I explore three points about the relationship between C.I. Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and W.V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology inspired by Robert Sinclair’s Quine, Conceptual Pragmatism, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. First, I highlight Lewis’s long-standing commitment to Platonism about meaning and its connection to his reflective philosophical method and rejection of a linguistic account of analyticity. Second, I consider Sinclair’s claim that “Lewis’s epistemology provides no indication concerning how, despite different sensory experiences, we still come to agree on what we are talking (...) about and what counts as evidence” (2022, 113). I find more hints, especially in Lewis’s account of how we verify that two people share meaning in common. However, some of the pragmatic and broadly empirical factors Lewis appeals to are not part of Quine’s naturalized epistemology. Finally, I relate these points to Quine’s (1953/1980) claim to advance a more “thorough pragmatism” than Lewis. Quine does not say much about action, value, and ethics, but these are central parts of Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and a source of his reluctance to abandon those parts of his epistemology that Sinclair argues Quine found dispensable. (shrink)

In this article I examine the dispute between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell concerning the reality of relations. I show that Bradley’s objections to Russell’s view, that there are such things as relations which serve to effect the unity of complex items, were rooted in a methodological approach which Russell did not share. On Bradley’s view, one must be able to offer reductive analyses of the items one postulates in order that commitment to those items be justified. I argue (...) that Russell expressly rejected this methodological principle of Bradley’s, and instead adopted the view that one may justifiably postulate entities if doing so aids in the illumination of mathematical truths. I show that the postulation of relations does, on Russell’s view, serve to provide that illumination. Russell held that the truths of mathematics constitute fixed data, and that philosophical positions may be judged as successful according to the extent that they possess explanatory power with respect to this data. I argue that Bradley’s and Russell’s exchanges in print, as well as in private correspondence, reflect Russell’s awareness of a fundamental difference in methodological approach. I conclude that Russell elected not to answer Bradley’s objections on their own terms, but rather rejected the methodological assumptions from which those objections emerged. (shrink)

We face reality presented with the data of conscious experience and nothing else. The project of early modern philosophy was to build a complete theory of the world from this starting point, with no cheating. Crucial to this starting point is the data of conscious sensory experience – sense data. Attempts to avoid this project often argue that the very idea of sense data is confused. But the sense-data way of talking, the sense-data language, can be freed from every blemish (...) using ideas from contemporary metaontology. We can adopt a sense-data framework that vindicates the traditional claims of sense-data theories and leads to plausible theories of perception and color. We can, we should, and in a sense, we must. Yet when we do, we face the traditional problem of external world skepticism, head-on. The real challenge of skepticism is forced upon us; it cannot honestly be avoided using externalist tricks, burden of proof shifting, or other razzle dazzle. But the challenge can be met: we are rational to posit the external world as the best explanation of the many synchronic and diachronic patterns over our sense-data. This paper argues for all of these points and ends with a plea for analytic empiricism – a traditional sense-data version of empiricism that uses all of the tools of analytic philosophy while avoiding the more questionable doctrines of the Vienna Circle (phenomenalism, verificationism). Analytic empiricism is our last best hope for completing the great philosophical project of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

What is the role of imagination in a priori knowledge? Here I provide a partial answer, arguing that imagination can be used to shed light on which experiences merely enable knowledge, versus which are evidential. I reach this partial answer by considering in detail Timothy’s Williamson’s recent argument that the a priori/a posteriori distinction is insignificant. There are replies to the argument by Boghossian and Casullo that might work on their own terms, but my reply examines the assumptions that Williamson (...) makes about the role of imagination in knowledge generation. I show that Williamson’s argument does not account for important distinctions from recent discussions of imaginative content. When these distinctions are not ignored, we can see that Williamson’s argument attributes a subject knowledge on the basis of a faulty application of universal generalization. I close by connecting my positive account of the role of imagination in the a priori to a debate about the role of memory in the a priori that played out 25 years ago. (shrink)

This paper presents the Universality Argument that pleasure is goodness. The first premise defines goodness as what should please all. The second premise reduces 'should' to perceptual accuracy. The third premise invokes a universal standard of accuracy: qualitative identity. Since the pleasure of all is accurate solely about pleasure, pleasure is goodness, or universal moral value. The argument proceeds from a moral sense theory that analyzes moral concepts as concerned with what all should hope for, feel guilty about, and admire. (...) This requires rejecting practical anti-empiricism, the view that moral judgment concerns empirically inaccessible norms governing action. (shrink)

