This paper was written with two aims in mind. A large part of it is just an exposition of Tarski's theory of truth. Philosophers do not agree on how Tarski's theory is related to their investigations. Some of them doubt whether that theory has any relevance to philosophical issues and in particular whether it can be applied in dealing with the problems of philosophy (theory) of science.In this paper I argue that Tarski's chief concern was the following question. Suppose a (...) language L belongs to the class of languages for which, in full accordance with some formal conditions set in advance, we are able to define the class of all the semantic interpretations the language may acquire. Every interpretation of L can be viewed as a certain structure to which the expressions of the language may refer. Suppose that a specific interpretation of the language L was singled out as the intended one. Suppose, moreover, that the intended interpretation can be characterized in a metalanguage L +. If the above assumptions are satisfied, can the notion of truth for L be defined in the metalanguage L + and, if it can, how can this be done? (shrink)

Biological taxonomists rely on the so-called ‘type method’ to regulate taxonomic nomenclature. For each newfound taxon, they lay down a ‘type specimen’ that carries with it the name of the taxon it belongs to. Even if a taxon’s circumscription is unknown and/or subject to change, it remains a necessary truth that the taxon’s type specimen falls within its boundaries. Philosophers have noted some time ago that this naming practice is in line with the causal theory of reference and its central (...) notion of rigid designation: a type specimen fixes the reference of a taxon name without defining it. Recently, however, this consensus has come under pressure in the pages of this journal. In a series of articles by Alex Levine, Joseph LaPorte, and Matthew Haber, it has been argued that type specimens belong only contingently to their species, and that this may bode problems for the relation between type method and causal theory. I will argue that this ‘contingency debate’ is a debate gone wrong, and that none of the arguments in defense of contingency withstand scrutiny. Taxonomic naming is not out of step with the causal theory, but conforms to it. However, I will also argue that this observation is itself in need of further explanation, since application of the type method in taxonomic practice is plagued by errors and ambiguities that threaten it with breaking down. Thus, the real question becomes why taxonomic naming conforms to the causal theory in the first place. I will show that the answer lies in the embedding of the type method into elaborate codes of nomenclature. (shrink)

What has come to be known as “a priori physicalism” is the thesis, roughly, that the non-physical truths in the actual world can be deduced a priori from a complete physical description of the actual world. To many contemporary philosophers, a priori physicalism seems extremely implausible. In this paper I distinguish two kinds of a priori physicalism. One sort – strict a priori physicalism – I reject as both unmotivated and implausible. The other sort – liberal a priori physicalism – (...) I argue is both motivated and plausible. This variety of a priori physicalism insists that the necessitation of non-physical truths by the physical facts must be underwritten in a certain fashion by a priori knowledge, but the a priori knowledge need not amount to a simple deduction of the non-physical truths from a complete physical description of the world. Further, this sort of liberal a priori physicalism has the advantage that it offers hope for a genuinely satisfying account of how the physical facts manage to necessitate the facts about phenomenal consciousness – thereby in effect solving the “hard problem” of consciousness. The first half of the paper sets out the motivation for liberal a priori physicalism and its superiority to the strict version; the second half presents one strategy available to the liberal a priori physicalist for showing how consciousness can be accommodated in a purely physical world. (shrink)

This article will consider the claim that the possession of concepts is innate rather than learned. Innatism about concept learning is explained through consideration of the work of Fodor and Chomsky. First, an account of concept formation is developed. Second the argument against the claim that concepts are learned through the construction of a learning paradox developed by Fodor is considered. It is argued that, despite initial plausibility, the learning paradox is not, in fact, a paradox at all as it (...) rests on eliding the distinction between recognising something and recognising it as a something. The plausibility of eliding this distinction rests, in turn, on begging the question as to whether concept possession is a necessary condition for recognition of objects, events, properties etc. Fodor's positive arguments for innatism, as set out in LOT2 are considered and parallels with his account of stereotype formation and associationist accounts of concept formation are considered. The explanatory persuasiveness of this revised account of concept activation through the generation of stereotypes is weak. The article then examines the distinction between concept possession and concept mastery in greater detail, arguing that innatists have difficulty in accounting for the phenomenon of concept mastery, including within the contexts of formal and professional education. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principle of necessary identity (f)(g)(f=g then necessarily f=g) cannot be maintained, At least in second order form. A paradox based upon scientific definitional practice is introduced to demonstrate this. A non-Fregean reading of standard contingent identity semantics is provided to explain how such 'definition breaking' works.

