The critiques of The Birth of Ethics (henceforth BE) that my co-symposiasts have provided are of the very highest quality and I have benefitted enormously from thinking about them and considering h...

How can expressivists make sense of the practice of communication? If communication is not a joint enterprise aimed at sharing information about the world, why do we engage in communication the way we do? Call this *the problem of communication*. Starting from basic assumptions about the rationality of speakers and the nature of assertion, we argue that speakers engaging in conversation about normative matters must presuppose that there is a unique normative standard on which the attitudes of conversational participants ought (...) to converge. This gives the beginning of a solution to the problem of communication on behalf of expressivists. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 2, Page 348-364, April 2022.

It is generally assumed that if it is possible to believe that p without believing that q, then there is some difference between the object of the thought that p and the object of the thought that q. This assumption is challenged in the present paper, opening the way to an account of epistemic opacity that improves on existing accounts, not least because it casts doubt on various arguments that attempt to derive startling ontological conclusions from seemingly innocent epistemic premises.

This paper presents novel data regarding the logophoric pronoun in Ewe. We show that, contrary to what had been assumed in the absence of the necessary fieldwork, Ewe logophors are not obligatorily interpreted de se. We discuss the prima facie rather surprising nature of this discovery given the assumptions that de se construals arise via binding of the pronoun by an abstraction operator in the left periphery of the clausal complement of an attitude predicate, and that logophors are elements that (...) are obligatorily bound by such abstractors. We show that this approach can be reconciled with these facts given the additional assumption that elements that are ‘de se’ bound can interact with the concept generator variables posited by Percus and Sauerland to derive de re interpretations of embedded nominals. The proposed set-up has consequences for our understanding of puzzles raised by Heim and Sharvit concerning binding-theoretic effects with de re elements, and for the derivation of the obligatorily de se interpretation of controlled PRO. (shrink)

The prequel to this paper has discussed the relation between knowledge and skill and introduced the topic of the relationship between skill and know how. This sequel continues the discussion. First, I survey the recent debate on intellectualism about knowing how (§1-3). Then, I tackle the question as to whether intellectualism (and anti-intellectualism) about skill and intellectualism (and anti-intellectualism) about know how fall or stand together (§4-5).

This essay is divided into two parts. In the first part (§2), I introduce the idea of practical meaning by looking at a certain kind of procedural systems — the motor system — that play a central role in computational explanations of motor behavior. I argue that in order to give a satisfactory account of the content of the representations computed by motor systems (motor commands), we need to appeal to a distinctively practical kind of meaning. Defending the explanatory relevance (...) of semantic properties in a computationalist explanation of motor behavior, my argument concludes that practical meanings play a central role in an adequate psychological theory of motor skill. In the second part of this essay (§3), I generalize and clarify the notion of practical meaning, and I defend the intelligibility of practical meanings against an important objection. (shrink)

Traditional procedures for rational updating fail when it comes to self-locating opinions, such as your credences about where you are and what time it is. This paper develops an updating procedure for rational agents with self-locating beliefs. In short, I argue that rational updating can be factored into two steps. The first step uses information you recall from your previous self to form a hypothetical credence distribution, and the second step changes this hypothetical distribution to reflect information you have genuinely (...) learned as time has passed. While the second step resembles traditional procedures of updating by conditionalization, the first is best understood by analogy to traditional models of how agents transmit self-locating opinions through ordinary interpersonal communication. (shrink)

A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God ‘becomes’ incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists ‘outside’ of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this ‘atemporalist’ view is that a timeless being cannot undergo intrinsic change—for this requires the being to be one way at one time, and a different way at a later time. How, then, can we understand the central Christian claim (...) that the Son of God ‘becomes’ human? This paper examines one such explanation, drawn from a brief remark by Brian Leftow: the Word takes on flesh by exhibiting modal variation with regards to the incarnation. On this account, a timeless God ‘becomes’ incarnate simply due to variation across logical space: at some possible worlds He is incarnate and at others He is not. Modal variation need not, therefore, require temporality: it only requires variation across possible worlds. I draw out the problems with Leftow’s modal claim under the heads of Ersatzism and Genuine Modal Realism about possible worlds, respectively. I argue that in both instances, Leftow’s desired cross–worldly variation of the Son’s incarnation cannot be achieved. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

