This paper articulates two constraints on an acceptable account of meaning: (i) accessibility: sameness of meaning affords an immediate appearance of de jure co-reference, (ii) flexibility: sameness of meaning tolerates open-ended variation in speakers' substantive understanding of the reference. Traditional accounts of meaning have trouble simultaneously satisfying both constraints. I suggest that relationally individuated meanings provide a promising way of avoiding this tension. On relational accounts, we bootstrap our way to de jure co-reference: the subjective appearance of de jure co-reference (...) helps make it the case that two token representations really do co-refer. (shrink)

Magnetism in meta-semantics is the view that the meaning of our words is determined in part by their use and in part by the objective naturalness of candidate meanings. This hypothesis is commonly attributed to David Lewis, and has been put to philosophical work by Brian Weatherson, Ted Sider and others. I argue that there is no evidence that Lewis ever endorsed the view, and that his actual account of language reveals good reasons against it.

Near the end of 'Naming the Colours', Lewis (1997) makes an interesting claim about the relationship between linguistic and mental content; we are typically unable to read the content of a belief off the content of a sentence used to express that belief or vice versa. I call this view autonomism. I motivate and defend autonomism and discuss its importance in the philosophy of mind and language. In a nutshell, I argue that the different theoretical roles that mental and linguistic (...) content play suggest these kinds of content should be understood as sensitive to different things. (shrink)

Know-how and expressivism are usually regarded as disjoint topics, belonging to distant areas of philosophy. This paper argues that, despite obvious differences, the two debates have important similarities. In particular, semantic and conceptual tools developed by expressivists can be exported to the know-how debate. On the one hand, some of the expressivists' semantic resources can be used to deflect Stanley and Williamson's influential argument for factualism about know-how: the claim that knowing how to do something consists in knowing a fact. (...) On the other, expressivism provides the resources to formulate a nonfactualist account of know-how. On this account, know-how has a kind of nonpropositional content and plays the role of guiding performance of action, rather than recording information from the environment. (shrink)

A possible way out to Kripke’s Puzzle About Belief could start from the rejection of the notion of epistemic transparency. Epistemic transparency seems, indeed, irremediably incompatible with an externalist conception of mental content. However, Brandom’s inferentialism could be considered a version of externalism that allows, at least in some cases, to save the principle of transparency. Appealing to a normative account of the content of our beliefs, from the inferentialist’s standpoint, it is possible to state that a content is transparent (...) when name-components of that content are a priori associated with some application conditions and, at the same time, reflection alone provides an a priori access to those application conditions, with no need of any empirical investigation. Nevertheless, such requirements are only met in trivial cases. The aim of this paper is to argue that some application conditions of that sort, albeit trivial, can be ontologically ampliative. As a result, the related contents can be regarded as transparent in a substantial and rich way. (shrink)

The paper suggests a way of viewing the two Fregean principles of compositionality and contextuality as working together in the enterprise of interpretation. A third Fregean theme, that of elucidation (more precisely, the elucidation of primitive, undefinable terms of logic, mathematics and metamathematics) secures a place for some version of the context principle in Frege's later writings. When thinking about the functioning of elucidations, Frege acknowledges a principle of charitable interpretation. I argue that there is a deep connection between the (...) three themes, and that not only compositionality and contextuality, but also charity is a genuinely Fregean theme. -/- Context. Interpretation. Linguistics. Logic. Meaning. Word. (shrink)

Michael Smith's recent defence of the theory shows promise, in that it captures the most common reasons for accepting a Humean view. But, as I will argue, it falls short of vindicating the view. Smith's argument fails, because it ignores the role of rationality conditions on the ascription of motivating reason explanations. Because of these conditions, we must have a theory of rationality before we choose a theory of motivation. Thus, we cannot use Humean restrictions on motivation to argue for (...) a particular conception of rationality. I will not directly criticize using a Humean conception of rationality to defend a Humean theory of motivation. For my argument implies that such criticism must come more directly, as argument over the substantive content of rationality. (shrink)

Quasi-realists aspire to accommodate core features of ordinary normative thought and discourse in an expressivist framework. One apparent such feature is that we can be more or less confident in our normative judgments—they vary in credence. Michael Smith has argued that quasi-realists cannot plausibly accommodate these distinctions simply because they understand normative judgments as desires, but desires lack the structure needed to distinguish these three features. Existing attempts to meet Smith’s challenge have accepted Smith’s presupposition that the way to meet (...) the challenge is to show that normative judgments have more structure than they initially seem to have. I argue that accepting this presupposition is accepting too much. The orthodox view of certitude, insofar as there is one, understands certitude very roughly in terms of counterfactual betting behaviour. Counterfactual betting behaviour, though, is not in any useful sense a structural feature of a given judgment. It is rather a more holistic feature of a given agent’s cognitive system. Insofar as it can meet the other challenges it faces, quasi-realism can characterize credences in terms of counterfactual betting behaviour and effectively say exactly what many realists will want to say about credences, thus meeting Smith’s challenge much more directly. (shrink)

The connection between theories of truth and meaning is explored. Theories of truth and meaning are connected in a way such that differences in the conception of what it is for a sentence to be true are engendered by differences in the conception of how meanings depend on each other, and on a base of underlying facts. It is argued that this view is common ground between Davidson and Dummett, and that their dispute over realism is really a dispute in (...) the theory of meaning over holism and molecularism. The view offered is contrasted with influential pragmatist and modest views. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