Perry, in this lucid, deep, and entertaining book , supposes that type-identity physicalism is antecedently plausible, and that rejecting this thesis requires good reason (this is.

When attempting to determine which of our acts affect future generations and which affect the identities of those who make up such generations, accounts of personal identity that privilege psychological features and person affecting accounts of morality, whilst highly useful when discussing the rights and wrongs of acts relating to extant persons, seem to come up short. On such approaches it is often held that the intuition that future persons can be harmed by decisions made prior to their existence is (...) mistaken as identity is a most fragile thing with even the smallest differences in the conditions under which we procreate affecting not the interests of distinct future persons, but the identities of those who will come to exist in the future. Within this paper I reject this view, holding that a subscription to these two accounts need not result in the conclusion that virtually all acts relating to possible persons are permitted. Further, I argue that such accounts may in fact allow a great deal more scope for the determination of prenatal harms than accounts of personal identity that privilege physical features. Finally, by interpreting claims regarding causal identity such as Parfit’s Time Dependence Claim in terms of Counterpart Theory I suggest that a solution to the non-identity problem can be found in the acceptance of, as relevant in prenatal cases, three kinds of objective similarity relations: Biological, Environmental and Decisional counterpart relations. (shrink)

This paper is about the relations between the contents of our beliefs and the contents of the sentences used in the that‐clauses of our belief ascriptions. Loar has argued that any inference from sameness or difference of correct belief ascription to sameness or difference of belief content is illegitimate. In contrast, I defend a requirement (the Logic Requirement) that the logical properties of the sentence embedded in a belief ascription should, on that occasion of use, match the logical properties of (...) the belief content ascribed. (shrink)

Quine (1960, Word and object. Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, ch. 2) claims that there are a variety of equally good schemes for translating or interpreting ordinary talk. ‘Rabbit’ might be taken to divide its reference over rabbits, over temporal slices of rabbits, or undetached parts of rabbits, without significantly affecting which sentences get classified as true and which as false. This is the basis of his famous ‘argument from below’ to the conclusion that there can be no fact of the matter (...) as to how reference is to be divided. Putative counterexamples to Quine’s claim have been put forward in the past (see especially Evans 1975; 1975, Journal of Philosophy, LXXII(13), 343–362. Reprinted in McDowell (Ed.), Gareth Evans: Collected papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.), and various patches have been suggested (e.g. Wright (1997, The indeterminacy of translation. In C. Wright & B. Hale (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of language (pp. 397–426). Oxford: Blackwell)). One lacuna in this literature is that one does not find any detailed presentation of what exactly these interpretations are supposed to be. Drawing on contemporary literature on persistence, the present paper sets out detailed semantic treatments for fragments of English, whereby predicates such as ‘rabbit’ divide their reference over four-dimensional continuants (Quine’s rabbits), instantaneous temporal slices of those continuants (Quine’s rabbit-slices) and the simple elements which compose those slices (undetached rabbit parts) respectively. Once we have the systematic interpretations on the table, we can get to work evaluating them. (shrink)

Externalism is widely endorsed within contemporary philosophy of mind and language. Despite this, it is far from clear how the externalist thesis should be construed and, indeed, why we should accept it. In this entry I distinguish and examine three central types of externalism: what I call foundational externalism, externalist semantics, and psychological externalism. I suggest that the most plausible version of externalism is not in fact a very radical thesis and does not have any terribly interesting implications for philosophy (...) of mind, whereas the more radical and interesting versions of externalism are quite difficult to support. (shrink)

Since Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke's first attacks on traditional, descriptivist theories of natural kind terms, it has become customary to speak of the ‘Putnam-Kripke’ view of meaning and reference. This article argues that this is a mistake, and that Putnam's account of natural kind terms is importantly different from that of Kripke. In particular, Putnam has from the very start been sceptical of Kripke's modal claims, and in later papers he explicitly rejects the proposal that theoretical identity statements are (...) metaphysically necessary (if true). I suggest that this is wholly in line with Putnam's earlier, Quine-inspired writings on general terms, and his preoccupation with the philosophy of science. Moreover, I argue that the picture of general terms that emerges from Putnam's writings is more plausible than that suggested by Kripke. However, contrary to Putnam, I also suggest that Putnam's later views on natural kinds and natural kind terms do not support standard Twin Earth externalism. (shrink)