A fundamental question in responsibility theory concerns the relation between being responsible and our practices of holding responsible. ‘Strawsonians’ often claim that being responsible is somehow a function of our practices of holding responsible, while others think that holding responsible depends on being responsible, and still others think of being and holding responsible as interdependent. Based on a Wittgensteinian reading of Strawson, I develop an account of the relation between being and holding responsible which respects major concerns of all parties (...) in this debate. I characterize the way in which being responsible depends on holding responsible as genealogical, and the way in which holding responsible depends on being responsible as justificatory. I show how my account cuts across received ways of carving up the debate, and how it allows for all the kinds of fallibility about moral responsibility that are worth wanting. (shrink)

Philosophical inquiry on the problem of meaning is as old as philosophy. There are two approaches to the study of meaning . the first is associated with formal theories of meaning, proposed by Frege, earlier Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson and Dummett. The second is associated with use theories of meaning, which was supported by later Wittgenstein , Austin, Grice, Strawson and Searle. Formal theories are concerned with the formal structure of language and the interrelations between sentences. The use theories put central (...) emphasis on speakers and what they do in their account of meaning. Paul H. Grice (1913-1988) - English philosopher- gives central place to speakers and their intentions when accounting for meaning. The Gricean intentionalistic theory of meaning can be regarded as having two stages. The first aims to analyze a concept of speaker’s meaning. The second aims to use the concept of speaker’s meaning, along with the notion of a convention, as the foundation of theory of linguistic meaning. This paper seeks to achieve the following aims : 1- Providing a critical examination of Grice’s theory. 2- Discussing the most important objections to this theory and modifications which have been suggested by philosophers wishing to refine it, such as Strawson, Searle and others. 3- Forging important connections between intentionalist theory ( in semantics ) and theory of conversational implicature ( in pargmatics). In my mind, the two theories are supportive and the first serves as a foundation for the second. إن البحث الفلسفي في مشكلة المعنى قديم قدم الفلسفة . وهناك طريقتان لدراسة المعنى، ترتبط الأولى بالنظريات الصورية في المعنى التي اقترحها فريجه، وفتجنشتين المبكر، وكواين، وديفيدسون، ودميت. وترتبط الثانية بنظريات الاستعمال في المعنى التي اقترحها فتجنشتين المتأخر، وأوستن، وجرايس، وستراوسون، وسيرل. تهتم النظريات الصورية بالبنية الصورية للغة والعلاقات المتبادلة بين الجمل. وتضع نظريات الاستعمال توكيداً أساسياً على المتكلمين وما يفعلونه في تقريرهم عن المعنى. وبول جرايس ( 1913-1988 ) - الفيلسوف الإنجليزي - هو الفيلسوف الذي أعطى المتكلمين ومقاصدهم مكانة محورية عند تفسير المعنى. ويمكن النظر إلى النظرية القصدية في المعنى عند جرايس على أنها تأتي على مرحلتين : تهدف المرحلة الأولى إلى تحليل مفهوم المعنى لدى المتكلم . وتسعى الثانية إلى استعمال مفهوم المعنى لدى المتكلم ، بالإضافة إلى فكرة الموضعة ، كأساس لنظرية في المعنى اللغوي. ويسعى هذا البحث إلى تحقيق الأهداف التالية: 1- تقديم فحص نقدي لنظرية جرايس في المعنى. 2- مناقشة الاعتراضات المهمة على هذه النظرية والتعديلات التي اقترحها الفلاسفة الذين راموا تنقيحها وتعديلها مثل ستراسون ، وسيرل ، وغيرهما. 3- صياغة العلاقات المهمة بين النظرية القصدية (في علم الدلالة) ونظرية الاقتضاء التخاطبي ( في علم الاستعمال ) والرأي عندي أن النظريتين تؤيد إحداهما الأخرى، وتصلح الأولى أساساً للثانية، وإن شئت فقل : إن الثانية جزء من الأولى. (shrink)