As you face a life-defining change, you might ask yourself: Who will I become? This can be understood as a question about the nature and character of your future life, asked from your first person, or subjective, perspective. The nature and character of your conscious, first person, lived experience is a defining constituent of what it is like to be you. Framed this way, knowing the nature of your future lived experience is a way of knowing your future self. In (...) this paper, I explore this way of understanding one’s self and its implications for understanding life-defining changes in high-stakes contexts. My exploration of this way of understanding one’s self highlights the role of experience in grasping perceptual truths, and the importance of imagination, empathy, and testimony in self-understanding and prediction. (shrink)

Can epistemic luck be captured by modal conditions such as safety from error? This paper answers ‘no’. First, an old problem is cast in a new light: it is argued that the trivial satisfaction associated with necessary truths and accidentally robust propositions is a symptom of a more general disease. Namely, epistemic luck but not safety from error is hyperintensional. Second, it is argued that as a consequence the standard solution to deal with this worry, namely the invocation of content (...) variation, fails. Third, it is considered whether the condition can serve some restricted theoretical role; the hypothesis is rejected. Finally, it is tentatively suggested that epistemic luck’s hyperintensionality derives from its being an explanatory notion, and an analogy is drawn with failures of probabilstic conceptions of explanation in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper investigates how regular pronominal typology interfaces with de se and de re interpretations, and highlights a correlation between strong pronouns and de re interpretations, and weak pronouns and de se interpretations. In order to illustrate this correlation, I contrast different pronominal forms within a single language, null versus overt pronouns in Kutchi Gujarati, and clitic versus full pronouns in Austrian Bavarian. I argue that the data presented here provide cross-linguistic comparative support for the idea of a dedicated de (...) se LF as argued for by Percus and Sauerland. (shrink)

This paper investigates how regular pronominal typology interfaces with de se and de re interpretations, and highlights a correlation between strong pronouns and de re interpretations, and weak pronouns and de se interpretations. In order to illustrate this correlation, I contrast different pronominal forms within a single language, null versus overt pronouns in Kutchi Gujarati, and clitic versus full pronouns in Austrian Bavarian. I argue that the data presented here provide cross-linguistic comparative support for the idea of a dedicated de (...) se LF as argued for by Percus and Sauerland. (shrink)

Reductionist realist accounts of certain entities, such as the natural numbers and propositions, have been taken to be fatally undermined by what we may call the problem of arbitrary identification. The problem is that there are multiple and equally adequate reductions of the natural numbers to sets (see Benacerraf, 1965), as well as of propositions to unstructured or structured entities (see, e.g., Bealer, 1998; King, Soames, & Speaks, 2014; Melia, 1992). This paper sets out to solve the problem by canvassing (...) what we may call the arbitrary reference strategy. The main claims of such strategy are 2. First, we do not know which objects are the referents of proposition and numerical terms since their reference is fixed arbitrarily. Second, our ignorance of which object is picked out as the referent does not entail that no object is referred to by the relevant expression. Different articulations of the strategy are assessed, and a new one is defended. (shrink)

In Our Knowledge of the Internal World, Robert Stalnaker describes two opposed perspectives on the relation between the internal and the external. According to one, the internal world is taken as given and the external world as problematic, and according to the other, the external world is taken as given and the internal world as problematic. Analytic philosophy moved from the former to the latter, from problems of world-construction to problems of self-locating beliefs. I argue in this paper that these (...) problems are equivalent: both arise because experience and objective, external facts jointly underdetermine their relation. Both can be seen as a problem of expressive completeness; of the internal language in the former case, and of the non-indexical language in the second. (shrink)