At the time that Quine wrote "Two Dogmas" an attack on analyticity was considered a simultaneous attack on the very idea of necessary truth. This all changed with Kripke's revival of a non-epistemic, non-linguistic notion of necessity. My paper discusses the question whether we can take Kripke one step further and free analyticity from its epistemic ties, thereby reinstating a notion of analyticity that is immune to Quine's attack, and compatible with his epistemic holism. I discuss this question by examining (...) Tyler Burge's claim that truths of meaning depend on features of the external environment and are a posteriori. I argue that although Burge's construal of analyticity circumvents Quine's objections, it is not well-motivated philosophically and has problematic implications. Kripke's strategy with respect to necessity, I conclude, is not easily transferable to analyticity. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish three alternatives to the functionalist account of qualitative states such as pain. The physicalist-functionalist holds that (1) there could be subjects functionally equivalent to us whose mental states differed in their qualitative character from ours, (2) there could be subjects functionally equivalent to us whose mental states lacked qualitative character altogether and (3) there could not be subjects like us in all objective respects whose qualitative states differed from ours. The physicalist-functionalist holds (1) and (3) (...) but denies (2). The transcendentalist holds (1) and (2) and denies (3). I argue that both versions of physicalist-functionalism inherit the problem of property dualism which originally helped to motivate functionalist theories of mind. I also argue that neither version of physicalist-functionalism can distinguish in a principled way between those neurophysiological properties of a subject which are relevant to the qualitative character of that subject's mental states and those which are not. I conclude that the only alternative to a functionalist account of qualitative states is a transcendentalist account and that this alternative is not likely to appeal to the critics of functionalism. (shrink)

A number of emotion theorists hold that emotions are perceptions of value. In this paper I say why they are wrong. I claim that in the case of emotion there is nothing that can provide the perceptual modality that is needed if the perceptual theory is to succeed (where by ‘perceptual modality’ I mean the particular manner in which something is perceived). I argue that the five sensory modalities are not possible candidates for providing us with ‘emotional perception’. But I (...) also say why the usual candidate offered – namely feeling or affectivity – does not give us the sought-after perceptual modality. I conclude that as there seems to be nothing else that can provide the needed perceptual modality, we should reject the perceptual theory of emotion.1. (shrink)

According to phenomenal conservatism, seemings can provide prima facie justification for beliefs. In order to fully assess phenomenal conservatism, it is important to understand the nature of seemings. Two views are that (SG) seemings are a sui generis propositional attitude, and that (D2B) seemings are nothing over and above dispositions to believe. Proponents of (SG) reject (D2B) in large part by providing four distinct objections against (D2B). First, seemings have a distinctive phenomenology, but dispositions to believe do not. Second, seemings (...) can provide a non-trivial explanation for dispositions to believe, which wouldn’t be possible if seemings were dispositions to believe. Third, there are some dispositions to believe that are not seemings. Fourth, there are instances of seemings which are not dispositions to believe. I consider and reject each of these objections. The first and third objections rely on a misunderstanding of (D2B). The second objection fails because there are contexts in which an appeal to a previously unknown identity can provide an interesting explanation. The fourth objection overlooks the possibility of finkish and masked dispositions, phenomena which are widely accepted in the dispositions literature. I conclude that (D2B) escapes these common objections unscathed. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Les actualistes ne partagent pas tous les mêmes intuitions quant aux mondes possibles. Cet article caractérise les intuitions platoniciennes et aristotéliciennes, et explore les conséquences pour l'actualiste d'accepter le platonisme ou l'aristotélisme. Les arguments en faveur de la conception aristotélicienne tiennent la route, mais pour répondre à certains problèmes concernant la vérité des négatives existentielles, l'actualisme aristotélicien doit rejeter l'actualisme des propriétés, c'est-à-dire la conception que seules les entités existantes ont des propriétés. Puisque les entités non existantes ont certaines (...) propriétés, l'actualisme aristotélicien sans actualisme des propriétés est la meilleure approche aux modalités. (shrink)

This article is an overview of some of the contemporary debates in philosophy of chemistry. We discuss the nature of chemical substances, the individuation of chemical kinds, the relationship between chemistry and physics, and the nature of the chemical bond.