Williamson and others have recently argued against the significance of the a priori/a posteriori distinction. My aim in this paper is to explain, defend, and expand upon one of these arguments. In the first section, I develop in some detail a line of argument sketched in Williamson. In the second section, I consider two replies to Williamson and show that they miss the structure of the challenge, as I understand it. The problem for defenders of the distinction is to find (...) a way to draw it without leaving out some paradigmatic a priori knowledge or including some paradigmatic a posteriori knowledge. Interestingly, the two replies fail in opposite directions. I then consider the view that, in cases of a priori knowledge, one needs only understanding and some reasoning to gain justified belief. Such reasoning, I argue, should itself not be dependent on experience. Next, I consider, and reject, the attempt to spell out independence of experience for reasoning based on a link between the modal and epistemic status of the proposition involved. Finally, I provide some general grounds to think that the role of experience in forming a reasoning competence, while not evidential, is not devoid of normative value. The main reason is that the normative status of intellectual competences depends on the experiences that constitute their acquisition and development. (shrink)

The culture-economy dialectic (CED) – the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy – is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought in social science are strongly influenced or even determined by the CED. For that reason, a thorough analysis and evaluation of the CED is needed to improve understanding of the history of ideas in social science and the currently fashionable research on the cultural (...) influences on economic differences between countries and regions. This thesis is an attempt to do just that. The concepts of “culture” and “economy” (and related concepts) and the (assumed) relations therebetween are compared and analyzed. Empirical results from earlier studies are summarized and some new test are presented. These new tests are partly based on a measurement of Dutch regional culture. However, most theories of the CED are (nearly) impossible to verify (empirically). There appears to be some influence of wealth on specific cultural phenomena (such as individualism and post-materialism), but the often assumed influence of culture on entrepreneurship and economic growth remains unconfirmed. Moreover, from an analysis of the theories themselves, it appears that most of these cannot be falsified and are, therefore, hardly 'scientific'. Many of the theories of the CED and, in fact, many theories of social science in general are of a conceptual rather than a causal nature. These theories cannot be falsified (or verified) by empirical means alone, but must be studied by means of conceptual analysis. In the final conclusions, this thesis, therefore, argues for conceptual analysis in – and a more anarchist approach to – social science. (shrink)

A noção de analiticidade teve um papel central em vários debates filosóficos, em particular durante a primeira metade do século XX. Na sequência do influente artigo de W. V. Quine “Dois Dogmas do empirismo” (1951), a noção passou a ser vista com grande cepticismo. Mais recentemente, Paul Boghossian, no artigo “Analiticidade Reconsiderada” (1996), propôs uma forma de compreender a noção que é, putativamente, imune às críticas de Quine. O interesse na noção de analiticidade ficou desta forma renovado, assim como a (...) sua centralidade no debate acerca da possibilidade do conhecimento a priori. O principal objectivo deste artigo consiste em introduzir a noção de analiticidade e os principais problemas que esta enfrenta. (shrink)

This article surveys methodological matters that shape, drive, and plague analytic legal philosophy. Section 2 briefly explicates conceptual analysis, analytic definitions, and family resemblance concepts. It also argues that central cases are used in more than one way. Section 3 presents criticisms of those concepts and methods, and suggests that some of these difficulties are due to the lack of a shared paradigm regarding a counterexample’s impact. Section 4 explains “meta- theoretical” desiderata. It contends that, to date, legal philosophical appeals (...) to such norms have not been as helpful as some suggest. Section 5 returns to the issue of concept selection by addressing whether legal theorising is an invariably “normative” enterprise. It argues that certain “normativist” methodologies, such as Dworkin’s constructive interpretation and Finnis’ appeal to the central case of the internal point of view, are unnecessary. (shrink)

During the past few decades, a radical shift has occurred in how philosophers conceive of the relation between science and philosophy. A great number of analytic philosophers have adopted what is commonly called a ‘naturalistic’ approach, arguing that their inquiries ought to be in some sense continuous with science. Where early analytic philosophers often relied on a sharp distinction between science and philosophy—the former an empirical discipline concerned with fact, the latter an a priori discipline concerned with meaning—philosophers today largely (...) follow Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) in his seminal rejection of this distinction. -/- This book offers a comprehensive study of Quine’s naturalism. Building on Quine’s published corpus as well as thousands of unpublished letters, notes, lectures, papers, proposals, and annotations from the Quine archives, this book aims to reconstruct both the nature (chapters 2-4) and the development (chapter 5-7) of his naturalism. As such, this book aims to contribute to the rapidly developing historiography of analytic philosophy, and to provide a better, historically informed, understanding of what is philosophically at stake in the contemporary naturalistic turn. (shrink)