I suggest that the theories of remembering one finds in the philosophy of memory literature are best characterised as theories principally operating at three different levels of inquiry. Simulationist views are theories of the psychofunctional process type remembering. Causalist views are theories of referential remembering. Epistemic views are theories of successful remembering. Insofar as there is conflict between these theories, it is a conflict of integration rather than—as widely presented—head‐on disagreement. Viewed in this way, we can see the previous awareness (...) condition and preservationism as principles applying at only some of the corresponding levels of inquiry. Where either principle has been rejected, it is, I claim, due to arguments which slip between these different levels. While the view of the landscape I offer does not dissolve ongoing disputes about the nature of remembering, it clarifies the dialectical rules of engagement, helping to clear the path for future, collaborative progress to be made. The view enables us to see less conflict in the recent philosophy of memory literature than there seems at face value to be. (shrink)

This paper defends Lewis’ influential treatment of de se attitudes from recent criticism to the effect that a key explanatory notion—self-ascription—goes unexplained. It is shown that Lewis’ treatment can be reconstructed in a way which provides clear responses. This sheds light on the explanatory ambitions of those engaged in Lewis’ project.

It is widely supposed that if there is to be a plausible connection between the truth of a de re attitude report about a subject and that subject’s possession of a singular thought, then ‘acquaintance’-style requirements on singular thought must be rejected. I show that this belief rests on poorly motivated claims about how we talk about the attitudes. I offer a framework for propositional attitude reports which provides both attractive solutions to recalcitrant puzzle cases and the key to preserving (...) acquaintance constraints. The upshot is that there is an independently motivated response to the principal argument against acquaintance. (shrink)

The notorious problem of the many makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that almost coincident with any ordinary object are a vast number of near-indiscernible objects. As Unger was aware in his presentation of the problem, this abundance raises a concern as to how—and even whether—we achieve singular thought about ordinary objects. This paper presents, clarifies, and defends a view which reconciles a plenitudinous conception of ordinary objects with our having singular thoughts about those objects. Indeed, this strategy has (...) independent application in the case of singular thoughts about other putatively ‘abundant’ phenomena, such as locations or lumps of matter. In essence, singular thought-vehicles need not express just one singular content. If there are many objects, one’s singular thought-vehicle may express as many thought-contents. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss two influential pictures of communication and the relation between them. One picture holds that successful communication requires identity of content: The speaker has a belief that she expresses with her utterance, and the hearer acquires a belief with the same content by understanding the utterance. The second picture was proposed by Lewis in his classic work Convention and then refined in “Languages and Language.” It sees communication as coordination among speakers—a technical notion that Lewis draws (...) from game theory. Samuel Cumming has recently provided an elegant and insightful synthesis of the two pictures, arguing that Lewisian coordination among speakers is in fact a form of content identity. In this paper, my negative goal is to argue against Cumming’s attempt to construe coordination as content identity, showing that it yields incorrect predictions about certain cases of successful communication. My positive goal is to show how we can avoid Cumming’s problematic interpretation of coordination and still do justice to the relevant data within a coordination-based framework. (shrink)

This article deals with the semantics of “double-access” sentences. They are defined as English sentences which have a past tense morpheme in the matrix clause and a present tense morpheme in a subordinate clause in the immediate scope of the matrix past tense. They receive a very peculiar interpretation, which we will refer to as a “double-access interpretation.” The episode described in the embedded clause makes reference to two times: the time referred to by the matrix predicate and the utterance (...) time of the whole sentence. Previous studies on this construction are largely descriptive and do not attempt to analyze it formally, with one important exception. Abusch (1991) addresses the problems connected with the construction and proposes that double-access interpretations involvede re attitudes about intervals. Her proposal contains an important insight and provides one possible account of the double-access construction. My proposal was independently developed at approximately the same time as Abusch's and offers an alternative explanation for the phenomena. I consider a series of hypotheses and conclude that double-access readings involvede re attitude reports about state individuals. This account is couched in an eventuality-based framework and employs the techniques proposed by Cresswell and von Stechow (1982). In order to yield the desired reading, the tense must first adjoin to the complement S, then to the matrix S, leaving two traces in the process. (shrink)

