Immediate striking feelings without any conscious inference are viewed as one of the sources of truth by many philosophers. It is often claimed that there is a long tradition in philosophy of viewing intuitive propositions as true without need for further justification, since the intuitiveness, for traditional philosophy, suggests that the proposition is self-evident. In philosophical discussions, it was extremely common for philosophers to argue for the intuitiveness of their theories. Contemporary philosophers have put increasing attention and effort into the (...) study of this methodology in philosophy. They explicitly use the term ‘intuition’ and ‘appealing to intuition’ to refer to such common practice in philosophy. Recently there are numerous papers discussing the topic of intuition, its reliability, evidential status, and what philosophy ought to be. These disputes have lasted for several decades and it seems the disputes may even continue for several more decades. Despite the excessive usage of the term ‘intuition’, there are still polarized attitudes towards intuition: not only on the question of whether we should appeal to intuition in doing philosophy, but also on what ‘intuition’ means. The latter problem, the divergence of understanding on ‘intuition’, seems to be the main factor causing endless disputes of this topic and it should be the problem primarily solved. There are philosophers who notice the problem that there is no general agreement on the accounts of intuition. However, surprisingly, most of them have not attempted to solve the problem, but just simply give their own accounts of intuition, or claim that it is improbable to have general agreement on the definition of ‘intuition’ instead. In fact, it is possible to have a general acceptable theory of intuition. The main aims of the thesis are to provide the method of seeking the good candidates for a general acceptable theory of intuition and to use the method in seeking one of the good theories. In order to achieve the goals, the thesis will provide the ground for the discussion, by specifying several features of intuition as the desiderata of a good theory; and examine several theories of intuition that have been offered in recent literature as example. We will find that, unfortunately, among the theories selected in philosophy, there still seems to be no satisfactory account of intuition. Nevertheless, there seems a promising account of intuition offered in psychology. The thesis will argue the psychological account is one of the good candidates of general acceptable theory of intuition. If not, we at least have a method of seeking the good theories of intuition. (shrink)

Determinism and chance seem to be irreconcilable opposites: either something is chancy or it is deterministic but not both. Yet there are processes which appear to square the circle by being chancy and deterministic at once, and the appearance is backed by well-confirmed scientific theories such as statistical mechanics which also seem to provide us with chances for deterministic processes. Is this possible, and if so how? In this essay I discuss this question for probabilities as they occur in the (...) empirical sciences, setting aside metaphysical questions in connection with free will, divine intervention and determinism in history. (shrink)

Reply in Book Symposium on James Ladyman, Don Ross: 'Everything must go: metaphysics naturalized', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The most controversial condition that the AGM theory of rational belief change places on belief contraction is the recovery condition. The condition is controversial because of a series of putative counterexamples due (separately) to I. Levi and S. O. Hansson. In this paper we show that the conflicts that Levi and Hansson arrange between AGM contraction and our intuitions about how to give up beliefs are merely apparent. We argue that these conflicts disappear once we attend more closely to the (...) identification of the beliefs contracted away in each counterexample case. Since, on our view, speakers' belief contraction intentions are often more complicated than they may first appear, we are led to develop apparatus for thinking about the communication and identification of those intentions. Our argument refocuses attention on the difficult question of how to apply the AGM theory to particular cases. (shrink)

Metasemantic security arguments aim to show, on metasemantic grounds, that even if we were to discover that determinism is true, that wouldn't give us reason to think that people never act freely. Flew's [1955] Paradigm Case Argument is one such argument; Heller's [1996] Putnamian argument is another. In this paper I introduce a third which uses a metasemantic picture on which meanings are settled as though by an ideal interpreter. Metasemantic security arguments are widely thought discredited by van Inwagen's [1983] (...) Martian Manipulation objection. I argue that van Inwagen's objection, if right, can be parodied to undercut metasemantic arguments which aim to show that deliverances of physics do not tell us that no objects are solid. A diagnosis of where the parody objection breaks down against the pro-solidity argument is then used to resist the objection as applied to the Ideal Interpreter Argument. I go on to defend the argument from the charge that it relies on a ham-fisted version of interpretivism. (shrink)