The Fodorian central objections to Inferential Role Semantics can be taken to include an ‘Analyticity Challenge’ and a ‘Circularity Challenge’, which are ultimately challenges to IRS explanations of concept possession. In this paper I present inferential role theories, critically examine these challenges and point out two misunderstandings to which they are exposed. I then state in detail a rationalist version of IRS and argue that this version meets head on the Fodorian challenges. If sound, these considerations show that there is (...) no problem of principle in the consideration of IRS as a good candidate for a theory of concepts. (shrink)

Ben-Yami presents Wittgenstein’s explicit criticism of the Platonic identification of an explanation with a definition and the alternative forms of explanation he employed. He then discusses a few predecessors of Wittgenstein’s criticisms and the Fregean background against which he wrote. Next, the idea of family resemblance is introduced, and objections answered. Wittgenstein’s endorsement of vagueness and the indeterminacy of sense are presented, as well as the open texture of concepts. Common misunderstandings are addressed along the way. Wittgenstein’s ideas, as is (...) then shown, have far-reaching implications for knowledge of meaning and the nature of logic, and with them to the nature of the philosophical project and its possible achievements. (shrink)

I argue that Quinean naturalists’ holism-based arguments against analyticity and apriority are more difficult to resist than is generally supposed, for two reasons. First, although opponents of naturalism sometimes dismiss these arguments on the grounds that the holistic premises on which they depend are unacceptably radical, it turns out that the sort of holism required by these arguments is actually quite minimal. And second, although it’s true, as Grice and Strawson pointed out long ago, that these arguments can succeed only (...) if there isn’t any principled criterion for meaning change, such a criterion turns out to be hard to come by. David Chalmers has recently argued that such a criterion must exist, since the norms governing belief revision are subject to obvious exceptions that can be explained only by appeal to meaning change. But this, I argue, is incorrect: if choices about how to use language are themselves rationally assessable, then there are no such exceptions to be explained. To show that this is so, I formulate a new kind of coherence norm that may be useful for reasoning formally about the relationship between meaning and evidence. (shrink)

The main task in this paper is to detail and investigate Carnap’s conception of a “linguistic framework”. On this basis, we will see whether Carnap’s dichotomies, such as the analytic-synthetic distinction, are to be construed as absolute/fundamental dichotomies or merely as relative dichotomies. I argue for a novel interpretation of Carnap’s conception of a LF and, on that basis, will show that, according to Carnap, all the dichotomies to be discussed are relative dichotomies; they depend on conventional decisions concerning the (...) logical syntax of LF. Thus, all of the dichotomies directly hinge on the conception of the LF. The LF’s logical structure, in turn, is an immediate consequence of adopting the linguistic doctrine of logical truths. As we will see, no appeal to any of these distinctions is necessary in establishing a LF and all of its components. I will also draw attention to the differences between what Carnap labels a “way of speaking”, “language”, and “artificial language”. Consequently, I will briefly conclude that none of Quine’s major objections address the main points of Carnap’s theory. (shrink)

Paul Boghossian (1997) has argued that there is much to be said on behalf of the notion of analyticity so long as we distinguish epistemic analyticity and metaphysical analyticity. In particular, (1) epistemic analyticity isn’t undermined by Quine’s critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, (2) it can explain the a prioricity of logic, and (3) epistemic analyticity can’t be rejected short of embracing semantic irrealism. In this paper, we argue that all three of these claims are mistaken.

W. V. Quine famously argues that though all knowledge is empirical, mathematics is entrenched relative to physics and the special sciences. Further, entrenchment accounts for the necessity of mathematics relative to these other disciplines. Michael Friedman challenges Quine’s view by appealing to historicism, the thesis that the nature of science is illuminated by taking into account its historical development. Friedman argues on historicist grounds that mathematical claims serve as principles constitutive of languages within which empirical claims in physics and the (...) special sciences can be formulated and tested, where these mathematical claims are themselves not empirical but conventional. For Friedman, their conventional, constitutive status accounts for the necessity of mathematics relative to these other disciplines. Here I evaluate Friedman’s challenge to Quine and Quine’s likely response. I then show that though we have reason to find Friedman’s challenge successful, his positive project requires further development before we can endorse it. (shrink)