A rather promising value theory for environmental philosophers combines the well-known fitting attitude (FA) account of value with the rather less well-known account of value as richness. If the value of an entity is proportional to its degree of richness (which has been cashed out in terms of unified complexity and organic unity), then since natural entities, such as species or ecosystems, exhibit varying degrees of richness quite independently of what we happen to feel about them, they also possess differing (...) degrees of mind-independent and subject-independent value. In particular, their value is not dependent on the desires or preferences of humans. The fitting attitudes account of value, at least as it is standardly developed, demands isomorphic evaluative responses on the part of all valuers. In particular, it entails that all valuers should have isomorphic preferences. But this seems absurd. I consider three different strategies with which the fitting attitude theorist can deflect this challenge. The first makes use of an account of non-standard value relations in terms of permissible preference orderings. The second appeals to value appearances and the associated notions of value distance and value perspective. The third involves an account of the ultimate bearers of value as properties, rather than as propositions or states of affairs. These strategies are not all mutually incompatible. While it isn’t possible to combine the first and second strategies, it is possible to combine the first and third strategies, and also to combine the second and the third. (shrink)

Robert Stalnaker has argued that mathematical information is information about the sentences and expressions of mathematics. I argue that this metalinguistic account is open to a variant of Alonzo Church's translation objection and that Stalnaker's attempt to get around this objection is not successful. If correct, this tells not only against Stalnaker's account of mathematical truths, but against any metalinguistic account of truths that are both necessary and informative.

Unified theories of de se attitudes and de dicto attitudes, along the lines of David Lewis’s proposal, face a problem. Whether or not they are adequate for representing beliefs, they can misrepresent the content of many of our desires, which rank possible outcomes in which the agent with the desire does not exist. These desires are shown to play a role in the rational explanation of action, and recognising them is important in our understanding of ourselves. Lewis’s account of attitudes (...) de dicto and de se is shown to be unsatisfactory, and the lessons learned are applied more broadly. (shrink)

Abstract Impossible fictions have lessons to teach us about linguistic representation, about mental content and concepts, and about uses of conceivability in epistemology. An adequate theory of impossible fictions may require theories of meaning that can distinguish between different impossibilities; a theory of conceptual truth that allows us to make useful sense of a variety of conceptual falsehoods; and a theory of our understanding of necessity and possibility that permits impossibilities to be conceived. After discussing these questions, strategies for resisting (...) the picture of impossible fictions presented here and in Part I are discussed. Perhaps apparently impossible fictions describe possibilities after all; or perhaps impossible fictions are all trivial; or perhaps some apparently intelligible impossible fictions are unintelligible after all. (shrink)

According to one tradition in the philosophy of language and mind, the content of a psychological attitude can be characterized by a set of possibilities. On the classic version of this account, advocated by Hintikka (1962) and Stalnaker (1984) among others, the possibilities in question are possible worlds, ways the universe might be. Lewis (1979, 1983a) proposed an alternative to this account, according to which the possibilities in question are possible individuals or centered worlds, ways an individual might be. The (...) motivation for the centered worlds theory has primarily to do with self-locating – or de se – attitudes. The focus of this paper is on the less-discussed question of how other-locating – or de re – attitudes ought to be treated within this framework. Most advocates of what we might call the modal approach to attitudes, Stalnaker and Lewis included, offer some kind of descriptivist solution to the well-known problems that other-locating attitudes raise. There are intramural differences between Stalnaker, Lewis, and other modal theorists (e.g. two-dimensionalists) on a number of issues: on the precise nature of the descriptivism involved, how attitude content relates to the asserted content of the sentences we utter, and on the proper semantic treatment of attitude reports. I pass over these differences to focus on a problem common to these various approaches: all face a problem when it comes to characterizing the contents of counterfactual attitudes like imagining, dreaming, and wishing. (shrink)

This paper is about the relationship between two questions: the question of what the objects of assertion are and the question of how best to theorise about ‘shifty’ phenomena like modality and tense. I argue that the relationship between these two questions is less direct than is often supposed. I then explore the consequences of this for a number of debates in the philosophy of language.

