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  1. The Structuralist Thesis Reconsidered.Georg Schiemer & John Wigglesworth - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):1201-1226.
    Øystein Linnebo and Richard Pettigrew have recently developed a version of non-eliminative mathematical structuralism based on Fregean abstraction principles. They argue that their theory of abstract structures proves a consistent version of the structuralist thesis that positions in abstract structures only have structural properties. They do this by defining a subset of the properties of positions in structures, so-called fundamental properties, and argue that all fundamental properties of positions are structural. In this article, we argue that the structuralist thesis, even (...)
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  • On Christian Theism and Unrestricted Composition.Ross Inman & Alexander Pruss - 2019 - American Philosophical Quarterly 56 (4):345-360.
    Our aim in this paper is to bring to light two sources of tension for Christian theists who endorse the principle of unrestricted composition, that necessarily, for any objects, the xs, there exists an object, y, such that the xs compose y. In Value, we argue that a composite object made of wholly valuable parts is at least as valuable as its most valuable part, and so the mereological sum of God and a wholly valuable part would be at least (...)
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  • Imprecise Quantification.Alexander Roberts - 2019 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 119 (3):357-367.
    Following David Lewis, Ted Sider has famously argued that unrestricted first-order quantification cannot be vague. His argument was intended as a type of reductio: its strategy was to show that the mere hypothesis of unrestricted quantifier vagueness collapses into the claim that unrestricted quantification is precise. However, this short article considers two natural reconstructions of the argument, and shows that each can be resisted. The theme will be that each reconstruction of the argument involves assumptions which advocates of vague quantification (...)
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  • Much ado about aboutness.Sam Baron, Reginald Mary Chua, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (3).
    Strong non-maximalism holds that some truths require no ontological ground of any sort. Strong non-maximalism allows one to accept that some propositions are true without being forced to endorse any corresponding ontological commitments. We show that there is a version of truthmaker theory available—anti-aboutness truthmaking—that enjoys the dialectical benefits of the strong non-maximalist’s position. According to anti-aboutness truthmaking, all truths require grounds, but a proposition need not be grounded in the very thing(s) that the proposition is about. We argue that (...)
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  • (1 other version)On representationalism, common-factorism, and whether consciousness is here and now.Pär Sundström - 2018 - Philosophical Studies:1-12.
    A strong form of representationalism says that every conscious property of every mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. A weaker representationalism says that some conscious property of some mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. David Papineau has recently argued that all such theories are incorrect since they construe consciousness as consisting in “relations to propositions or other abstract objects outside space and time”, whereas consciousness is “concrete” (...)
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  • Impure concepts and non-qualitative properties.Byron Simmons - 2020 - Synthese 197 (7):3065-3086.
    Some properties such as having a beard and being a philosopher are intuitively qualitative, while other properties such as being identical to Plato and being a student of Socrates are intuitively non-qualitative. It is often assumed that, necessarily, a property is qualitative if and only if it can be designated descriptively without the aid of directly referential devices. I argue that this linguistic thesis fails in both directions: there might be non-qualitative properties that can be designated descriptively, and there appear (...)
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  • Characterising Theories of Time and Modality.Daniel Deasy - 2019 - Analytic Philosophy 60 (3):283-305.
    Recently, some authors – call them Reformists – have argued that the traditional Presentism-Eternalism and Actualism-Possibilism debates in the metaphysics of time and modality respectively are unclear or insubstantial, and should therefore give way to the newer Temporaryism-Permanentism and Contingentism- Necessitism debates. In ‘On characterising the presentism/eternalism and actualism/possibilism debates’ (2016, Analytic Philosophy 57: 110-140), Ross Cameron defends the Conservative position that the traditional debates are both substantial and distinct from the Temporaryism-Permanentism and Contingentism- Necessitism debates. In this paper I (...)
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  • Biosemantics and Words that Don't Represent.Ruth Garrett Millikan - 2018 - Theoria 84 (3):229-241.
    One of the virtues of the biosemantic view of language is the clarity and simplicity of its description of the general nature of nonrepresentational linguistic constructions. It doesn't follow, however, that it is obvious on this view how these functions should be described individually. After an explanation of the biosemantic approach, initial suggestions are made for analyses of a variety of nonrepresentational constructions that have traditionally been considered problematic. Included are “not”, “is” (of identity), “exists”, “means”, “but”, “if … then”, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Four Theses on the Alleged Innocence of Mereology.Massimiliano Carrara & Enrico Martino - 2011 - Humana Mente 4 (19).