Both John Langshaw Austin and Willard Van Orman Quine were critical of the traditional division of propositions into the two categories: analytic and synthetic. their criticism has, however, a di erent character. Quine questions the usefulness of the notion of analyticity, whereas Austin does not accept the view that every proposition should be considered either analytic or synthetic. According to Quine, we have to abandon the notion of analyticity because we cannot de ne it in a satisfactory way. Quine’s criticism (...) is based on his conviction that the very notion of meaning is suspicious om the scienti c point of view. this general outlook is supported by arguments the point of which is to show that we cannot avoid an indeterminacy of translation. Austin criticises the distinction for di erent reasons. According to him, it is not the notion of meaning which is suspicious, but a certain model of this notion — a model which is based on false analogies. In my text, I compare these two approaches and point out that they have di erent metaphilosophical sources. the main di erence lies in the fact that, according to Austin, statements about linguistic meaning usually have a descriptive character, whereas Quine claims that linguistic meanings are theoretical entities. In the last part of my article, I discuss the thesis of indeterminacy of translation and assess its credibility, as it plays a key role in Quine’s criticism of the notion of meaning. (shrink)

Philosophy of science and history of science both have a significant relation to science itself; but what is their relation to each other? That question has been a focal point of philosophical and historical work throughout the second half of this century. An analysis and review of the progress made in dealing with this question, and especially that made in philosophy, is the focus of this thesis. Chapter one concerns logical positivist and empiricist approaches to philosophy of science, and the (...) significance of the criticisms levelled at them by analytic epistemologists such as Willard Quine and 'historicist' philosophers, especially Thomas Kuhn. Chapter two details the attempts by Kuhn and Lakatos to integrate these historicist criticisms with historically oriented philosophy of science, in their separate attempts at providing rational explanations of historical developments. Kuhn's latest work seeks to mend fences with philosophy, but his efforts remain too closely tied to the epistemological approaches strongly criticized in his earlier work. Lakatos' treatment of history is much more subtle than most have understood it to be, but the conception of scientific rationality that arises out of it is transformed into an abstract cultural product, more reminiscent of Hegel's geist than of individual human rationality. Chapters three and four discuss the recommendations of Lakatos and Laudan to historians with regard to historiography, and the actual historiographies and philosophy of history of practicing historians and historians of science. The philosophers' contributions indicate little concern for the historians' own methods, materials, and purposes; and the historians' writings present methodologies for history of science that are independent of the normative demarcations of philosophy of science, pace Lakatos and Laudan. Chapter five develops a philosophical position that fosters a more productive engagement between philosophy and history of science, a 'methodological historicism' that embraces the possibility of an important role for social and political factors in a philosophical study of scientific development. The epistemological relativism that might accompany such a historicist position need not be the radical epistemological anarchism of Feyerabend, though it will allow for a significant underdetermination of scientific development by reason nonetheless. (shrink)

It is commonly held that there are internal links between understanding and assent such that being semantically competent with an expression requires accepting certain sentences as true. The paper discusses a recent challenge to this conception of semantic competence, posed by Timothy Williamson (2007). According to Williamson there are no understanding-assent links of the suggested sort, no internal connection between semantic competence and belief. I suggest that Williamson is quite right to question the claim that being semantically competent with an (...) expression e requires accepting a certain sentence S as true. However, Williamson does not merely wish to reject this version of the understanding-assent view, but the very idea that the connection with belief provides constitutive constraints on linguistic understanding and concept possession. This further move, I argue, is very problematic. Giving a plausible account of semantic competence requires accepting that there are constitutive links between understanding and assent, although these links should be construed holistically rather than atomistically. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the reconstruction that Peirce does on analytic/synthetic Kantian division, supported by his phenomenology, semiotic and pragmatism. The analysis of Peirce’s writings on mathematic suggests a notion of a posteriori and necessary analytical truths, that is, propositions that express one belief justified in experience, but whose generalization is valid for all the possible worlds. This was a new idea the time that Peirce formulated it, in 19th Century, and it contrasts with semantic-analytical tradition from Frege and (...) was contested by Quine in 1950’s. Peirce’s notion of analyticity is a result of his discovery of the logic of relatives, which led the philosopher to revise the deductive reasoning, dividing it into corollarial and theorematic, which in turn allow us to understand why mathematics is, simultaneously, deductive and non-trivial. (shrink)

J’argumente que les Quiniens qui sont sceptiques par rapport à la distinction analytique/synthétique devraient aussi être sceptiques quant à la distinction entre conflits verbaux et factuels. Je développe une objection à la distinction entre conflits verbaux et factuels, dérivée des objections à la distinction analytique/synthétique. J’explique ensuite de quoi se compose le scepticisme qui en résulte. En définitive, ces sceptiques devraient reconnaître la différence entre conflits verbaux et factuels, mais pensent que certaines tâches philosophiques ne peuvent être performées.