Identity, we're told, is the binary relation that every object bears to itself, and to itself only. But how can a relation be binary if it never relates two objects? This puzzled Russell and led Wittgenstein to declare that identity is not a relation between objects. The now standard view is that Wittgenstein's position is untenable, and that worries regarding the relational status of identity are the result of confusion. I argue that the rejection of identity as a binary relation (...) is perfectly tenable. To this end, I outline and defend a logical framework that is not committed to an objectual identity relation but is nevertheless expressively equivalent to first-order logic with identity. After it has thus been shown that there is no indispensability argument for objectual identity, I argue that we have good reasons for doubting the existence of such a relation, and rebut a number of attempts at discrediting these reasons. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to challenge some received assumptions about the logical analysis of modal English, and to show that these assumptions are crucial to certain debates in current philosophy of language. Specifically, I will argue that the standard analysis in terms of quantified modal logic mistakenly fudges important grammatical distinctions, and that the validity of Kripke's modal argument against description theories of proper names crucially depends on ensuing equivocations.

Recent criticisms of non-reductive accounts of color assume that the only arguments for such accounts are a priori arguments. I put forward a posteriori arguments for a non-reductive account of colors which avoids those criticisms.

It is argued that philosophers who adopt the perdurance theory of persistence and who subscribe to the principle of Unrestricted Mereological Composition (UMC) are in a position to regard “Phosphorus is Hesperus” as false.

Kadri Vihvelin, in "What time travelers cannot do" (Philos Stud 81: 315-330, 1996), argued that "no time traveler can kill the baby who in fact is her younger self, because (V1) "if someone would fail to do something, no matter how hard or how many times she tried, then she cannot do it", and (V2) if a time traveler tried to kill her baby self, she would always fail. Theodore Sider (Philos Stud 110: 115-138, 2002) criticized Vihvelin's argument, and Ira (...) Kiourti (Philos Stud 139: 343-352, 2008) criticized both Vihvelin's argument and Sider's critique. I present a critique of Vihvelin's argument different from both Sider's and Kiourti's critiques: I argue in a novel way that both V1 and V2 are false. Since Vihvelin's argument might be understood as providing a challenge to the possibility of time travel, if my critique succeeds then time travel survives such a challenge unscathed. (shrink)

David Lewis (1980) proposed the Principal Principle (PP) and a “reformulation” which later on he called ‘OP’ (Old Principle). Reacting to his belief that these principles run into trouble, Lewis (1994) concluded that they should be replaced with the New Principle (NP). This conclusion left Lewis uneasy, because he thought that an inverse form of NP is “quite messy”, whereas an inverse form of OP, namely the simple and intuitive PP, is “the key to our concept of chance”. I argue (...) that, even if OP should be discarded, PP need not be. Moreover, far from being messy, an inverse form of NP is a simple and intuitive Conditional Principle (CP). Finally, both PP and CP are special cases of a General Principle (GP); it follows that so are PP and NP, which are thus compatible rather than competing. (shrink)

My main aim in this paper is to clarify the concepts of referential success and of referential continuity that are so crucial to the scientific realism debate. I start by considering the three dominant theories of reference and the intuitions that motivate each of them. Since several intuitions cited in support of one theory conflict with intuitions cited in support of another something has to give way. The traditional policy has been to reject all intuitions that clash with a chosen (...) theory. A more radical policy, tied to some experimental philosophers, has called for the rejection of any evidential role for intuitions. I explore a largely ignored third alternative, i.e. saving intuitions (and their evidential role) even when they are at odds. To accommodate conflicting intuitions different sets of internally consistent (yet externally inconsistent) intuitions are taken to lend credence to different concepts of reference. In the current context, this means that the concepts of referential success and referential continuity are not monolithic. They are what I call 'polylithic'. This paper is as much about meta-philosophical concerns with the role of intuitions as it is about reference and the scientific realism debate. Regarding the former I hope that a blueprint will emerge for similar projects in other philosophical domains. Regarding the latter, I hope that polylithicity helps disentangle claims about referential success and continuity in the scientific realism debate by making perspicuous which concepts are best equipped to evaluate the realist's epistemic claims against the historical record of science. (shrink)