    In Parts of Classes David Lewis attempts to draw a sharp contrast between mereology and set theory and he tries to assimilate mereology to logic. For him, like logic but unlike set theory, mereology is “ontologically innocent”. In mereology, given certain objects, no further ontological commitment is required for the existence of their sum. On the contrary, by accepting set theory, given certain objects, a further commitment is required for the existence of the set of them. The latter – unlike (...)
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  • The Modal Dimension.Giluano Torrengo - 2011 - Humana Mente 4 (19):105-120.
    Space and time are two obvious candidates as dimensions of reality. Yet, are they the only two dimensions of reality? Famously, David Lewis maintained the doctrine of ―modal realism‖, the thesis that possible worlds exist and are entities as concrete as the actual world that we live in. In this paper, I will explore the idea that modality can be construed as a dimension along with space and time. However, although Lewis‘ modal realism is the main source of inspiration for (...)
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  • Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics: Debunking and Dispensability. [REVIEW]David Faraci - 2018 - Analysis 78 (2):377-381.
    Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics: Debunking and Dispensability By LeibowitzUri D. and SinclairNeilOxford University Press, 2016. x + 258 pp. £45.00.
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  • Tiden og døden.Truls Wyller - 2018 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 53 (1):06-18.
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  • On Quantitative and Qualitative Parsimony.Maciej Sendłak - 2018 - Metaphilosophy 49 (1-2):153-166.
    The distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony is supposed to allow David Lewis to dismiss one of the charges against his modal realism: that is, the charge of bloated ontology. The aim of this paper is to undermine Lewis's response to this objection. In order to do this, a distinction between multipliable and nonmultipliable objects is introduced. Based on this it is argued that the acceptance of Lewis's response requires one to believe in modal realism in the first place—that is, (...)
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  • ‘Thing’ and ‘non-thing’ ontologies.Esfeld Michael - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Thing ontologies are ontologies that consider the universe to be made up of a plurality of discrete objects. Non-thing ontologies can take the form of ontologies of discrete objects, too, but not necessarily so: they can also be conceived as ontologies of one continuous object. The paper considers the central versions of ontologies of discrete objects first, starting with thing ontologies, moving from there to non-thing ontologies of discrete objects and finally ontologies of one continuous object.
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  • Belief as Question‐Sensitive.Seth Yalcin - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (1):23-47.
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  • Self‐Differing, Aspects, and Leibniz's Law.Donald L. M. Baxter - 2018 - Noûs 52:900-920.
    I argue that an individual has aspects numerically identical with it and each other that nonetheless qualitatively differ from it and each other. This discernibility of identicals does not violate Leibniz's Law, however, which concerns only individuals and is silent about their aspects. They are not in its domain of quantification. To argue that there are aspects I will appeal to the internal conflicts of conscious beings. I do not mean to imply that aspects are confined to such cases, but (...)
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  • Do we really experience temporal passage?: Simon Prosser: Experiencing time. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, $74.00 HB. [REVIEW]Rognvaldur Ingthorsson - 2017 - Metascience 26 (2):263-266.
    A review of Simon Prosser's book Experiencing Time.
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  • One World.A. W. Moore - 2016 - European Journal of Philosophy 24 (4):934-945.
    This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons for (...)
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  • Ontological Parsimony, Erosion, and Conservatism.Thomas Metcalf - 2016 - Metaphilosophy 47 (4-5):700-718.
    This article presents a novel argument against a common principle of parsimony in philosophy. First, it identifies a widely employed principle of positive ontological parsimony, according to which we should, ceteris paribus, prefer smaller ontologies to larger ontologies. Next, it shows how this principle is used as part of a strategy by which to argue for antirealist positions in many subfields of philosophy: the ockhamistic antirealist strategy. Third, it argues that this principle commits its adherents to an implausible epistemological thesis—the (...)
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  • Are The Statue and The Clay Mutual Parts?Lee Walters - 2017 - Noûs:23-50.
    Are a material object, such as a statue, and its constituting matter, the clay, parts of one another? One wouldn't have thought so, and yet a number of philosophers have argued that they are. I review the arguments for this surprising claim showing how they all fail. I then consider two arguments against the view concluding that there are both pre-theoretical and theoretical considerations for denying that the statue and the clay are mutual parts.
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  • Ramseyan humility: the response from revelation and panpsychism.Raamy Majeed - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (1):75-96.