Neurosurgery is a topic that evokes many hopes and fears at the same time. One of these fears is concerned with the worry about losing one's identity. Taking this concern seriously, the article deals with the question: Can the concept of ‘personal identity’ be used successfully in normative considerations concerning neurosurgery? This question will be answered in three steps. First, a short introduction to the philosophical debate about personal identity is given. Second, a new theory of personal identity is presented. (...) This theory has two components. On the one hand, it explains the phenomenon of human existence through time. On the other hand, it demonstrates the normative concept of personal identity. The final step proves the explanatory power of the theory on the basis of a practical example, namely deep brain stimulation. It will be shown that personal identity alters quite easily, whereas human persistence is rather stable. The distinction between both concepts finally serves to develop a terminology that is able to structure normative debates very effectively. (shrink)

We discuss presupposition, the phenomenon whereby speakers mark linguistically the information that is presupposed or taken for granted, rather than being part of the main propositional content of a speech act. Expressions and constructions carrying presuppositions are called “presupposition triggers”, forming a large class including definites and factive verbs. The article first introduces the range of triggers, the basic properties of presuppositions such as projection and cancellability, and the diagnostic tests used to identify them. The reader is then introducedto major (...) models of presupposition from the last 50 years, separated into three classes: Frege-Strawson derived semantic models, pragmaticmodels such as that offered by Stalnaker, and dynamic models. Finallywe discuss some of the main current issues in presupposition theory. These involve accommodation, which occurs when a hearer's knowledge state is adjusted to meet the speaker's presuppositions; presupposition failure, which occurs when a presupposition is false; the interaction between presuppositions and attitudes; and the triggering problem, i.e., the problem of explaining why presuppositions occur in the first place. (shrink)

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. Belief is thus central to epistemology. It comes in a qualitative form, as when Sophia believes that Vienna is the capital of Austria, and a quantitative form, as when Sophia's degree of belief that Vienna is the capital of Austria is at least twice her degree of belief that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna. Formal epistemology, as opposed to mainstream epistemology (Hendricks 2006), is epistemology done in a formal way, (...) that is, by employing tools from logic and mathematics. The goal of this entry is to give the reader an overview of the formal tools available to epistemologists for the representation of belief. A particular focus will be the relation between formal representations of qualitative belief and formal representations of quantitative degrees of belief. (shrink)

Foucault appears to challenge traditional views of truth, reason, and knowledge in the doctrine of power/knowledge developed in his post?1970 writings. This doctrine applies to all the sciences (and to non?scientific and non?discursive practices that are not discussed here). Foucault's notions of discourse (1) and power (3) are sufficiently discussed to set out his explanatory theory of the cause of our discourses and their change. In (4) three theses concerning the power/knowledge link are distinguished, of which the more important is (...) called the ?Primacy Thesis?, namely the causal priority of power over knowledge. Various formulations of this thesis are investigated, some of which are contrasted with Francis Bacon's more plausible account of the link between power and knowledge. In (5), six criticisms of the thesis are discussed. Foucault's notion of truth is explored on the way, more particularly in (6). The outcome of the discussion is that Foucault's doctrine of power/knowledge, apart from some insights for an empirically based sociological investigation into the causes of some of our scientific beliefs, is generally false; for philosophical theories of truth and knowledge it has nothing to say. In fact if Foucault is to be a critic of the beliefs which circulate as a result of power, he needs the traditional account of truth and knowledge. (shrink)

We think about and refer to things that we’ve never perceived or experienced. This paper bears on how this could be. Someone is testimonially acquainted with something just in case the explanation of one’s ability to think de re thoughts about it essentially appeals to communication with others who already have that ability. The main motivation for the claim that testimonial acquaintance is possible is that it best explains how we can think de re about and refer to things we’ve (...) never perceived or experienced: we gain these abilities in part by communicating with those who already have them. The main point of this paper is negative: to argue that testimonial acquaintance, as we currently understand it, is impossible. Although one might take this to show that we cannot be acquainted with things we haven’t perceived or experienced, I prefer to think of it as motivation for rethinking the nature of acquaintance. (shrink)

A personal view is presented of how metaphysics and ontology stand at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the light of developments during the twentieth. It is argued that realist metaphysics, with serious ontology at its heart, has a promising future, provided that its adherents devote some time and effort to countering the influences of both its critics and its false friends.