In his book Mental Files , Francois Recanati develops a theory of mind and language based on the idea that Fregean senses should be identified with ‘mental files’, mental representations whose primary function is to store information about objects. I discuss three aspects of Recanati’s book. The first concerns his use of acquaintance relations in individuating mental files, and what this means for ‘file dynamics’. The second concerns his comments on a theory that I have elsewhere advocated, the ‘sequenced worlds’ (...) or ‘multi-centered worlds’ theory. The third concerns how the mental file approach handles non-doxastic attitudes like imagining. (shrink)

This paper concerns two points of intersection between de se attitudes and the study of natural language: attitude ascription and communication. I first survey some recent work on the semantics of de se attitude ascriptions, with particular attention to ascriptions that are true only if the subject of the ascription has the appropriate de se attitude. I then examine – and attempt to solve – some problems concerning the role of de se attitudes in linguistic communication.

A widely shared view in the literature on first-person thought is that the ability to entertain first-person thoughts requires prior non-conceptual forms of self-consciousness. Many philosophers maintain that the distinctive awareness which accompanies the use of the first person already presupposes a non-conceptual consciousness of the fact that oneself is the owner of a first-person thought. I call this argument The Argument for Non-Conceptual Self-Consciousness based on the Meaning of “I” and will demonstrate that most proponents of the presented argument (...) fail to establish their conclusion, even though I believe that the conclusion is actually true. The argument only justifies the claim that contextual information is needed in order to recognize oneself as the referent of an occurrence of the first person. However, it does not justify the thesis that this information needs to be given consciously and thus the existence of any non-conceptual self-consciousness. Finally, I shall present an argument for the assumption that some form of self-consciousness is needed to reflexively think about oneself via the first-person concept. In order to do so, I will draw on the general discussion about the functional role of consciousness. In particular, I will rely on results recently proposed by Frith and Metzinger (2016), Frith (Pragmatics & Cognition 18:497–551, 2010, Cognitive Neuroscience 2:117–118, 2011), Graziano (2013, Frontiers in Robotics and AI 4:article 60, 2017), and Graziano and Kastner (Cognitive Neuroscience 2:98–113, 2011), which suggest that one of the central functions of consciousness is to provide information about mental states for communication. (shrink)

Internalism about mental content holds that microphysical duplicates must be mental duplicates full-stop. Anyone particle-for-particle indiscernible from someone who believes that Aristotle was wise, for instance, must share that same belief. Externalism instead contends that many perfectly ordinary propositional attitudes can be had only in certain sorts of physical, sociolinguistic, or historical context. To have a belief about Aristotle, for instance, a person must have been causally impacted in the right way by Aristotle himself (e.g., by hearing about him, or (...) reading some of his works).An interesting third view, which I call. (shrink)

In De Trinitate 10, Augustine offers an argument that seemingly proceeds from certain premises about self-knowledge to the conclusion that the mind is incorporeal. Although the argument has sometimes been compared to later Cartesian arguments, it has received relatively little philosophical attention. In this paper, I offer a detailed analysis and original interpretation of Augustine's argument and argue that it is not vulnerable to some of the main objections which have been raised against it. I go on to argue that (...) while an important part of Augustine's argument does face several hitherto neglected objections, Augustine's ultimate case for the incorporeality of the mind is somewhat different and more successful than one might initially think. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we clarify the notion of immunity to error through misidentification with respect to the first-person pronoun. In particular, we set out to dispel the view that for a judgment to be IEM it must contain a token of a certain class of predicates. Rather, the importance of the IEM status of certain judgments is that it teaches us about privileged ways of coming to know about ourselves. We then turn to examine how (...) perception, as a state with nonconceptual content, can give rise to judgments that are IEM. On one view, the ‘inheritance model’ of immunity, perception gives rise to such judgments because perception itself is IEM. We argue that this model is misguided, and, instead, suggest and elucidate an alternative view: perception gives rise to judgments that are IEM by virtue of containing implicitly self-related or self-concerning information. (shrink)

