In recent years philosophers have been interested in the methodology of metaphysics. Most of these developments are related to formal work in logic or physics, often against the backdrop of the Carnap-Quine debate on ontology. Drawing on Quine’s later work, I argue that a psychological or cognitive perspective on metaphysical topics may be a valuable addition to contemporary metametaphysics. The method is illustrated by means of cognitive studies of the notions “identity,” “vagueness,” and “object” and is compared to other extant (...) metametaphysical positions. (shrink)

I analyse conceptual change and conceptual engineering in the special case of colour concepts. The case raises the prospects of conceptual engineering because a precise standard for measuring the amelioration of the structure of concepts is available. On the other hand, the study highlights the problems with controlling conceptual engineering pointed out by Cappelen. I argue that in the case of conceptual change of colour concepts varying degrees of optimization, design and control are possible. I submit that this observation can (...) be generalized to other classes of concepts. As a result, the scope of conceptual engineering is reduced considerably; conceptual engineering appears as a limit case of conceptual change. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the method of explication as a procedure for conceptual engineering in philosophy and in science. In the philosophical literature, there has been a lively debate about the different desiderata that a good explicatum has to satisfy. In comparison, the goal of explicating the concept of explication itself has not been central to the philosophical debate. The main aim of this work is to suggest a way of filling this gap by explicating (...) ‘explication’ by means of conceptual spaces theory. Specifically, I show how different, strictly-conceptual readings of explication desiderata can be made precise as geometrical or topological constraints over the conceptual spaces related to the explicandum and the explicatum. Moreover, I show also how the richness of the geometrical representation of concepts in conceptual spaces theory allows us to achieve more fine-grained readings of explication desiderata, thereby overcoming some alleged limitations of explication as a procedure of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the method of explication as a procedure for conceptual engineering in philosophy and in science. In the philosophical literature, there has been a lively debate about the different desiderata that a good explicatum has to satisfy. In comparison, the goal of explicating the concept of explication itself has not been central to the philosophical debate. The main aim of this work is to suggest a way of filling this gap by explicating (...) ‘explication’ by means of conceptual spaces theory. Specifically, I show how different, strictly-conceptual readings of explication desiderata can be made precise as geometrical or topological constraints over the conceptual spaces related to the explicandum and the explicatum. Moreover, I show also how the richness of the geometrical representation of concepts in conceptual spaces theory allows us to achieve more fine-grained readings of explication desiderata, thereby overcoming some alleged limitations of explication as a procedure of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The present paper investigates the first step of rational belief acquisition. It, thus, focuses on justificatory relations between perceptual experiences and perceptual beliefs, and between their contents, respectively. In particular, the paper aims at outlining how it is possible to reason from the content of perceptual experiences to the content of perceptual beliefs. The paper thereby approaches this aim by combining a formal epistemology perspective with an eye towards recent advances in philosophy of cognition. Furthermore the paper restricts its focus, (...) it concentrates on the case of color perception and perceptual beliefs about color. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much research into conceptual engineering in connection with feminist inquiry and activism, most notably involving gender issues, but also sexism and misogyny. Our paper contributes to this research by explicating, in a principled manner, a series of other concepts important for feminist research and activism, to wit, feminist political identity terms. More specifically, we show how the popular Conceptual Spaces Framework (CSF) can be used to identify and regiment concepts that are central to feminist research, focusing (...) especially on feminism in France. According to the CSF, concepts can be represented geometrically, as regions in similarity spaces. A particular strength of the CSF framework is its empirically-focused methodology, which allows researchers to infer the boundaries of concepts from empirical data, thus eliminating the need to strongly rely on intuitions about meanings. This is shown to be especially valuable for the explication of concepts relating to feminist political identity, given that the intuitions of feminist scholars and activists about what would appear to be core concepts in the area tend to be poorly aligned or even conflicting. We report the results from an empirical categorization study conducted among French feminists and show how they support the view that the CSF can contribute to both the conceptual engineering project and our understanding of the structure of social reality. (shrink)

Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is for a (...) degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

The book is addressed to all readers interested in cognitive science, and especially in research combining a logical analysis with psychological, linguistic and neurobiological approaches. The publication is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Cognitive Science at University of Lodz and the Department of Cognitive Science at Lund University. It is intended to provide a comprehensive presentation of the key research issues undertaken in both Departments, including considerations on meaning, natural language and reasoning, linguistic as well as (...) numerical competence, the theory of decision making, modelling of conceptual representations, cognitive and game theoretic approach to social interactions. (shrink)

This paper studies the learnability of natural concepts in the context of the conceptual spaces framework. Previous work proposed that natural concepts are represented by the cells of optimally partitioned similarity spaces, where optimality was defined in terms of a number of constraints. Among these is the constraint that optimally partitioned similarity spaces result in easily learnable concepts. While there is evidence that systems of concepts generally regarded as natural satisfy a number of the proposed optimality constraints, the connection between (...) naturalness and learnability has been less well studied. To fill this gap, we conduct a computational study employing two standard models of concept learning. Applying these models to the learning of color concepts, we examine whether natural color concepts are more readily learned than nonnatural ones. Our findings warrant a positive answer to this question for both models employed, thus lending empirical support to the notion that learnability is a distinctive characteristic of natural concepts. (shrink)

Can the theory of conceptual spaces developed by Peter Gärdenfors and others be applied to moral issues? Martin Peterson argues that several moral principles can be construed as regions in a shared similarity space, but Kristin Shrader-Frechette and Gert-Jan Lokhorst question Peterson’s claim. They argue that the moral similarity judgments used to construct the space are underspecified and subjective. In this paper, we present new data indicating that moral principles can indeed be construed as regions in a multidimensional conceptual space (...) on the basis of moral similarity judgments. Four hundred and seventy-five students taking a course in engineering ethics completed a survey in which they were presented with ten cases featuring ethical issues related to technology and engineering. Participants were asked to judge the moral similarity of each pair of cases and to select which moral principle they believed should be applied for resolving the case. We used interval multidimensional scaling as well as individual differences scaling for analyzing the moral similarity judgments. Despite noteworthy individual variations in the judgments, the five moral principles included in the study were discernable in the aggregate multidimensional spaces, even for participants with no previous exposure to the principles. Participants tended to apply the same moral principles to cases rated as morally similar. Our overall conclusion is that moral similarity judgments, and their representation in multidimensional spaces, can help us identify moral principles that are relevant for assessing difficult moral choice situations. (shrink)

Wright holds that the following two theses are jointly incoherent: Rules determine correct language use. These rules are discoverable via internal reflection on language use. I argue that incoherence is derivable from alone and examine two types of probabilistic accounts that model a modification of, one in terms of inexact knowledge, the other in terms of viewing semantic rules as reasons for linguistic actions. Both accommodate tolerance by breaking the link between justified assertion and truth, but incoherence threatens their conception (...) of justified assertion. I argue that the rules-as-reasons approach can relocate sharp boundaries to a place where they are not only more tolerable, but to be expected. (shrink)

Different formal tools are useful for different purposes. For example, when it comes to modelling degrees of belief, probability theory is a better tool than classical logic; when it comes to modelling the truth of mathematical claims, classical logic is a better tool than probability theory. In this paper I focus on a widely used formal tool and argue that it does not provide a good model of a phenomenon of which many think it does provide a good model: I (...) shall argue that while supervaluationism may provide a model of probability of truth, or of assertability, it cannot provide a good model of truth -- supertruth cannot be truth. The core of the argument is that an adequate model of truth must render certain connectives truth-functional (at least in certain circumstances) -- and supervaluationism does not do so (in those circumstances). (shrink)

