This article considers the limitations, but also the insights, of Gadamerian hermeneutics for understanding and responding to the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our point of departure is the experience of deep disagreements amid the pandemic, and our primary example is ongoing debates in the United States about wearing masks. We argue that, during this dire situation, interpersonal mutual understanding is insufficient for resolving such bitter disputes. Rather, following Gadamer’s account of our dialogical experience with an artwork, we suggest (...) that our encounter with the virus gives rise to new ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves and the world. Further, we draw on Gadamer’s account of the fusion of horizons to show how even competing perspectives on wearing masks arise within a shared space of meaning created by the virus. These insights provide hope for an improved model of political dialogue in the world of Covid-19. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a detailed critical reading of Robert Brandom’s project to give an expressive bootstrapping account of intentionality, cashed out as a normative-phenomenalist account of what I will call genuine normativity. I claim that there is a reading of Making It Explicit that evades the predominant charges of either reductionism or circularity. However, making sense of Brandom’s book in the way proposed here involves correcting Brandom’s own general account of what he is doing in it, and thus (...) presenting the argumentative structure of Making It Explicit in a new light. (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.

Inspired by the work of Sellars, Cumpa (2014, 2018) and Buonomo (2021) have argued that we can evaluate our metaphysical proposals on fundamental categories in terms of their capacity for reconciling the scientific and the manifest image of the world. This criterion of fundamentality would allow us to settle the question of which categories among those proposed in the debate—e.g., substance, structure or facts—have a better explanatory value. The aim of this essay is to argue against a central assumption of (...) the criterion: semantic descriptivism. Specifically, I aim at showing that the criterion rests on the idea that the manifest picture is mostly a description of the world, and thus, it commits us with certain realism. Instead, I argue that at least some of the vocabulary we use to construct our manifest picture of the world, mental vocabulary, is evaluative rather than descriptive and thus creates problems in reconcile the manifest picture with scientific psychology and neurosciences. I conclude with some remarks on alternatives that could provide a way out of the fundamentality criterion. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation into the relation between mind and language from different perspectives, split up into three interrelated but still, for the most part, self-standing parts. Parts I and II are concerned with the question how thought is affected by language while Part III investigates the scope covered by mind and language respectively. Part I provides a reconstruction of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous Private Language Argument in order to apply the rationale behind this line of argument to the relation (...) between mind and language. This argumentative strategy yields the conclusion that reasoning – an important type of thought – is constitutively dependent on language possession and is therefore not available to non-linguistic creatures. This result is achieved by considering the preconditions for reasoning – given that it is a rule-governed activity – and eliminating competitors to language for providing reasoners with what it takes to reason. Part II provides a critical outlook on the wide and highly heterogeneous field of linguistic relativity theories. It is argued that no kind of linguistic relativity whatsoever follows from the conclusion of Part I – i.e., the claim that reasoning is constitutively dependent on having a language. While Part II does not provide a conclusive argument against the linguistic relativity hypothesis, it is argued that endorsement of linguistic relativity theories often rests on a mistaken assumption to the effect that language and culture are interwoven in a way which makes it impossible to separate culture and language, as well as their respective studies. This assumption is undermined by providing examples of languages which clearly predate their culture or do not even have a culture at all. So, the assumption that language and culture are inextricably intertwined is refuted by way of counterexample. Part III provides an in-depth examination of the Principle of Expressibility – prominently endorsed and formulated by John Searle – which claims that whatever can be thought can also be said. The domains of what can be thought and of what can be said are considered in set theoretic terms in order to determine whether one is contained in the other, so that everything we can think can also be adequately communicated. After thorough study of interpretative issues regarding the Principle of Expressibility and consideration of the most pressing potential counterexamples to the principle, we can conclude that we have good reason to believe in the truth of the Principle of Expressibility. In conclusion, the achieved results are related back to prominent positions in the discussion about thought and language which already make their appearance in the very beginning of this investigation. The final chapter of this dissertation reminds us that eminent figures in philosophy have often taken a wrongheaded perspective on the relation between language and thought, so that language has frequently appeared to be an impediment to thought. We can, however, confidently conclude that language, on the contrary, is by far our most apt means for thought and that reasoning would not even be possible without the resources language provides. (shrink)