    David Lewis argues for Ramseyan humility, the thesis that we can’t identify the fundamental properties that occupy the nomological roles at our world. Lewis, however, remarks that there is a potential exception to this, which involves assuming two views concerning qualia panphenomenalism : all instantiated fundamental properties are qualia and the identification thesis : we can know the identities of our qualia simply by being acquainted with them. This paper aims to provide an exposition, as well as an assessment, of (...)
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  • Relationalism about mechanics based on a minimalist ontology of matter.Antonio Vassallo, Dirk-André Deckert & Michael Esfeld - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science:1-20.
    This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing. We assess two strategies to combine this ontology with physics, using classical mechanics as example: the Humean strategy adopts the standard, non-relationalist physical theories as they stand and interprets their formal apparatus as the means of bookkeeping of the change of the distance relations (...)
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  • Enduring Simples and the Stages They Compose.Jacek Brzozowski - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.
    In this article I introduce a hybrid view of persistence whereby simple objects persist by enduring while composite objects persist by being stage-related. I first show how, by sharing certain features and not others with the standard views of persistence, this hybrid view navigates two metaphysical problems that have been raised against such standard views. I then consider some implications of the view by addressing a couple of worries that may be raised against it. I conclude that this hybrid view (...)
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  • The Doctor of Philosophy Will See You Now.Christopher Coope - 2009 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 65:177-214.
    Papers about philosophy, as distinct from papers within it, are like homeopathic medicines – thin in content. We can only hope to provide some substance if we confine ourselves to some particular aspect. The aspect I have chosen to discuss is this. What hope should we have of finding from within this rather curious and academic subject of ours a help in the affairs of life? Could we expect a doctor of philosophy to give practical advice, rather like a medical (...)
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  • Quidditism and the Resemblance of Properties.Ghislain Guigon - 2016 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (3):177-184.
    It is widely agreed that properties play causal roles: they capture the causal powers of things. But do properties have their causal roles essentially? David Lewis did not think so. He adhered to the doctrine of quidditism, namely the doctrine that the identity of properties is primitive and that they can trade their causal roles. Quidditism is controversial. But Lewis did not see why he should want to reject it. He knew that he could avoid quidditism on the cheap by (...)
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  • Hume as a Trope Nominalist.Jani Hakkarainen - 2012 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 42 (S1):55-66.
    In this paper, I argue that Hume's solution to a problem that contemporary metaphysicians call “the problem of universals” would be rather trope-theoretical than some other type of nominalism. The basic idea in different trope theories is that particular properties, i.e., tropes are postulated to account for the fact that there are particular beings resembling each other. I show that Hume's simple sensible perceptions are tropes: simple qualities. Accordingly, their similarities are explained by these tropes themselves and their resemblance. Reading (...)
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  • Defining Determinism.Thomas Müller & Tomasz Placek - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (1):215-252.
    The article puts forward a branching-style framework for the analysis of determinism and indeterminism of scientific theories, starting from the core idea that an indeterministic system is one whose present allows for more than one alternative possible future. We describe how a definition of determinism stated in terms of branching models supplements and improves current treatments of determinism of theories of physics. In these treatments, we identify three main approaches: one based on the study of equations, one based on mappings (...)
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  • The Myth of the De Se.Ofra Magidor - 2015 - Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1):249-283.
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  • Nonexistent Objects as Truth-Makers: Against Crane’s Reductionism.Filippo Casati & Naoya Fujikawa - 2016 - Philosophia 44 (2):423-434.
    According to Meinongianism, some objects do not exist but we can legitimately refer to and quantify over them. Moreover, Meinongianism standardly regards nonexistent objects as contributing to the truth-makers of sentences about nonexistent objects. Recently, Tim Crane has proposed a weak form of Meinongianism, a reductionism, which denies any contribution of nonexistent objects to truth-making. His reductionism claims that, even though we can truly talk about nonexistent objects by using singular terms and quantifiers about them, any truth about nonexistent objects (...)
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  • Finite Frequentism in a Big World.Nick Tosh - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):169-213.
    The view that chances are relative frequencies of occurrence within actual, finite reference classes has long been written off. I argue that it ought to be reconsidered. Focusing on non-deterministic chance, I defend a version of finite frequentism in which reference classmates are required to have qualitatively identical pasts. While my analysis can evade or resist several standard objections, it has a counterintuitive consequence: non-trivial chances entail the existence of past light cones that are perfect intrinsic duplicates. In mitigation, I (...)
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  • Missing systems and the face value practice.Martin Thomson-Jones - 2010 - Synthese 172 (2):283-299.