Along with a well-honoured tradition, we will accept that intentionality is at least a property a thought holds necessarily, i.e., in all possible worlds that contain it; more specifically, a necessary relation, namely the relation of existential dependence of the thought on its intentional object. Yet we will first of all try to show that intentionality is more than that. For we will claim that intentionality is an essential property of the thought, namely a property whose predication to the thought (...) is true in virtue of the identity, or nature, of such a thought. More particularly, for us intentionality will again be a relation, yet a relation of ontological dependence of the thought on its intentional object; specifically, the relation for the thought of being constituted by its object. Moreover, we will try to show that if intentionality is such a constitutive relation for the thought that has it, certain metaphysical consequences ensue. First, an objectual thought, a thought whose content basically consists in its intentional object, is nothing but that object in a certain cogitative modality, or, which is the same, as playing a certain motivational role for the subject entertaining the thought itself (at a certain time). Second, if an objectual thought is nothing but an intentional object in a cogitative modality, such a thought, not only as a type, but also as a token, is an abstract entity. More specifically, an objectual thought-type, an abstract object par excellence, is indeed instantiated by objectual thought-tokens which are again abstract particulars, yet of a specific kind: namely, tropes of a relational sort depending for their existence on their bearers (and possibly also on their temporal location). (shrink)

In his (2001a) and in some related papers, Tim Crane has maintained that intentional objects are schematic entities, in the sense that, insofar as being an intentional object is not a genuine metaphysical category, qua objects of thought intentional objects have no particular nature. This approach to intentionalia is the metaphysical counterpart of the later Husserl's ontological approach to the same entities, according to which qua objects of thought intentionalia are indifferent to existence. But to buy a metaphysically deflationary approach (...) does not mean to buy an ontologically deflationary approach, according to which we have to accept all the intentional objects there apparently are. Being metaphysically deflationary on intentionalia rather means that from the ontological point of view one must really allow only for those intentionalia for which one is entitled to say that there are such things; typically, for which an ontological proof is available. From metaphysical schematism plus conditional, or partial, ontological committment to intentionalia, further interesting consequences follow. First, this theoretical combination allows one to deal with the ‘too-many entities’ problem (may one fail to accept an ontological proof for an entity of a given kind if she thinks that the entity we would have to be committed to is an entity of another kind?). Second, it allows one to deal with the ‘genuinely true report’ problem (how is it that if we exercise mindreading with respect to a somehow deluded person, we want our reports to come out as really, not merely fictionally, true?). (shrink)

Abstract. Contrary to proposals that seek a harmonious integration of “science and religion” or “science and spirituality,” I argue that contemporary scientific and philosophical work at the mind-brain interface gives us reason to be skeptical of many of the claims found within religious spiritualities. Religious spiritualities typically presume commitment to strong versions of metaphysical dualism, while contemporary mind science gives us every reason to think that the mind is the brain. If materialism is true, what becomes of spirituality? Materialism or (...) naturalism is widely understood to be an anti-religious position with corrosive effects on morality. I correct this impression, arguing that materialism offers a compelling account of moral objectivity and is fully compatible with an appreciation for many aspects of religion. I further suggest that nothing precludes dialogue and conversation between naturalists and religious believers. (shrink)

According to Donald Davidson, language is social in that only a person who has interacted linguistically with another could have a language. This paper is a discussion of Davidson’s argument in defence of that claim. I argue that he has not succeeded in establishing it, but that he has provided many of the materials out of which a successful argument could be built. Chief among these are the claims that some version of externalism about meaning is true, that possession of (...) a language requires possession of the concept of objectivity, and hence that the issue here concerns the identity of the external event that makes possible possession of the concept of objectivity. I end by presenting some reasons for thinking that only interpersonal linguistic interaction could play this role. (shrink)