The central problem of the dissertation concerns the possibility of a distinction between truth-evaluable and non-truth-evaluable utterances of a natural language. The class of truth-evaluable utterances includes assertions, con. ectures and other kinds of speech act susceptible of truth evaluation. The class of non-truth-evaluable utterances includes commands, exhortations, wishes i.e. utterances not evaluated as being true or false. The problem is placed in the context of radical interpretation theory and it shown that it is a substantial problem of Davidson‘s early (...) theory of radical interpret at ion. I consider the possibility of distinguishing between locutionary and illocutionary act in uttering a sentence and its significance in the present project. I discuss the suggestion that the mood of the verb of the sentence signifies the required distinction between truth-evaluable utterances and non-truth-evaluable ones. I argue that no criterion for the distinction based on the mood of the verb is adequate. The solution that I propose to the problem of classifylng truth-evaluable utterances appeals to mental states. The view that grounds this line of inquiry is that the truth-evaluability of an utterance is a characteristic of it exclusively relevant to the doxastic dimension of the speaker’s mind. I discuss the constraints that the nature of radical interpretation puts upon the way we construe the notion of belief. I propose that a possible classification of mental states into doxastic and non-doxastic that would result in a classification of utterances into truth-evaluable and non-truthevaluable ones can be given by an elaborated version of a decision theoretic scheme. I suggest that a decision theoretic scheme based on a decision theory that, like Savage’s theory, grants independence axioms is a better candidate to offer a solution to the central problem of the dissertation than a scheme based on a non- standard decision theory such as Richard Jeffrey’s. I conclude by showing that the proposal I make satisfies the constraints I have considered and that it can be accommodated by a radical interpretation theory. (shrink)

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

Anti-representationalism is the hallmark of Richard Rorty's critique of the epistemological tradition. According to it, knowledge does not "mirror" reality and the human mind is not a representational device. Anti-representationalism is a family of philosophical theses, respectively dealing with the notion of "representation" in different ways. Though prima facie one may feel entitled to think about anti-representationalism as a kind of uniform philosophical movement, things stand quite differently. In fact, among many anti-representationalist options, we can identify two main versions: a (...) global anti-representationalism that entirely rejects the philosophical uses of the notion of "representation", and a local version that just removes the notion of "representation" from the explanatory toolbox. In this chapter I try to compare Rorty's global anti-representationalism and Robert Brandom's local version, exploiting a recent discussion by Brandom and a famous exchange between Rorty and Bjørn Ramberg about Donald Davidson's take on the special role of the intentional vocabulary. (shrink)

Part I of the dissertation examines the cognitive aspects of autonomy. The central question concerns what kind of cognitive capacity autonomy is. It will be argued that the concept of autonomy is best understood in terms of a metacognitive capacity of the individual. It is argued that metacognition has two components: procedural reflexivity and metarepresentation. Metarepresentation in turn can be divided into inferential reflexivity and other-attributiveness. These two components are essential for autonomy. Particular emphasis is put on procedural reflexivity. Further, (...) since the essential function of metacognition is control, it is argued that the concept of autonomy, understood as a metacognitive capacity, can be interpreted in terms of control. Issues arising from empirical data from neuroscience on functional, as well as impaired, metacognition, and on undermined autonomy, are dealt with. It is argued that autonomy cannot be determined with respect to subjective conditions. Neurological impairments, like Anton’s Syndrome, dementia, and thought insertion in schizophrenia, are put forward in support of this claim. To determine autonomy we require external conditions. In order to determine whether an individual is autonomous, both the metacognitive status of the individual and the external setting must be considered, since they are in interplay and consequently influence each other. In Part II, the analysis put forward in Part I is applied to Swedish healthcare. It is argued that the distinction between autonomy as a right and as a capacity must be explicit in order to understand what autonomy means and to deal with it effectively in healthcare practice. A discussion about whether or not the patient’s right to autonomy sometimes tends to be over-emphasized in healthcare is put forward. Special emphasis is placed on psychitaric issues such as deinstitutionalization and participation. Following the closure of the mental hospitals, deinstitutionalization and community-based care have become central topics in psychiatry. At the same time, the implementation of such care can be demanding for patients suffering from a persistent mental disorder. In part II it is also suggested that the metacognitive account of the concept of autonomy might help clarify the criteria governing coercive care. Finally, some suggestions concerning developments and improvements in Swedish healthcare, especially in psychiatry, where the concept of autonomy is important but problematic, are put forward. (shrink)