In this work I argue for the thesis that Grice’s intentional-cooperative analysis of assertion works at three levels: the logical, the epistemological and the normative. I use “conventional implicature” as example. First part shows that other approaches to assertion can’t give an accurate description of semantic content. I point to a general, twofold conclusion: the truth-conditional approach fails by neglecting intentional acts to be the meaning blocks; the rule-oriented approach misses its target by disregarding that all communicative acts are intentional, (...) but many are not conventional. Assertion includes some features of intentional action, the main theme in second part. As rational justification is the basis of intention, the solution of some remaining problems connected to assertion may rest in the justificatory structures underlying intention. Judgment, the epistemic variety of rational acceptability, determines, on one hand, the infelicity in conventional implicature cancellation and, on the other, shows why convention is just a minor component in the theory of meaning. Justification deems a special methodology in which causal explanations of meaning and representation can be replaced by justifications, teleological in character. The rationalist background of Grice’s proposal is thus stressed, as well as his conception of rationality as the body of capacities in charge of identifying and attributing value. Following this interpretation, other problems on meaning and communication, for example the relations between the Cooperative Principle and the conversational maxims, can be dealt with. (shrink)

Quine est célèbre pour sa critique de la notion d’analyticité, mais il en a également proposé des substituts définissables en termes behavioristes. Cet article examine la question de savoir si de tels substituts peuvent ou non jouer un rôle épistémologique, en les comparant avec des tentatives récentes de réhabilitation de l’a priori. Il apparaît que la caractérisation de ce qu’est une définition acceptable en termes behavioristes est cruciale, et qu’un élargissement de la classe des comportements linguistiques pertinents peut ouvrir la (...) voie à une réhabilitation substantielle de l’analyticité.Quine is famous for his critics against the notion of analyticity used in epistemology and philosophy of science by philosophers of the Vienna circle. However, Quine has also proposed alternative definitions of the notion, which would be acceptable from a behaviorist perspective. In this paper, I address the question whether such alternative definitions can play any epistemologically significant role, by comparing them with recent attempts at a new defense of a priori knowledge. The upshot is that the answer cruccially depends on what is an acceptable definition in a behaviorist perspective. It might well be that an epistemologically significant notion of analyticity can be based upon a broad enough characterization of linguistic behavior. (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)

This article is in three parts. The first discusses trends in philosophy. The second defends reliance on intuitions in philosophy from some doubts that have recently been raised. The third discusses Philip Kitcher's contention that contemporary analytic philosophy does not have its priorities straight. While the three parts are independent, there is a common theme. Each part defends what is regarded as orthodoxy from attacks. Of course there are other reasonable challenges to philosophical methodology. The article's aim is just to (...) respond to some charges that have been made. (shrink)

Modality and Anti-Metaphysics critically examines the most prominent approaches to modality among analytic philosophers in the twentieth century, including essentialism. Defending both the project of metaphysics and the essentialist position that metaphysical modality is conceptually and ontologically primitive, Stephen McLeod argues that the logical positivists did not succeed in banishing metaphysical modality from their own theoretical apparatus and he offers an original defence of metaphysics against their advocacy of its elimination. -/- Seeking to assuage the sceptical worries which underlie modal (...) anti-realism, McLeod provides an original contribution to essentialist epistemology, engaging with current debates about modality and suggesting that standard essentialist approaches to some issues in the philosophies of logic and language require revision. -/- This book offers valuable insights to professional philosophers, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in metaphysics, philosophy of logic or the history of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. (shrink)

According to inferential role semantics (IRS), for an expression to have a particular meaning or express a certain concept is for subjects to be disposed to make, or to treat as proper, certain inferential transitions involving that expression.1 Such a theory of meaning is holistic, since according to it the meaning or concept any given expression possesses or expresses depends on the inferential relations it stands in to other expressions.