    Call a bit of scientific discourse a description of a missing system when (i) it has the surface appearance of an accurate description of an actual, concrete system (or kind of system) from the domain of inquiry, but (ii) there are no actual, concrete systems in the world around us fitting the description it contains, and (iii) that fact is recognised from the outset by competent practitioners of the scientific discipline in question. Scientific textbooks, classroom lectures, and journal articles abound (...)
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  • Universalism entails Extensionalism.Achille C. Varzi - 2009 - Analysis 69 (4):599-604.
    I argue that Universalism (the thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted) entails Extensionalism (the thesis that sameness of composition is sufficient for identity) as long as the parthood relation is transitive and satisfies the Weak Supplementation principle (to the effect that whenever a thing has a proper part, it has another part disjoint from the first).
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  • Special Relativity, Coexistence And Temporal Parts: A Reply To Gilmore.Yuri Balashov - 2005 - Philosophical Studies 124 (1):1-40.
    In two earlier works (Balashov, 2000a: Philosophical Studies 99, 129–166; 2000b: Philosophy of Science 67 (Suppl), S549–S562), I have argued that considerations based on special relativity and the notion of coexistence favor the perdurance view of persistence over its endurance rival. Cody Gilmore (2002: Philosophical Studies 109, 241–263) has subjected my argument to an insightful three fold critique. In the first part of this paper I respond briefly to Gilmore’s first two objections. I then grant his observation that anyone who (...)
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  • Presentism and Eternalism.Harold W. Noonan - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (1):219-227.
    How is the debate between presentism and eternalism to be characterized? It is usual to suggest that this debate about time is analogous to the debate between the actualist and the possibilist about modality. I think that this suggestion is right. In what follows I pursue the analogy more strictly than is usual and offer a characterization of what is at the core of the dispute between presentists and eternalists that may be immune to worries often raised about the substantiality (...)
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  • Counterfactuals and counterparts: defending a neo-Humean theory of causation.Neil McDonnell - 2015 - Dissertation, Macquarie University and University of Glasgow
    Whether there exist causal relations between guns firing and people dying, between pedals pressed and cars accelerating, or between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, is typically taken to be a mind-independent, objective, matter of fact. However, recent contributions to the literature on causation, in particular theories of contrastive causation and causal modelling, have undermined this central causal platitude by relativising causal facts to models or to interests. This thesis flies against the prevailing wind by arguing that we must pay (...)
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  • An Analysis of Intrinsicality.Dan Marshall - 2016 - Noûs 50 (4):704-739.
    The leading account of intrinsicality over the last thirty years has arguably been David Lewis's account in terms of perfect naturalness. Lewis's account, however, has three serious problems: i) it cannot allow necessarily coextensive properties to differ in whether they are intrinsic; ii) it falsely classifies non-qualitative properties like being Obama as non-intrinsic; and iii) it is incompatible with a number of metaphysical theories that posit irreducibly non-categorical properties. I argue that, as a result of these problems, Lewis's account should (...)
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  • Quantity and quality: naturalness in metaphysics.M. Eddon - 2009 - Dissertation, Rutgers University
    Ever since David Lewis argued for the indispensibility of natural properties, they have become a staple of mainstream metaphysics. This dissertation is a critical examination of natural properties. What roles can natural properties play in metaphysics, and what structure do natural properties have? In the first half of the dissertation, I argue that natural properties cannot do all the work they are advertised to do. In the second half of the dissertation, I look at questions relating to the structure of (...)
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  • ∈ : Formal concepts in a material world truthmaking and exemplification as types of determination.Philipp Keller - 2007 - Dissertation, University of Geneva
    In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...)
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  • Intensionality from Self-Reference.T. Parent - manuscript
    If a semantically open language has no constraints on self-reference, one can prove an absurdity. The argument exploits a self-referential function symbol where the expressed function ends up being intensional in virtue of self-reference. The prohibition on intensional functions thus entails that self-reference cannot be unconstrained, even in a language that is free of semantic terms. However, since intensional functions are already excluded in classical logic, there are no drastic revisionary implications here. Still, the argument reveals a new sort of (...)
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  • A Generalized Manifold Topology for Branching Space-Times.Thomas Müller - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):1089-1100.
    The logical theory of branching space-times, which provides a relativistic framework for studying objective indeterminism, remains mostly disconnected from discussions of space-time theories in philosophy of physics. Earman has criticized the branching approach and suggested “pruning some branches from branching space-time.” This article identifies the different—order-theoretic versus topological—perspective of both discussions as a reason for certain misunderstandings and tries to remove them. Most important, we give a novel, topological criterion of modal consistency that usefully generalizes an earlier criterion, and we (...)