Those who object to David Lewis' modal realism express qualms about philosophical respectability of the Lewisian notion of a possible world and its correlate notion of an inhabitant of a possible world. The resulting impression is that these two notions either stand together or fall together. I argue that the Lewisian notion of a possible world is otiose even for a good Lewisian modal realist, and that one can carry out a good Lewisian semantics for modal discourse without Lewisian possible (...) worls. I do so by generalizing Lewis' own idea that restrictions on quantification come and go with the pragmatic wind and relativizing possible worlds as shifting domains of discourse. I then suggest a way to soften the infamous incredulous stare. (shrink)

What sorts of things are the intuitions generated via thought experiment? Timothy Williamson has responded to naturalistic skeptics by arguing that thought-experiment intuitions are judgments of ordinary counterfactuals. On this view, the intuition is naturalistically innocuous, but it has a contingent content and could be known at best a posteriori. We suggest an alternative to Williamson's account, according to which we apprehend thought-experiment intuitions through our grasp on truth in fiction. On our view, intuitions like the Gettier intuition are necessarily (...) true and knowable a priori. Our view, like Williamson's, avoids naturalistic skepticism. (shrink)

This paper presents an approach to truth and the Liar paradox which combines elements of context dependence and hierarchy. This approach is developed formally, using the techniques of model theory in admissible sets. Special attention is paid to showing how starting with some ideas about context drawn from linguistics and philosophy of language, we can see the Liar sentence to be context dependent. Once this context dependence is properly understood, it is argued, a hierarchical structure emerges which is neither ad (...) hoc nor unnatural. (shrink)

Non-cognitivists claim to be able to represent normative judgment, and especially moral judgment, as an expression of a non-cognitive attitude. There is some reason to worry whether their treatment can incorporate agent centred theories, including much of common sense morality. In this paper I investigate the prospects for a non-cognitivist explanation of what is going on when we subscribe to agent centred theories or norms. The first section frames the issue by focusing on a particularly simple and clear agent centred (...) theory, egoism. The second section poses the difficulty faced by non-cognitivist analyses of such theories and norms, and runs briefly through a couple of abortive attempts to solve it. The third section offers a solution and explains it. The fourth section uses the account developed in the third section to show in what way agent centred judgments are universalizable and in what way they are not. (shrink)

The notion of conceivability has traditionally been regarded as crucial to an account of modal knowledge. Despite its importance to modal epistemology, there is no received explication of conceivability. In recent discussions, some have attempted to explicate the notion in terms of epistemic possibility. There are, however, two notions of epistemic possibility, a more familiar one and a novel one. I argue that these two notions are independent of one another. Both are irrelevant to an account of modal knowledge on (...) the predominant view of modal reality. Only the novel notion is relevant and apt on the competing view of modal reality; but this latter view is problematic in light of compelling counterexamples. Insufficient care regarding the independent notions of epistemic possibility can lead to two problems: a gross problem of conflation and a more subtle problem of obscuring a crucial fact of modal epistemology. Either problem needlessly hampers efforts to develop an adequate account of modal knowledge. I conclude that the familiar notion of epistemic possibility should be eschewed in the context of modal epistemology. (shrink)

The paper defends Functionalism against the charge that it would make mental properties inefficacious. It outlines two ways of formulating the doctrine that mental properties are Functional properties and shows that both allow mental properties to be efficacious. The first (Lewis) approach takes functional properties to be the occupants of causal roles. Block [1990] has argued that mental properties should not be characterized in this way because it would make them properties of the ?implementing science?, e. g. neuroscience. I show (...) why this is not a problem. The second way of formulating the doctrine takes functional properties to be causal role properties. I claim that mental properties so understood would only be inefficacious if a law-centred rather than a property-centred approach is adopted to the introduction of efficacy into the world. I develop a property-centred account that explains how mental properties can be efficacacious without introducing systematic overdetermination. At the close, I provide a better characterization of the difference between these two approaches and offer an explanation as to why my way of resolving the problems has been missed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the causal homogeneity of functional, mental properties against Kim’s attack. It is argued that (a) token identity is sufficient for mental causation, that (b) token identity implies a sort of functional reduction, but that (c) nonetheless functional, mental properties can be causally homogeneous despite being multiply realizable: multiple composition is sufficient for multiple realizability, but multiple composition does not prevent the realizers from having their pertinent effects in common. Thus, the causal exclusion (...) problem provides no argument for abandoning the position that there are functional, mental properties that are natural kind properties. (shrink)

The paper contains an argument against functionalist theories of consciousness. The argument exploits an intuition to the effect that parts of an individual's brain that are not in use at a time t, can have no bearing on whether that individual is conscious at t. After presenting the argument, I defend it against two possible objections, and then distinguish it from two arguments to which it appears, on the surface to be similar.