My primary aim in this chapter is to explain in what the traditional mind–body problem consists, what its possible solutions are, and what obstacles lie in the way of a resolution. The discussion will develop in two phases. The first phase, sections 1.2–1.4, will be concerned to get clearer about the import of our initial question as a precondition of developing an account of possible responses to it. The second phase, sections 1.5–1.6, explains how a problem arises in our attempts (...) to answer the question we have characterized, and surveys the various solutions that can be and have been offered. More specifically, sections 1.2–1.4 are concerned with how to understand the basic elements of our initial question – how we should identify the mental, on the one hand, and the physical, on the other – and with what sorts of relations between them we are concerned. Section 1.2 identifies and explains the two traditional marks of the mental, consciousness and intentionality, and discusses how they are related. Section 1.3 gives an account of how we should understand ‘physical’ in our initial question so as not to foreclose any of the traditional positions on the mind–body problem. Section 1.4 then addresses the third element in our initial question, mapping out the basic sorts of relations that may hold between mental and physical phenomena, and identifying some for special attention. Sections 1.5–1.6 are concerned with explaining the source of the difficulty in answering our initial question, and the kinds of solutions that have been offered to it. Section 1.5 explains why our initial question gives rise to a problem, and gives a precise form to the mind–body problem, which is presented as a set of four propositions, each of which, when presented independently, seems compelling, but which are jointly inconsistent. Section 1.6 classifies responses to the mind–body problem on the basis of which of the propositions in our inconsistent set they reject, and provides a brief overview of the main varieties in each category, together with some of the difficulties that arise for each. Section 1.7 is a brief conclusion about the source of our difficulties in understanding the place of mind in the natural world. (shrink)

With resources hinted at in different ways by both Duhem and Quine, it is argued that some of their misgivings about empirical confirmation, or crucial experiments, may be exaggerated or unfounded; and that such experiments, suitably conceived, can give good meaning to empirical sentences. With appropriate meanings one can then wonder about synonymy and analyticity.

The positivists suggest that some truths may be immune from empirical refutation and yet lacking in rational justification. Quine holds that every proposition is in principle empirically refutable so there are no a priori truths. I’ll provide a working characterization of the idea of “rational revisability” and argue it’s impossible for us to take a chain of rational revision and end up revising everything which we now believe. Quine's position on revisability is also in tension with certain theses about epistemic (...) holism. Finally, I discuss a more general context in which rational argument is viewed as one mechanism among many for reliably modifying beliefs. This more biological perspective allows us to formulate Quine's claims about revisability in a new way and to raise some interesting questions about the potential impact of natural selection on our cognitive capacities. (shrink)

Is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between particulars and universals another unsupported dogma of metaphysics? F. P. Ramsey famously rejected the particular – universal distinction but neglected to consider the many different conceptions of the distinction that have been advanced. As a contribution to the piecemeal investigation of this issue three interrelated conceptions of the particular – universal distinction are examined: universals, by contrast to particulars, are unigrade; particulars are related to universals by an asymmetric tie of exemplification; universals (...) are incomplete whereas particulars are complete. It is argued that these conceptions are wanting in several respects. Sometimes they fail to mark a significant division amongst entities. Sometimes they make substantial demands upon the shape of reality; once these demands are understood aright it is no longer obvious that the distinction merits our acceptance. The case is made via a discussion of the possibility of multigrade universals. (shrink)

In recent decades, the logical study of rational belief dynamics has played an increasingly important role in philosophy. However, the dynamics of concepts such as conceptual learning received comparatively little attention within this debate. This is problematic insofar as the occurrence of conceptual change (especially in the sciences) has been an influential argument against a merely logical analysis of beliefs. Especially Kuhn’s ideas about the incommensurability, i.e., untranslatability, of succeeding theories seem to stand in the way of logical reconstruction. This (...) paper investigates conceptual change as model-changing operations similar to belief revision and relates it to the notion of incommensurability. I consider several versions of conceptual change and discuss their influences on the expressive power, translatability and the potential arising of incommensurability. The paper concludes with a discussion of animal taxonomy in Aristotle’s and Linnaeus’s work. (shrink)

Chalmers has argued that Bayesianism supports the existence of a priori truths, since it entails that scrutability conditionals are not rationally revisable. However, as we argue, Chalmers's arguments leave open that every proposition is rationally deniable, which would be devastating for large parts of his philosophical program. We suggest that Chalmers should appeal to well-known convergence theorems to argue that ideally rational subjects converge on the truth of scrutability conditionals. However, our discussion reveals that showing that these theorems apply in (...) effect requires assuming scrutability. Consequently, Bayesianism doesn't conflict with Chalmers's scrutability framework, but it doesn't support it, either. (shrink)