Teresa believes in God. Maggie’s wife believes that the Earth is flat, and also that Maggie should be home from work by now. Anouk—a cat—believes it is dinner time. This dissertation is about what believing is: it concerns what, exactly, ordinary people are attributing to Teresa, Maggie’s wife, and Anouk when affirming that they are believers. Part I distinguishes the attitudes of belief that people attribute to each other (and other animals) in ordinary life from the cognitive states of belief (...) theoretically posited by (some) cognitive scientists. Part II defends the view that to have an attitude of belief is to live—to be disposed to act, react, think, and feel—in a pattern that an actual belief attributor identifies with taking the world to be some way. Drawing on scientific, scholarly, and literary sources of evidence, How Beliefs are like Colors provides a framework for research on belief across the humanities and sciences of the mind. (shrink)

The thesis evaluates a contemporary debate concerning the very possibility of thinking about the world. In the first chapter, McDowell's critique of Davidson is presented, focusing on the coherentism defended by the latter. The critique of the myth of the given (as it appears in Sellars and Wittgenstein), as well as the necessity of a minimal empiricism (which McDowell finds in Quine and Kant), lead to an oscillation in contemporary thinking between two equally unsatisfactory ways of understanding the empirical content (...) of thought. In the second chapter, I defend Davidson's approach, focusing on his theory of interpretation and semantic externalism, as well as on the relation between causes and reasons. In the third chapter, the debate is analyzed in more detail. I criticize the anomalous monism, the way in which the boundaries between the conceptual and the non-conceptual are understood by Davidson, as well as the naturalized Platonism defended by McDowell. This thesis is mainly negative, and it concludes by revealing problems in both positions under evaluation. (shrink)

There are several tensions present in George Lindbeckís postliberal theology. One of these is between realist intuitions and a non-epistemic account of truth, on the one hand, and a social- constructivist non-realism with regard to theological statements. Theology is relegated to the status of second-order discourse, while first order language comprises the practices, rituals, vocabulary of a religion. I am challenging this intermediary status of religion with the help of Donald Davidsonís critique of the dualism between scheme and content. Since (...) there isnít much to be made of the notion of epistemic intermediaries (either as ëcontentí or as ëschemeí) it does not make sense to continue to speak either in terms of realism or of non-realism. This clears the way for treating theology as cognitive. (shrink)

Donald Davidson argues that the very nature of belief ensures that, if we have any beliefs at all, most of them must be true. He takes this to show that Cartesian skepticism is fundamentally mistaken. Many commentators, however, find this response to skepticism to be lacking. In this paper, I draw from recent work by Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance and attempt to give Davidson’s argument a newfound force by applying it to our acts of ostension, of pointing others to (...) features in our shared environment. The sort of ostensive argument that I extract from Davidson remains largely unexplored in skepticism’s vast literature, and I argue that this is the strongest way to read Davidson’s epistemological work, providing a response to some influential objections to his arguments. (shrink)

Enactivists seek to revolutionize the new sciences of the mind. In doing so, they promote adopting a thoroughly anti-intellectualist starting point, one that sees mentality as rooted in engaged, embodied activity as opposed to detached forms of thought. In advocating the so-called embodied turn, enactivists touch on recurrent themes of central importance in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. More than this, today's enactivists characterize the nature of minds and how they fundamentally relate to the world in ways that not only echo but (...) fully agree with many of the later Wittgenstein's trademark philosophical remarks on the same topics. (shrink)