En este ensayo respondo negativamente a la pregunta del título al sostener que el enunciado “La suma de los ángulos internos de un triángulo es igual a 180°” es contingentemente verdadero. Para ello, intento refutar la tesis de Ramsey de que las verdades geométricas necesariamente son verdades necesarias, así como la tesis de Kripke de que no puede haber proposiciones matemáticas contingentemente verdaderas. Además, recurriendo a la concepción fregeana sobre lo a priori y lo a posteriori, sostengo que hay verdades (...) geométricas que pueden ser a priori sin tener que serlo. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

‘If I were to toss a coin 1000 times, then it would land heads exactly n times’. Is there a specific value of n that renders this counterfactual true? According to an increasingly influential view, there is. A precursor of the view goes back to the Molinists; more recently it has been inspired by Stalnaker, and versions of it have been advocated by Hawthorne, Bradley, Moss, Schulz, and Stefánsson. More generally, I attribute to these authors what I call Counterfactual Plenitude:For (...) any antecedent A, there is a world wisuch that A ☐→ wiis true.Moreover, some of these authors are also committed to Primitive Counterfacts Realism:There exist primitive modal facts that serve as truth-makers for counterfactual claims.Call the conjunction of these italicized theses counterfactism. I clarify it and suggest some of its virtues, while ultimately rejecting it.Stefánsson’s counterfactism is motivated by and targeted at my “counterfactual skepticism”—I argue that most counterfactuals are false—and counterfactism has various other sources of support. I briefly defend that skepticism, and I seek to undercut those sources of support. I then argue more directly against counterfactism, especially on grounds of its ontological profligacy, and its leading to another kind of skepticism about counterfactuals that I believe is more problematic than my kind. In the process, I discuss how Bradley’s multidimensional semantics bears on counterfactism; I offer some new considerations against some central theses regarding conditionals ; and I reflect more generally on the epistemology of modality and the choice of primitives in our theorizing. (shrink)

In the human cognitive economy there are four grades of epistemic involvement. Knowledge partitions into distinct sorts, each in turn subject to gradations. This gives a fourwise partition on ignorance, which exhibits somewhat different coinstantiation possibilities. The elements of these partitions interact with one another in complex and sometimes cognitively fruitful ways. The first grade of knowledge I call “anselmian” to echo the famous declaration credo ut intelligam, that is, “I believe in order that I may come to know”. As (...) construed here, one knows in this anselmian way that E = mc2 just in case one knows that sentence expresses a true statement, but without having to understand the proposition it expresses. Most epistemologists ignore the significance of this grade of epistemic involvement. In a second grade of epistemic involvement, knowing that E = mc2 is knowing what that sentence means and understanding the proposition it express. This is knowledge in the propositional or semantic sense, and is the dominant target of epistemological investigation. Tacit and implicit knowledge occupies another tier. A typical example would be something that someone has “known all along” but, until now, hasn’t had occasion to put her mind to it or formulate in words. TI-knowledge remains a minority interest in today’s epistemology. Operating at a fourth grade of epistemic involvement is what I call “impact”-knowledge, which is the knowledge of a matter at its deepest and most widespread. An example, to be discussed below, is the knowledge that was generated by the Wiles proof of Fermat’s last theorem. Its true importance lies not only, or even mainly, in its verification of a commonly accepted fact about numbers, but rather in its enrichment of the mathematics of elliptical curves and the promise it holds for greater advancement into the mathematical unknown. Knowledge of this fourth grade has yet to find a seat in the parliaments of epistemology. Knowledge of the anselmian sort is independent of the other three. Tacit and implicit knowledge is incompatible with anselmian and semantic knowledge but coinstantiable with impact-knowledge. Semantic knowledge is incompatible with tacit and implicit knowledge but coinstantiable with the others. Impact-knowledge is pairwise coinstantiable with the others. Below I will bring the ignorance partitions into such alignment as they have with these ones. In doing so, I’ll propose a naturalized causal response epistemology designed to give these interactive distinctions the theoretical air they need to breathe. (shrink)