It is nowadays standard to distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical analyticity. Metaphysical analyticity has been widely rejected, while epistemic analyticity has been widely endorsed. I argue that we also have good reason to reject epistemic analyticity. I do so by considering all the plausible ways of characterizing epistemic analyticity and of drawing the epistemic analytic–synthetic distinction. I argue that on all of them, the distinction fails to carve at the semantic joints. I conclude that there is good reason to think (...) that there is no semantic distinction to be drawn between analytic and synthetic sentences. (shrink)

W. V. Quine famously claimed that no statement is immune to revision. This thesis has had a profound impact on twentieth century philosophy, and it still occupies centre stage in many contemporary debates. However, despite its importance it is not clear how it should be interpreted. I show that the thesis is in fact ambiguous between three substantially different theses. I illustrate the importance of clarifying it by assessing its use in the debate against the existence of a priori knowledge. (...) I show how the three different readings of the thesis can be used to generate three substantially different and philosophically significant arguments against the a priori. I further challenge each one of these arguments against the a priori. (shrink)

Millians about proper names typically claim that it is knowable apriori that Hesperus is Phosphorus. We argue that they should claim instead that it is knowable only aposteriori that Hesperus is Hesperus, since the Kripke-Putnam epistemic arguments against descriptivism are special cases of Quinean arguments that nothing is knowable apriori, and Millians have no resources to resist the more general Quinean arguments.

The author argues that Quine’s criticism of Kantian analytical/synthetic distinction, as well as transcendentalist reductionism, is not entirely adequate. Furthermore, the author states that Kant’s and Quine’s theories of experience and cognition (transcendentalist and holistic) are based on a common dogma, the one of consistency. Taking into account their uncritical ac-ceptance of experience as a system that is able to adjust new and old elements to each other, both philosophers have much more in common than Quine and his followers might (...) have ex- pected. (shrink)

Significant issues remain for understanding and evaluating the Quinean critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction. These issues are highlighted in a puzzling mismatch between the common philosophical attitude toward the critique and its broader intellectual legacy. A discussion of this mismatch sets the larger context for criticism of a recent tradition of interpretation of the critique. I argue that this tradition confuses the roles and relative importance of indeterminacy, a priority, and analyticity in the Quinean critique.

This paper examines the potential for abstracting propositions – an as yet untested way of defending the realist thesis that propositions as abstract entities exist. I motivate why we should want to abstract propositions and make clear, by basing an account on the neo-Fregean programme in arithmetic, what ontological and epistemological advantages a realist can gain from this. I then raise a series of problems for the abstraction that ultimately have serious repercussions for realism about propositions in general. I first (...) identify problems about the number of entities able to be abstracted using these techniques. I then focus on how issues of language relativity result in problems akin to the Caesar problem in arithmetic by exposing circularity and modal concern over the status of the criterion of identity for propositions. (shrink)

L'A. défend la thèse selon laquelle Wittgenstein développe une conception pragmatique et linguistique des relations internes qui définissent les vérités nécessaires: 1) qui n'implique pas l'analyticité de toutes les propositions exprimant des relations internes, 2) qui établit une distinction entre l'analytique et le synthétique, 3) qui s'avère compatible avec la critique de l'analyticité entreprise par Quine.

This paper investigates the relation between Carnap and Quine’s views on analyticity on the one hand, and their views on philosophical analysis or explication on the other. I argue that the stance each takes on what constitutes a successful explication largely dictates the view they take on analyticity. I show that although acknowledged by neither party (in fact Quine frequently expressed his agreement with Carnap on this subject) their views on explication are substantially different. I argue that this difference not (...) only explains their differences on the question of analyticity, but points to a Quinean way to answer a challenge that Quine posed to Carnap. The answer to this challenge leads to a Quinean view of analyticity such that arithmetical truths are analytic, according to Quine’s own remarks, and set theory is at least defensibly analytic. (shrink)

This volume is the record of a symposium on the structer of scientific theories held in urbana, Illinois in the spring of 1969. ofSeven main papers, commentaries, discussions, and a postscript form the bulk of the book. The rest is a nearly 240-page monograph-in-the-guise-of-an-introduction by the editor titled “The Search for Philosophic Understanding of Scientific Theories”.