According to Sider, a question is metaphysically substantive just in case it has a single most natural answer. Recently, Barnes and Mikkola have argued that, given this notion of substantivity, many of the central questions in the metaphysics of gender are nonsubstantive. Specifically, it is plausible that gender pluralism—the view that there are multiple, equally natural gender kinds—is true, but this view seems incompatible with the substantivity of gender. The goal of this paper is to argue that the notion of (...) substantivity can be understood in a way that accommodates gender pluralism. First, I claim that gender terms (at least as used in the ontology room) are referentially indeterminate, where referential indeterminacy holds in virtue of the way the world is. Second, I propose a degree-theoretic (or scalar) account of metaphysical substantivity; genders are substantial to the degree that they are determinate. I conclude that gender is relatively, although not absolutely, substantial. (shrink)

Epistemic absolutism holds that knowledge‐that is ungradable, while epistemic gradualism argues the opposite. This paper purports to remodel the gradualism/absolutism debate. The current model initiated by Stephen Hetherington fails to capture the genuine divergence between the two views, which makes the debate equivocal, and the gradualist side lacks appeal. I propose that the remodeled debate should focus on whether knowledge‐that is a ‘threshold concept’ or a ‘spectrum concept’. That is, whether there is a threshold distinguishing knowledge from non‐knowledge. The reconstructed (...) model enjoys significant advantages as it enables the debate to be more balanced and philosophically interesting. (shrink)

Signalling games are popular models for studying the evolution of meaning, but typical approaches do not incorporate vagueness as a feature of successful signalling. Complementing recent like-minded models, we describe an aggregate population-level dynamic that describes a process of imitation of successful behaviour under imprecise perception and realization of similar stimuli. Applying this new dynamic to a generalization of Lewis’s signalling games, we show that stochastic imprecision leads to vague, yet by-and-large efficient signal use, and, moreover, that it unifies evolutionary (...) outcomes and helps avoid sub-optimal categorization. The upshot of this is that we see ‘as-if’-generalization at an aggregate level, without agents actually generalizing. _1_ Introduction _2_ Background _2.1_ Sim-max games and conceptual spaces _2.2_ Vagueness in sim-max games and conceptual spaces _2.3_ Vagueness, functional pressure, and transmission biases _3_ Imprecise Imitation _3.1_ Replicator dynamic in behavioural strategies _3.2_ Noise-perturbed conditional imitation _4_ Exploring Imprecise Imitation _4.1_ Setting the stage _4.2_ Simulation set-up _4.3_ Measures of interest _4.4_ Results _5_ Discussion _5.1_ Levels of vagueness _5.2_ Evolutionary benefits of imprecision _5.3_ Related work _6_ Conclusion Appendix. (shrink)

Slurs have been standardly assumed to bear a very direct, very distinctive semantic relationship to what philosophers have called “neutral counterpart” terms. I argue that this is mistaken: the general relationship between paradigmatic slurs and their “neutral counterparts” should be assumed to be the same one that obtains between ‘chick flick’ and ‘romantic comedy’, as well a huge number of other more prosaic pairs of derogatory and “less derogatory” expressions. The most plausible general relationship between these latter expressions — and (...) thus, I argue, between paradigmatic slurs and “neutral counterpart” terms — is one of overlap in presumed extension, grounded in overlap in associated stereotypes. The resulting framework has the advantages of being simple, unified, and, unlike its orthodox rivals, neatly accommodating of a much wider range of data than has previously been considered. More importantly, it positions us to better understand, identify, and confront the insidious mechanisms of ordinary bigotry. (shrink)