The phenomenal properties of conscious mental states happen to be exclusively accessible from the first-person perspective. Consequently, some philosophers consider their existence to be incompatible with materialist metaphysics. In this paper I criticise one particular argument that is based on the idea that for something to be real it must (at least in principle) be accessible from an intersubjective perspective. I argue that the exclusively subjective access to phenomenal contents can be explained by the very particular nature of the epistemological (...) relation holding between a subject and his own mental states. Accordingly, this subjectivity does not compel us to deny the possibility that phenomenal contents are ontologically objective properties. First, I present the general form of the argument that I will discuss. Second, I show that this argument makes use of a criterion of reality that is not applicable to the case of subjective experience. Third, I discuss a plausible objection and give an argument for rejecting observation models of self-knowledge of phenomenal contents. These models fall prey to the homunculus illusion. (shrink)

Investigations of the function of consciousness in human information processing have focused mainly on two questions: (1) where does consciousness enter into the information processing sequence and (2) how does conscious processing differ from preconscious and unconscious processing. Input analysis is thought to be initially "preconscious," "pre-attentive," fast, involuntary, and automatic. This is followed by "conscious," "focal-attentive" analysis which is relatively slow, voluntary, and flexible. It is thought that simple, familiar stimuli can be identified preconsciously, but conscious processing is needed (...) to identify complex, novel stimuli. Conscious processing has also been thought to be necessary for choice, learning and memory, and the organization of complex, novel responses, particularly those requiring planning, reflection, or creativity. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Cocchiarella’s theory of reference. In conceptual realism, there are two central distinctions regarding reference: first, between active and deactivated use of referential expressions, and, second, between using referential expressions with and without existential presupposition. Cocchiarella’s normative restrictions on the existential presuppositions of reference lead to postulating two fundamentally different kinds of objects in conceptual realism: realia or concrete objects, on the one hand, and abstract intensional objects or nonexistents, on the other. According to (...) Cocchiarella, nonexistents can be referred to only without existential presuppositions. However, referring to nonexistents with existential presuppositions is an ordinary human practice. To account for this fact, Cocchiarella’s normative theory of reference should be supplemented by a descriptive account of referring. (shrink)

It is common lore that standard, Kripke-style semantics for quantified modal logic is incompatible with the view that no individual may belong to more than one possible world, a view that seems to require a counterpart-theoretic semantics instead. Strictly speaking, however, this thought is wrong-headed. This note explains why.

Kripke has argued that definitions of units of measurements provide examples of statements that are both contingent and a priori. In this paper I argue that definitions of units of measurement are intended to be stipulations of what Kripke calls "theoretical identities": a stipulation that two terms will have the same rigid designation. Hence such a definition is both a priori and necessary. The necessity arises because such definitions appeal to natural kind properties only, which on Kripke's account are necessary.

If the wedding had taken place an hour later, it would have been rained out. When we make counterfactual claims like this, we indicate that events are not terribly fragile things. That is, we typically think of events as particulars which can survive small changes in nearby possible worlds, such that one and the same event could have occurred under slightly different circumstances. I argue, however, that any account of “non-fragile” event individuation is subject to what is known as the (...) recycling problem. This was a problem initially raised against origin essentialism, or the view that individuals are individuated by their origins, and is roughly the difficulty that arises in cases where the criteria of individuation for a particular individual are duplicated. I then examine a potential solution, which takes its cue from predecessor essentialism, the leading response to the recycling problem in the origins literature. I argue that the predecessor essentialist’s solution yields unacceptably counter-intuitive results when applied to the recycling problem for event individuation, and conclude that, if events have qualitative individuating essences, then they must be—contrary to intuition—modally fragile entities. I then suggest three alternatives to qualitative essentialism which could accommodate our intuitions about the modal non-fragility of events. (shrink)

In this paper, a cognate of the problem of divine foreknowledge is introduced: the problem of the prophet’s foreknowledge. The latter cannot be solved referring to Ockhamism—the doctrine that divine foreknowledge could, at least in principle, be compatible with human freedom because God’s beliefs about future actions are merely soft facts, rather than hard facts about the past. Under the assumption that if Ockhamism can solve the problem of divine foreknowledge then it should also yield a solution to the problem (...) of the prophet’s foreknowledge, it is concluded that Ockhamism fails. (shrink)