Od radykalnego przekładu do radykalnej interpretacji – Quine, Davidson i coś jeszcze Ponad trzydzieści lat począwszy od roku 1970 filozofia Willarda Van Ormana Quine'a i Donalda Davidsona stanowiła dominujący nurt w teorii interpretacji, epistemologii i ontologii. Rekonstruując i analizując tę tradycję w pierwszym kroku zarysowuję zwrot Quine'a od teorii znaczenia ku teorii przekładu. Jest to jednocześnie zwrot w stronę naturalizacji epistemologii, post-empiryzmu w teorii znaczenia i radykalnego przekładu oraz jego teorii bazowej. Post-empiryzm w teorii znaczenia głosi, że przekonania i inne (...) postawy propozycjonalne są nierozerwalnie połączone ze znaczeniem. Epistemologia znaturalizowana twierdzi natomiast, że owo połączenie pęka, jeśli wprowadzi się koncepcję znaczenia jako bodźca. Jednak, jak będę argumentował kolejnym kroku, znaczenie jako bodziec nie wyjaśnia epistemicznych warunków radykalnego przekładu. Następnie, po analizie koncepcji radykalnego przekładu Quine'a przejdę do koncepcji radykalnej interpretacji Davidsona. Przeprowadzę analizę przebudowy modelu radyklanego przekładu na model radykalnej interpretacji, przy jednoczesnym odrzuceniu jego teorii bazowe. W koncepcji Davidsona szczególnie interesujące jest to, czy teoria znaczenia oparta na warunkach prawdziwości oraz zastosowanie zasady życzliwości jako warunków każdej interpretacji mogą załatać epistemiczną przepaść. Zostanie tu wykazane, że wypowiedzi nadawcy nie mogą być rozumiane przez zastosowanie zasady życzliwości jako ogólnego warunku radykalnej interpretacji. Na końcu swoich rozważań zaproponuję alternatywne ramy dla modelu radykalnej interpretacji. (shrink)

(First paragraph.) Different views on the relation between phenomenal reality, the world as we consciously experience it, and noumenal reality, the world as it is independent from an experiencing subject, have different implications for a collection of interrelated issues of meaning and reality including aspects of metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and philosophical methodology. Exploring some of these implications, this paper compares and brings together analytic, continental, and Buddhist approaches, focusing on relevant aspects of the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Jacques (...) Derrida, Dharmakīrti, and Dōgen. Prima facie, these philosophers have little in common, and indeed the differences are vast. Even in case of the two Western thinkers there is a fundamental difference between Davidson’s anti-dualist identification of phenomenal, experienced reality with the noumenal, real, external world on the one hand, and the bracketing or elimination of noumenal reality at the base of Derrida’s thought on the other, which lead to radically different ideas with regards to (the possibility and nature of) objectivity and our linguistic access to the real/external/noumenal world. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha and Davidson’s and Derrida’s theories of triangulation and différance respectively, and these similarities can be exploited to bridge some of the differences and attempt a constructive engagement. (shrink)

We revisit an important exchange on the problem of radical skepticism between Richard Rorty and Michael Williams. In his contribution to this exchange, Rorty defended the kind of transcendental approach to radical skepticism that is offered by Donald Davidson, in contrast to Williams’s Wittgenstein-inspired view. It is argued that the key to evaluating this debate is to understand the particular conception of the radical skeptical problem that is offered in influential work by Barry Stroud, a conception of the skeptical problem (...) which generates metaepistemological ramifications for anti-skeptical theories. In particular, we argue that, contra Williams, Rorty’s view that Davidson was offering a theoretical diagnosis of radical skepticism can be consistently maintained with his transcendental approach. (shrink)

Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack (...) of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. Yet, non-physicalist IIT denies the principle but is therefore threatened by the pairing problem, to which I have elsewhere provided a response that is briefly outlined here. This problem also threatens non-reductive IIT, but unlike non-physicalist IIT it lacks an evident response. The ultimate aim of this survey is to provide a roadmap for IIT theorists through the maze of mental causation, by clarifying which commitments lead to which problems, and how they might or might not be overcome. Such a survey can aid IIT theorists as they further develop and hone the metaphysical commitments of IIT. (shrink)