According to Woodward’s influential account of explanation, explanations have a counterfactual structure, and explanatory counterfactuals are analysed in terms of causal relations and interventions. In this paper, we provide a formal semantics of explanatory counterfactuals based on a Ramsey Test semantics of conditionals. Like Woodward’s account, our account is guided by causal considerations. Unlike Woodward’s account, it makes no reference to causal graphs and it also covers cases of explanation where interventions are impossible.

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 (...) to be qualitative properties that can only be designated directly. I conclude that while the linguistic thesis is ultimately untenable as stated, it can be plausibly recast as a thesis about our concepts rather than the properties they designate. (shrink)

This paper argues against dismissing the Principle of Alternative Possibilities merely on the ground of so-called Frankfurt-style cases. Its main claims are that the interpretation of such cases depends on which substantive theory of responsibility one endorses and that Frankfurt-style cases all involve some form of causal overdetermination which can be interpreted either as being compatible with the potentially manipulated agent’s ability to act otherwise or as a responsibility undermining constraint. The paper also argues that the possibility of such scenarios (...) can support the truth of classical compatibilism as much as the truth of semicompatibilism. (shrink)

This essay defends the view that pain is a feeling, and thus that token pains are instances of feeling, against a number of objections.

I argue for the claim that if Lewis’s regularity theory of laws were true, we could not know any positive law statement to be true. Premise 1: According to that theory, for any law statement true of the actual world, there is always a nearby world where the law statement is false (a world that differs with respect to one matter of particular fact). Premise 2: One cannot know a proposition to be true if it is false in a nearby (...) world (the epistemological safety principle). The conclusion that no law statement can be known to be true follows immediately from the two premises. (shrink)

This volume focuses on various questions concerning the interpretation of probability and probabilistic reasoning in biology and physics. It is inspired by the idea that philosophers of biology and philosophers of physics who work on the foundations of their disciplines encounter similar questions and problems concerning the role and application of probability, and that interaction between the two communities will be both interesting and fruitful. In this introduction we present the background to the main questions that the volume focuses on (...) and summarize the highlights of the individual contributions. (shrink)

The difficulties facing Humean regularity accounts of laws have led some philosophers to a theory that takes laws to be necessitation relations between universals. In this paper I evaluate David Armstrong's version of this theory by considering two of its key elements: its solution to the so-called “Inference Problem” and its denial of uninstantiated universals. After considering some potential problems with each of these elements on their own, I argue that Armstrong's solution to the Inference Problem and his denial of (...) uninstantiated universals are not two independent aspects of his view. His solution to the Inference Problem depends upon his denial of uninstantiated universals. (shrink)

Cardinality arguments against regular probability measures aim to show that no matter which ordered field ℍ we select as the measures for probability, we can find some event space F of sufficiently large cardinality such that there can be no regular probability measure from F into ℍ. In particular, taking ℍ to be hyperreal numbers won't help to guarantee that probability measures can always be regular. I argue that such cardinality arguments fail, since they rely on the wrong conception of (...) the role of numbers as measures of probability. With the proper conception of their role we can see that for any event space F, of any cardinality, there are regular hyperreal-valued probability measures. (shrink)

The standard axiomatization of quantum mechanics (QM) is not fully explicit about the role of the time-parameter. Especially, the time reference within the probability algorithm (the Born Rule, BR) is unclear. From a probability principle P1 and a second principle P2 affording a most natural way to make BR precise, a logical conflict with the standard expression for the completeness of QM can be derived. Rejecting P1 is implausible. Rejecting P2 leads to unphysical results and to a conflict with a (...) generalization of P2, a principle P3. All three principles are shown to be without alternative. It is thus shown that the standard expression of QM completeness must be revised. An absolutely explicit form of the axioms is provided, including a precise form of the projection postulate. An appropriate expression for QM completeness, reflecting the restrictions of the Gleason and Kochen-Specker theorems is proposed. (shrink)