Modal rationalism includes the thesis that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary possibility. Modal monism is the thesis that the space of logically possible worlds is coextensive with the space of metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper I explore the relation between the two theses. My aim is to show that the former thesis implies the latter thesis, and that problems with the latter make the former implausible as a complete picture of the epistemology of modality. My argument explores the (...) relation between logical modality and metaphysical modality. (shrink)

Some recent discussions of a priori knowledge, taking their departure from Kant's characterization of such knowledge as being absolutely independent of experience, have concluded that while one might delineate a concept of a priori knowledge, it fails to have any application as any purported case of such knowledge can be undermined by suitably recalcitrant experiences. In response, certain defenders of apriority have claimed that a priori justification only requires that a belief be positively dependent on no experience. In this paper, (...) I begin by showing how the exchange of arguments between the disputants comes down, in the end, to no more than a display of conflicting intuitions. I shall then provide a diagnosis explaining how our explication of a priori justification depends on our standards for applying the term 'a priori' with this, in turn, reflecting our prior intentions as to whether we are willing to allow the existence of such warrants. I shall further argue that the claim that such knowledge can be affected by subversive experience is not entirely compatible with the spirit of apriority. Finally I conclude by making some methodological remarks about the prospects of a positive characterization of a priori knowledge by comparing it to the concept of knowledge. (shrink)

We often decide whether a state of affairs is possible by trying to mentally depict a scenario where the state in question obtains . These mental acts seem to provide us with an epistemic route to the space of possibilities. The problem this raises is whether conceivability judgments provide justification-conferring grounds for the ensuing possibility-claims . Although the question has a long history, contemporary interest in it was, to a large extent, prompted by Kripke's utilization of modal intuitions in the (...) course of propounding certain influential theses in the philosophy of language and mind. The interest has been given a further boost by the recent two-dimensional approach to the Kripkean framework. In this paper, I begin by providing a detailed examination of a most recent attempt to defend the thesis and argue that it is unsuccessful. This is followed by presenting my own gloss on Kripke's explanation of the illusions of contingency and I close by raising a general problem intended to undermine the prospects for a successful defense of the thesis. (shrink)

Philosophers often explain what could be the case in terms of what is, in fact, the case at one possible world or another. They may differ in what they take possible worlds to be or in their gloss of what is for something to be the case at a possible world. Still, they stand united by the threat of paradox. A family of paradoxes akin to the set-theoretic antinomies seem to allow one to derive a contradiction from apparently plausible principles. (...) Some of them concern the interaction between propositions and worlds, and they appear to afford the means to map classes of propositions into propositions – or, likewise, classes of worlds into worlds – in a one-to-one fashion that leads to contradiction. Yet another family of paradoxes threaten the view that whatever could exist does, in fact, exist, which is in line with modal realism, for example. This article aims to survey and identify the source of each family of paradoxes as well as to outline some responses to them. (shrink)

This work will focus on some aspects of descriptive names. The New Theory of Reference, in line with Kripke, takes descriptive names to be proper names. I will argue in this paper that descriptive names and certain theory in reference to them, even when it disagrees with the New Theory of Reference, can shed light on our understanding of (some) non-existence statements. I define the concept of descriptive name for hypothesised object (DNHO). My thesis being that DNHOs are, as I (...) will specify, descriptions: a proposition expressed by the utterance ‘n is F’, where ‘n’ is a DNHO, is not singular at all; it is a descriptive proposition. To sum up, concerning proper names, the truth lies closer to the New Theory of Reference, but descriptivism is not altogether false. As for DNHOs descriptivism is, in some cases, the right fit. (shrink)

This paper deals with one of the basic philosophical questions in modern cosmology: can the so-called Anthropic Principle , considered as an alternative to the classical teleology of creation, be an adequate explanation of the evidence that our universe is fine-tuned for the emergence of life and consciousness. The main problem with this principle is not its presumed teleology, as it is sometimes wrongly supposed, but quite the contrary: its intention to avoid teleological explanations by including the existence of many (...) universes ( multiverse ) into extended cosmological models. After having compared logical and cosmological many-worlds concepts, this paper reaches the conclusion that the ontological reality of the multiverse is an even more problematic presupposition than some properly revised version of teleological causality. This in itself does not imply the classical theistic explanation of creation, since it also yields a pantheistic explanation of the emergence of life and consciousness in our universe. (shrink)