Words have meaning. Sentences also have meaning, but their meaning is different in kind from any collection of the meanings of the words they contain. I discuss two puzzles related to this difference. The first is how the meanings of the parts of a sentence combine to give rise to a unified sentential meaning, as opposed to a mere collection of disparate meanings (UP1). The second is why the formal ontology of linguistic meaning changes when grammatical structure is built up (...) (UP2). For example, the meaning of a sentence is a proposition evaluable for truth and falsity. In contrast, a collection of the meanings of its parts does not constitute a proposition and is not evaluable for truth. These two puzzles are closely related, since change in formal ontology is the clearest sign of the unity of meaning. The most popular strategy for answering them is taking the meanings of the parts as abstractions from primitive sentence meanings. However, I argue that, given plausible psychological constraints, sentence meanings cannot be taken as explanatory primitives. Drawing on recent work in Generative Grammar and its philosophy, I suggest that the key to both unity questions is to distinguish strictly between lexical and grammatical meaning. The latter is irreducible and determines how lexical content is used in referential acts. I argue that these referential properties determine a formal ontology, which explains why and how formal ontology changes when grammatical structure is built up (UP2). As for UP1, I suggest that, strictly speaking, lexical meanings never combine. Instead, whenever grammar specifies a formal ontology for the lexical meanings entering a grammatical derivation, further lexical (or phrasal) meanings can only specify aspects of this recursive grammatical process. In this way, contemporary grammatical theory can be used to address old philosophical problems. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that the prospects for intentional irrealism are much brighter than it is generally thought. In the first section, I provide a general haracterization of some of the various forms that the realism/irrealism debates might take. In the second, I ask whether there is any defensible form of realism about intentional states. I show that most candidates are nearly trivially false, and that the only form of intentional realism which is not, is a (...) restricted one which is prima facie no more plausible than the corresponding form of irrealism. In the third and last section, I defend my interpretation of what intentional irrealism amounts to against some possible misunderstandings, give some reasons why it should be taken seriously and argue that it could plausibly be attributed to Davidson. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 25 This is a pre-print. Please cite only the revised published version. This paper presents an original, ambitious, truth-directed transcendental argument for the existence of an ‘external world’. It begins with a double-headed starting-point: Stroud’s own remarks on the necessary conditions of language in general, and Hegel’s critique of the “fear of error.” The paper argues that the sceptical challenge requires a particular critical concept of thought as that which may diverge from reality, and that this (...) concept is possible only through reflection on situations of error, in which how things are thought to be diverges from how things really are with independent items in an objective world. The existence of such a world is therefore a necessary condition of the possibility of scepticism: such scepticism is therefore false. I defend the argument against objections from Stroud’s sceptic and others. Drawing on Heidegger, the paper concludes by indicating that the chain of necessary conditions includes practical engagement with the world. (shrink)

El artículo da noticia del marco de la discusión contemporánea acerca del lenguaje en el ámbito angloamericano, con el objetivo de lograr una mejor comprensión del trabajo en torno al lenguaje que viene desarrollándose en los últimos años. Se ofrece un breve panorama histórico de la filosofía del lenguaje de la primera mitad del siglo XX que se centró particularmente en la lógica y de describe la transformación pragmatista de la filosofía del lenguaje acaecida en las últimas décadas, para finalmente (...) desvelar algunas de las claves que —a juicio del autor— resultan decisivas para una cabal comprensión del lenguaje jurídico. (shrink)

It's currently fashionable to take Putnamian model theoretic worries seriously for mathematics, but not for discussions of ordinary physical objects and the sciences. But I will argue that (under certain mild assumptions) merely securing determinate reference to physical possibility suffices to rule out nonstandard models of our talk of numbers. So anyone who accepts realist reference to physical possibility should not reject reference to the standard model of the natural numbers on Putnamian model theoretic grounds.

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. The notion of othering spread from feminist theory and post-colonial studies to other areas of the humanities and social sciences, but is originally rooted in Hegel’s dialectic of identification and distantiation in the encounter of the self with some other in his “Master-Slave dialectic”. In this paper, after reviewing the philosophical (...) and psychological background of othering, I distinguish two kinds of othering, “crude” and “sophisticated”, that differ in the logical form of their underlying arguments. The essential difference is that the former is merely self-other distantiating, while the latter – as in Hegel’s dialectic – partially depends on self-other identification. While crude othering is closer to the paradigmatic notion of othering, sophisticated othering is closer to Hegel’s, but so is quasi-othering, which is nearly identical in form to sophisticated othering, but which misses the defining feature of othering – attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness. Because Hegel’s dialectic applies to any encounter of an interpreting self with some other, sophisticated or quasi-othering is at least potentially a very common occurrence in the interpretation of others, especially of those who do not belong to the in-group. However, although othering is usually undesirable, the Hegelian varieties can provide a “mirror”, which can be used as a tool to improve understanding of both the other and the interpreting self, and the malignant aspects of othering can be avoided through charity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract here is the first paragraph: -/- I mean the subtitle of my essay both as praise for the clarity with which Elizabeth Anderson writes about what is at stake in debates about values in science, and as a promise to outline an even more direct route to the heart of the matter. I begin with a quick review of the steps in Anderson’s argument that seem necessary and, indeed, laudable, followed by a brief discussion of (...) those steps in her argument that we might fruitfully skip. The hope is that we will arrive at roughly the same location but with a firmer foothold. (shrink)