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  • Non-Descriptivism About Modality. A Brief History And Revival.Amie Thomasson - 2008 - The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 4:8.
    Despite the otherwise-dominant trends towards physicalism and naturalism in philosophy, it has become increasingly common for metaphysicians to accept the existence either of modal facts and properties, or of Lewisian possible worlds. This paper raises the historical question: why did these heavyweight realist views come into prominence? The answer is that they have arisen in response to the demand to find truthmakers for our modal statements. But this demand presupposes that modal statements are descriptive claims in need of truthmakers. This (...)
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  • Content Externalism and Quine’s Criterion are Incompatible.T. Parent - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (3):625-639.
    Externalism holds that the content of our utterances and thoughts are determined partly by the environment. Here, I offer an argument which suggests that externalism is incompatible with a natural view about ontological commitment--namely, the Quinean view that such commitments are fixed by the range of the variables in your theory. The idea in brief is that if Oscar mistakenly believes that water = XYZ, the externalist ontologically commits Oscar to two waterish kinds, whereas the Quinean commits him to one (...)
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  • Variations on a Montagovian theme.Wolfgang Schwarz - 2013 - Synthese 190 (16):3377-3395.
    What are the objects of knowledge, belief, probability, apriority or analyticity? For at least some of these properties, it seems plausible that the objects are sentences, or sentence-like entities. However, results from mathematical logic indicate that sentential properties are subject to severe formal limitations. After surveying these results, I argue that they are more problematic than often assumed, that they can be avoided by taking the objects of the relevant property to be coarse-grained (“sets of worlds”) propositions, and that all (...)
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  • The Theory Debate in Psychology.José E. Burgos - 2007 - Behavior and Philosophy 35:149 - 183.
    This paper is a conceptual analysis of the theory debate in psychology, as carried out by cognitivists and radical behaviorists. The debate has focused on the necessity of theories in psychology. However, the logically primary issue is the nature of theories, or what theories are. This claim stems from the fact that cognitivists and radical behaviorists adopt disparate accounts of the nature of theories. The cognitivists' account is closely akin to the received view from logical positivism, where theories are collections (...)
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  • How To Precisify Quantifiers.Arvid Båve - 2011 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 40 (1):103-111.
    I here argue that Ted Sider's indeterminacy argument against vagueness in quantifiers fails. Sider claims that vagueness entails precisifications, but holds that precisifications of quantifiers cannot be coherently described: they will either deliver the wrong logical form to quantified sentences, or involve a presupposition that contradicts the claim that the quantifier is vague. Assuming (as does Sider) that the “connectedness” of objects can be precisely defined, I present a counter-example to Sider's contention, consisting of a partial, implicit definition of the (...)
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  • Van Inwagen's New Clothes.John Bigelow - 1994 - Dialogue 33 (2):297.
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  • Coinciding Objects and Duration Properties: Reply to Eagle.Cody Gilmore - 2009 - In Dean Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 5. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 95-111.
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  • (1 other version)The Paradox of Increase.Eric T. Olson - 2006 - The Monist 89 (3):390-417.
    It seems evident that things sometimes get bigger by acquiring new parts. But there is an ancient argument purporting to show that this is impossible: the paradox of increase or growing argument.i Here is a sketch of the paradox. Suppose we have an object, A, and we want to make it bigger by adding a part, B. That is, we want to bring it about that A first lacks and then has B as a part. Imagine, then, that we conjoin (...)
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  • Úvod do teoretické sémantiky.Jaroslav Peregrin - manuscript
    Když jsem v roce 1992 začínal na filosofické fakultě UK přednášet teorii sémantiky, cítil jsem intenzivní potřebu poskytnout studentům nějaký učební text. O překotném vývoji tohoto interdisciplinárního oboru, který odstartovalo v sedmdesátých letech úspěšné “zkřížení logiky s lingvistikou” Richardem Montaguem a dalšími a který se nezpomalil dodnes, totiž v češtině neexistovaly prakticky žádné zprávy (s čestnou výjimkou přístupu tzv. transparentní intenzionální logiky, který byl dílem českého emigranta Pavla Tichého a o kterém u nás psal Pavel Materna). Přehledové publikace, jaké jsou (...)
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  • Thinking Animals and the Reference of ‘I’.Eric T. Olson - 2002 - Philosophical Topics 30 (1):189-207.
    In this essay I explore the idea that the solution to some important problems of personal identity lies in the philosophy of language: more precisely in the nature of first-person reference. I will argue that the “linguistic solution” is at best partly successful.
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