relations. It is inadequate to capture relations of the kind we are looking for between conscious states and physical states. -/- In this thesis I refine and defend a theory of consciousness which promises to solve this regimentation problem: the representational theory of consciousness. I argue that the representational theory can solve the regimentation problem and smooth out other important obstacles to a fruitful study of consciousness. I also make a case for the theory independently of its payoffs, and I discuss the leading opposing theories at some length. (shrink)

In this thesis, I elaborate and defend Donald Davidson's account of knowing one's own mental states that exhibit first-person authority. To that end, I place Davidson's account among others in the philosophical landscape concerning self-knowledge. Next, I examine his response to philosophical challenges that arise from mental content externalism and self-deception. Finally, I draw some insights froms Davidson's account to the broader aims of epsitemology.

En este trabajo analizo el entramado conceptual de la concepción causal de la metáfora (Davidson 1978). Para ello me enfocaré en primer lugar en su discusión con las concepciones semánticas, lo que nos llevará a discutir el tratamiento davidsoniano de la noción de significado y su distinción entre significado de la oración y significado del hablante. Luego plantearé un problema interno a este enfoque, en términos de cómo entender esta última distinción dentro del marco nominalista del pragmatismo davidsoniano. Finalmente, analizaré (...) las consecuencias de adoptar este enfoque a la hora de pensar a las metáforas como vehículos para la transmisión de contenido cognitivo. (shrink)