Why do forces compose according to the parallelogram of forces? This question has been controversial; it is one episode in a longstanding, fundamental dispute regarding which facts are not to be explained dynamically. If the parallelogram law is explained statically, then the laws of statics are separate from and “transcend” the laws of dynamics. Alternatively, if the parallelogram law is explained dynamically, then statical laws become mere corollaries to the dynamical laws. I shall attempt to trace the history of this (...) controversy in order to identify what it would be for one or the other of these rival views to be correct. I shall argue that various familiar accounts of natural law not only make it difficult to see what the point of this dispute could have been, but also improperly foreclose some serious scientific options. I will sketch an alternative account of laws that helps us to understand what this dispute was all about. (shrink)

Probabilistic phenomena are often perceived as being problematic targets for contrastive explanation. It is usually thought that the possibility of contrastive explanation hinges on whether or not the probabilistic behaviour is irreducibly indeterministic, and that the possible remaining contrastive explananda are token event probabilities or complete probability distributions over such token outcomes. This paper uses the invariance-under-interventions account of contrastive explanation to argue against both ideas. First, the problem of contrastive explanation also arises in cases in which the probabilistic behaviour (...) of the explanandum is due to unobserved causal heterogeneity. Second, it turns out that, in contrast to the case of pure indeterminism, the plausible contrastive explananda under causal heterogeneity are not token event probabilities, but population-level statistical facts. (shrink)

Moore's paradox is a paradox in which certain kinds of belief or assertion, such as a belief that ?it is raining and I do not believe that it is raining?, are irrational despite involving no obvious contradiction in what is believed. But is there a parallel paradox involving other kinds of attitude, in particular desire? I argue that certain kinds of desire would be irrational to have for similar, distinctive reasons that having Moorean beliefs would be irrational to have. Hence, (...) I argue that such desires, a desire that ?one have a particular desire that was frustrated? or a desire that ?some state of affairs obtain about which one was indifferent?, are a parallel Moorean paradox of desire. I further argue that this analogous paradox has implications for practical reasoning, in particular by presenting a problem for instrumentalism about the objects of desire. (shrink)

If one flips an unbiased coin a million times, there are 2 1,000,000 series of possible heads/tails sequences, any one of which might be the sequence that obtains, and each of which is equally likely to obtain. So it seems (1) 'If I had tossed a fair coin one million times, it might have landed heads every time' is true. But as several authors have pointed out, (2) 'If I had tossed a fair coin a million times, it wouldn't have (...) come up heads every time' will be counted as true in everyday contexts. And according to David Lewis' influential semantics for counterfactuals, (1) and (2) are contradictories. We have a puzzle. We must either (A) deny that (2) is true, (B) deny that (1) is true, or (C) deny that (1) and (2) are contradictories, thus rejecting Lewis' semantics. In this paper I discuss and criticize the proposals of David Lewis and more recently J. Robert G. Williams which solve the puzzle by taking option (B). I argue that we should opt for either (A) or (C). (shrink)

The beauty of electricity, or of any other force, is not that the power is mysterious and unexpected, touching every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under law... Michael Faraday, Wheatstone's Electric Telegraph's Relation to Science (being an argument in favour of the full recognition of Science as a branch of Education), 1854.

I argue for an account of vagueness according to which the root of vagueness lies not in the type of semantic-value that is best associated with an expression, but in the type of linguistic practice that renders the expression meaningful. I suggest, in particular, that conventions about how to use sentences involving attributions of vague predicates to borderline cases prevail to a lesser degree than conventions about how to use sentences involving attributions of vague predicates to clear cases.

In this paper we propose a semantic analysis of sentences of the form "In fiction x, p" based on this picture of context. We argue that the derived contexts for sentences in the scope of "In fiction X" are determined by three factors: what the beliefs of the author are taken to be, the conventions established for the fiction, and a defeasible presumption of reliability of the narrator. We develop a formal implementation based on the notion of a system of (...) spheres centered on a set of worlds. (edited). (shrink)

I develop a device for simulating quantification over merely possible objects from the perspective of a modal actualist ---someone who thinks that everything that exists actually exists.