Frege taught us how to understand one form of predication: an atemporal one. There is also a different, temporal form of predication, which I briefly introduce. Accordingly, there are two fundamentally different approaches to time: a reductive one, aiming to account for time in terms of Frege’s atemporal predication, and a non-reductive one, insisting that the temporal form of predication is sui generis, and that time is to be understood in its terms. I do not directly argue for or against (...) reductionism in this paper. Rather, by evaluating the debates on endurantism–perdurantism, A-theory–B-theory, and presentism–eternalism, I argue that these debates, although aiming to be fundamental, largely boil down to mere quarrels between alternative reductive approaches. We should take notice of this fact and reorient ourselves within the debate on time accordingly: the real issue is whether we should reduce or not. I briefly sketch in what sense endurantism, A-theory, and presentism may be developed on a properly anti-reductionist basis. (shrink)

This paper provides a formal semantic analysis of past interpretation in Medumba, a graded tense language. Based on original fieldwork, the study explores the empirical behavior and meaning contribution of graded past morphemes in Medumba and relates these to the account of the phenomenon proposed in Cable for Gĩkũyũ. Investigation reveals that the behavior of Medumba gradedness markers differs from that of their Gĩkũyũ counterparts in meaningful ways and, more broadly, discourages an analysis as presuppositional eventuality or reference time modifiers. (...) Instead, the Medumba markers are most appropriately analyzed as quantificational tenses. It also turns out that Medumba, though belonging to the typological class of graded tense languages, shows intriguing similarities to genuinely tenseless languages in allowing for temporally unmarked sentences and exploiting aspectual and pragmatic cues for reference time resolution. The more general cross-linguistic implication of the study is that the set of languages often subsumed under the label “graded tense” does not in fact form a natural class and that more case-by-case research is needed to refine this category. (shrink)

The ways of thinking of things associated with a few indexical expressions—e.g. ‘I’, ‘now’, ‘that’—have a special role in the causation of action. They have a role not had by, for example, the guise associated with the ‘Superman’, or the guise associated with any other proper name. So, at least, an orthodox view about action—often associated with the phrase ‘essential indexical’—has it. Recently, this view has come under scrutiny. An increasing number of philosophers think it is a myth. In this (...) paper, I do two things. First, I argue that the orthodox view really is an insight, not a myth. Second, I offer an explanation of why it is that the insight holds. (shrink)

John Perry offers an unusually substantive, and initially plausible, account of the conceptual role of first-person thought. This paper critiques Perry’s account, particularly in what it says about action explanation, and offers a partial alternative. It also identifies three high-level assumptions about what accounts of conceptual roles should look like that plausibly explain why Perry’s account goes off track in the ways that it does – this is the top-down distortion of the title. Identifying and arguing against the three assumptions (...) helps point in the direction of a better account. (shrink)

Subjects have various ways of thinking about themselves. Here are three examples: a subject can think of herself under an appropriate description (the hiker), d.

Why are de se mental states essential? What exactly is their de se-ness needed to do? I argue that it is needed to fend off accidentalness. If certain beliefs – for example, nociceptive, proprioceptive or introspective beliefs – were not de se, then any truth they achieved would be too accidental for the subject to count as knowing. If certain intentions – intentions that are in play whenever we intentionally do anything – were not de se, then any satisfaction they (...) achieved would be too accidental for the subject to count as intentionally acting. How states hook on to their referent is relevant in a systematic but underexplored way to whether they non-accidentally achieve their aim – truth in the case of beliefs, satisfaction in the case of intentions. In the relevant cases, the way of hooking on to a referent needed to avoid being accidental is the way a de se state hooks on to its referent. (shrink)

Those inclined to believe in the existence of propositions as traditionally conceived might seek to reduce them to some other type of entity. However, parsimonious propositionalists of this type are confronted with a choice of competing candidates – for example, sets of possible worlds, and various neo-Russellian and neo-Fregean constructions. It is argued that this choice is an arbitrary one, and that it closely resembles the type of problematic choice that, as Benacerraf pointed out, bedevils the attempt to reduce numbers (...) to sets – should the number 2 be identified with the set Ø or with the set Ø, Ø? An “argument from arbitrary identification” is formulated with the conclusion that propositions (and perhaps numbers) cannot be reduced away. Various responses to this argument are considered, but ultimately rejected. The paper concludes that the argument is sound: propositions, at least, are sui generis entities. (shrink)