Edgington has proposed a solution to the sorites paradox in terms of ‘verities’, which she defines as degrees of closeness to clear truth. Central to her solution is the assumption that verities are formally probabilities. She is silent on what verities might derive from and on why they should be probabilities. This paper places Edgington’s solution in the framework of a spatial approach to conceptualization, arguing that verities may be conceived of as deriving from how our concepts relate to each (...) other. Building on work by Kamp and Partee, this paper further shows how verities, thus conceived of, may plausibly be assumed to have probabilistic structure. The new interpretation of verities is argued to also help answer the question of what the verities of indicative conditionals are, a question which Edgington leaves open. Finally, the question of how to accommodate higher-order vagueness, given this interpretation, is addressed. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with a version of Kamp and Partee's account of graded membership that relies on the conceptual spaces framework. Three studies are reported, one to construct a particular shape space, one to detect which shapes representable in that space are typical for certain sorts of objects, and one to elicit degrees of category membership for the various shapes from which the shape space was constructed. Taking Kamp and Partee's proposal as given, the first two studies allowed us (...) to predict the degrees to which people would judge shapes representable in the space to be members of certain categories. These predictions were compared with the degrees that were measured in the third study. The comparison yielded a test of the account of graded membership at issue. The outcome of this test was found to support the conceptual spaces version of Kamp and Partee's account of graded membership. (shrink)

Conceptual spaces have become an increasingly popular modeling tool in cognitive psychology. The core idea of the conceptual spaces approach is that concepts can be represented as regions in similarity spaces. While it is generally acknowledged that not every region in such a space represents a natural concept, it is still an open question what distinguishes those regions that represent natural concepts from those that do not. The central claim of this paper is that natural concepts are represented by the (...) cells of an optimally designed similarity space. (shrink)

This paper considers Kamp and Partee's account of graded membership within a conceptual spaces framework and puts the account to the test in the domain of colors. Three experiments are reported that are meant to determine, on the one hand, the regions in color space where the typical instances of blue and green are located and, on the other hand, the degrees of blueness/greenness of various shades in the blue–green region as judged by human observers. From the locations of the (...) typical blue and typical green regions in conjunction with Kamp and Partee's account follow degrees of blueness/greenness for the color shades we are interested in. These predicted degrees are compared with the judged degrees, as obtained in the experiments. The results of the comparison support the account of graded membership at issue. (shrink)

This thesis studies the role of conceptual content in inference and reasoning. The first two chapters offer a theoretical and historical overview of the relation between inference and meaning in philosophy and psychology. In particular, a critical analysis of the formality thesis, i.e., the idea that rational inference is a rule-based and topic-neutral mechanism, is advanced. The origins of this idea in logic and its influence in philosophy and cognitive psychology are discussed. Chapter 3 consists of an analysis of the (...) relationship between inference and representation. It is argued that inference has to be studied from a pluralistic per- spective due to its dependence on different formats of representing information. The following four chapters apply conceptual spaces, a formal theory of concepts within cognitive semantics, to three concept-based inference-types. First, an explication of Sellars notion of material inference is advanced. Later, the model is extended to account for nonmonotonic inference by studying the role expectations in reasoning. Finally, a conceptual space-model of category-based induction is presented. This model predicts most of the empirical properties of this psychological phenomenon and subsumes some of the previous theories in psychology. It is stated that the explanatory fruitfulness of this new approach is evidence for the failure of the formality thesis and calls for a unified model of rational inference that puts semantics at center stage. The last chapter of the thesis discusses how inference and concepts interact in scientific reasoning, which makes constant use of hybrid symbolic structures for representing conceptual information. Stephen Toulmin’s notions of method of representation and inferential technique are developed and applied in a case study about the emergence of the notion of instantaneous speed during the passage from geometrical physics to analytical mechanics. It is claimed that this analysis provides support to the pluralistic perspective for theorizing about reasoning. (shrink)

This thesis focuses on models of conceptual change in science and philosophy. In particular, I developed a new bootstrapping methodology for studying conceptual change, centered around the formalization of several popular models of conceptual change and the collective assessment of their improved formal versions via nine evaluative dimensions. Among the models of conceptual change treated in the thesis are Carnap’s explication, Lakatos’ concept-stretching, Toulmin’s conceptual populations, Waismann’s open texture, Mark Wilson’s patches and facades, Sneed’s structuralism, and Paul Thagard’s conceptual revolutions. (...) -/- In order to analyze and compare the conception of conceptual change provided by these different models, I rely on several historical reconstructions of episodes of scientific conceptual change. The historical episodes of scientific change that figure in this work include the emergence of the morphological concept of fish in biological taxonomies, the development of scientific conceptions of temperature, the Church-Turing thesis and related axiomatizations of effective calculability, the history of the concept of polyhedron in 17th and 18th century mathematics, Hamilton’s invention of the quaternions, the history of the pre-abstract group concepts in 18th and 19th century mathematics, the expansion of Newtonian mechanics to viscous fluids forces phenomena, and the chemical revolution. I will also present five different formal and informal improvements of four specific models of conceptual change. I will first present two different improvements of Carnapian explication, a formal and an informal one. My informal improvement of Carnapian explication will consist of a more fine-grained version of the procedure that adds an intermediate, third step to the two steps of Carnapian explication. I will show how this novel three-step version of explication is more suitable than its traditional two-step relative to handle complex cases of explications. My second, formal improvement of Carnapian explication will be a full explication of the concept of explication itself within the theory of conceptual spaces. By virtue of this formal improvement, the whole procedure of explication together with its application procedures and its pragmatic desiderata will be reconceptualized as a precise procedure involving topological and geometrical constraints inside the theory of conceptual spaces. My third improved model of conceptual change will consist of a formal explication of Darwinian models of conceptual change that will make vast use of Godfrey-Smith’s population-based Darwinism for targeting explicitly mathematical conceptual change. My fourth improvement will be dedicated instead to Wilson’s indeterminate model of conceptual change. I will show how Wilson’s very informal framework can be explicated within a modified version of the structuralist model-theoretic reconstructions of scientific theories. Finally, the fifth improved model of conceptual change will be a belief-revision-like logical framework that reconstructs Thagard’s model of conceptual revolution as specific revision and contraction operations that work on conceptual structures. -/- At the end of this work, a general conception of conceptual change in science and philosophy emerges, thanks to the combined action of the three layers of my methodology. This conception takes conceptual change to be a multi-faceted phenomenon centered around the dynamics of groups of concepts. According to this conception, concepts are best reconstructed as plastic and inter-subjective entities equipped with a non-trivial internal structure and subject to a certain degree of localized holism. Furthermore, conceptual dynamics can be judged from a weakly normative perspective, bound to be dependent on shared values and goals. Conceptual change is then best understood, according to this conception, as a ubiquitous phenomenon underlying all of our intellectual activities, from science to ordinary linguistic practices. As such, conceptual change does not pose any particular problem to value-laden notions of scientific progress, objectivity, and realism. At the same time, this conception prompts all our concept-driven intellectual activities, including philosophical and metaphilosophical reflections, to take into serious consideration the phenomenon of conceptual change. An important consequence of this conception, and of the analysis that generated it, is in fact that an adequate understanding of the dynamics of philosophical concepts is a prerequisite for analytic philosophy to develop a realistic and non-idealized depiction of itself and its activities. (shrink)

So far, color-naming studies have relied on a rather limited set of color stimuli. Most importantly, stimuli have been largely limited to highly saturated colors. Because of this, little is known about how people categorize less saturated colors and, more generally, about the structure of color categories as they extend across all dimensions of color space. This article presents the results from a large Internet-based color-naming study that involved color stimuli ranging across all available chroma levels in Munsell space. These (...) results help answer such questions as how English speakers name a more complex color set, whether English speakers use so-called basic color terms (BCTs) more frequently for more saturated colors, how they use non-BCTs in comparison with BCTs, whether non-BCTs are highly consensual in less saturated parts of the solid, how deep inside color space basic color categories extend, or how they behave on the chroma dimension. (shrink)