'Propositionalism' is the widely held view that all intentional mental relations-all intentional attitudes-are relations to propositions or something proposition-like. Paradigmatically, to think about the mountain is ipso facto to think that it is F, for some predicate 'F'. It seems, however, many intentional attitudes are not relations to propositions at all: Mary contemplates Jonah, adores New York, misses Athens, mourns her brother. I argue, following Brentano, Husserl, Church and Montague among others, that the way things seem is the way they (...) are, and that propositionalism must be abandoned. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that two kinds of first-person-oriented content are distinguished in more ways than usually thought and I propose an account that will shed new light on the distinction. The first kind consists of contents of attitudes de se (in a broad sense); the second kind consists of contents that give rise to intuitions of relative truth. I will present new data concerning the two kinds of first-person-oriented content, together with a novel account of propositional content (...) in general, namely based on the notion of an attitudinal object. That notion solves two major problems with Lewis's account of contents of attitudes de se and clarifies the difference between contents of attitudes de se and contents that give rise to intuitions of relative truth. I will propose an analysis of contents of the second kind in terms of what I call firstperson-based genericity, a form of genericity most explicitly expressed by sentences with generic one. I show how the overall account explains the particular semantic properties of sentences giving rise to intuitions of relative truth that distinguish them from sentences with expressions interpreted de se. I will start by introducing Lewis's account of attitudes de se and the problems that go along with that account. Introducing the notion of an attitudinal object, I will extend the account by an account of the truth conditions of the content of attitudes de se. I then discuss the second kind of first-person-oriented content, which is associated with intuitions of relative truth, and give an account of such contents on the basis of an analysis of generic one. Again making use of attitudinal objects, I will make clear what exactly distinguishes those contents from first-person-oriented contents of the first sort. (shrink)

In recent work on context­dependency, it has been argued that certain types of sentences give rise to a notion of relative truth. In particular, sentences containing predicates of personal taste and moral or aesthetic evaluation as well as epistemic modals are held to express a proposition (relative to a context of use) which is true or false not only relative to a world of evaluation, but other parameters as well, such as standards of taste or knowledge or an agent. Thus, (...) a sentence like chocolate tastes good would express a proposition p that is true or false not only at a world of evaluation, but relative to the additional parameter as well, such as a parameter of taste or an agent. I will argue that the sentences that apparently give rise to relative truth should be understood by relating them in a certain way to the first person. More precisely, such sentences express what I will call first­person­based genericity, a form of generalization that is based on or directed toward an essential first­person application of the predicate. The account differs from standard relative truth account in crucial respects: it is not the truth of the proposition expressed that is relative to the first person; the proposition expressed by a sentence with a predicate of taste rather has absolute truth conditions. Instead it is the propositional content itself that requires a first­personal cognitive access whenever it is entertained. This account, I will argue, avoids a range of problems that standard relative truth theories of the sentences in question face and explains a number of further peculiarities that such sentences display. (shrink)

The most common account of attitude reports is the relational analysis according towhich an attitude verb taking that-clause complements expresses a two-placerelation between agents and propositions and the that-clause acts as an expressionwhose function is to provide the propositional argument. I will argue that a closerexamination of a broader range of linguistic facts raises serious problems for thisanalysis and instead favours a Russellian `multiple relations analysis' (which hasgenerally been discarded because of its apparent obvious linguistic implausibility).The resulting account can be (...) given independent philosophical motivations within anintentionalist view of truth and predication. (shrink)

The generic pronoun 'one' (or its empty counterpart, arbitrary PRO) exhibits a range of properties that show a special connection to the first person, or rather the relevant intentional agent (speaker, addressee, or described agent). The paper argues that generic 'one' involves generic quantification in which the predicate is applied to a given entity ‘as if’ to the relevant agent himself. This is best understood in terms of simulation, a central notion in some recent developments in the philosophy of mind (...) and cognitive science (Simulation Theory). (shrink)