According to a standard assumption in epistemology, if one only partially believes that p , then one cannot thereby have knowledge that p. For example, if one only partially believes that that it is raining outside, one cannot know that it is raining outside; and if one only partially believes that it is likely that it will rain outside, one cannot know that it is likely that it will rain outside. Many epistemologists will agree that epistemic agents are capable of (...) partial beliefs in addition to full beliefs and that partial beliefs can be epistemically assessed along some dimensions. However, it has been generally assumed that such doxastic attitudes cannot possibly amount to knowledge. In Probabilistic Knowledge, Moss challenges this standard assumption and provides a formidable defense of the claim that probabilistic beliefs—a class of doxastic attitudes including credences and degrees of beliefs—can amount to knowledge too. Call this the probabilistic knowledge claim . Throughout the book, Moss goes to great lengths to show that probabilistic knowledge can be fruitfully applied to a variety of debates in epistemology and beyond. My goal in this essay is to explore a further application for probabilistic knowledge. I want to look at the role of probabilistic knowledge within a “knowledge-centered” psychology—a kind of psychology that assigns knowledge a central stage in explanations of intentional behavior. My suggestion is that Moss’s notion of probabilistic knowledge considerably helps further both a knowledge-centered psychology and a broadly intellectualist picture of action and know-how that naturally goes along with it. At the same time, though, it raises some interesting issues about the notion of explanation afforded by the resulting psychology. (shrink)

A good surgeon knows how to perform a surgery; a good architect knows how to design a house. We value their know-how. We ordinarily look for it. What makes it so valuable? A natural response is that know-how is valuable because it explains success. A surgeon’s know-how explains their success at performing a surgery. And an architect’s know-how explains their success at designing houses that stand up. We value know-how because of its special explanatory link to success. But in virtue (...) of what is know-how explanatorily linked to success? This essay provides a novel argument for the thesis that know-how’s special link to success is to be explained at least in part in terms of its being, or involving, a doxastic attitude that is epistemically alike propositional knowledge. It is argued that the role played by know-how in explaining intentional success shows that the epistemic differences between know-how and knowledge, if any, are less than usually thought; and that "revisionary intellectualism", the view that know-how is true belief that might well fall short of knowledge, is not really a stable position. If its explanatory link to success is what makes know-how valuable, an upshot of my argument is that the value of know-how is due, to a considerable extent, to its being, or involving, a kind of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Physicalism about colour is the thesis that colours are identical with response-independent, physical properties of objects. I endorse the Argument from Structure against Physicalism about colour. The argument states that Physicalism cannot accommodate certain obvious facts about colour structure: for instance, that red is a unitary colour while purple is a binary colour, and that blue resembles purple more than green. I provide a detailed formulation of the argument. According to the most popular response to the argument, the Physicalist can (...) accommodate colour structure by explaining it in terms of colour experience. I argue that this response fails. Along the way, I examine other interesting issues in the philosophy of colour and colour perception, for instance the relational structure of colour experience and the description theory of how colour names refer. (shrink)

Handbook article about Radical interpretation and the principle of charity in Donald Davidson's philosophy.

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.

Second part of the translation into Spanish of David Lewis' "New Work for a Theory of Universals", corresponding to the last sections of the original paper. || Segunda parte de la traducción al español del trabajo de David Lewis "New Work for a Theory of Universals", correspondiente a últimas secciones del artículo original. Artículo original publicado en: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 4, Dec. 1983, pp. 343-377.

El texto que se presenta aquí es la segunda parte de la traducción de New Theory of Universalsy se corresponde con las últimas secciones del artículo original. En el anterior número de Ideas y Valores (157 de abril de 2015) se publicó la primera parte, que corresponde a la introducción y las dos primeras secciones del original.

Timothy Williamson has proposed that we should give a ‘knowledge first’ twist to David Lewis’s account of content, maintaining that for P to be the content of one’s belief is for P to be the content that would be attributed by an idealized interpreter working under certain constraints, and that the fundamental constraint on interpretation is a principle of knowledge maximization. According to this principle, an interpretation is correct to the extent that it maximizes the number of knowledgeable judgments the (...) subject comes out as making. Here I will argue against knowledge maximization and two fallback positions suggested by Williamson’s discussion. Williamson intends the principle of knowledge maximization to form the basis of an argument against a certain sort of skepticism about judgment. In the final section I argue that the kind of general response to judgment skepticism envisaged by Williamson is neither desirable nor necessary. (shrink)

Utilitarianism and prioritarianism make a strong assumption about the uniqueness of measures of how good things are for people, or for short, individual goodness measures. But it is far from obvious that the presupposition is correct. The usual response to this problem assumes that individual goodness measures are determined independently of our discourse about distributive theories. This article suggests reversing this response. What determines the set of individual goodness measures just is the body of platitudes we accept about distributive theories. (...) When prioritarianism is taken to have an ex ante form, this approach vindicates the utilitarian and prioritarian presupposition, and provides an answer to an argument due to Broome that for different reasons to do with measurement, prioritarianism is meaningless. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that intersubjective intelligibility, testability with the use of evidence, rational argumentation and objectivity are possible in the case of text interpretation. As far as one is willing to accept that the application of such standards make up science as a rational enterprise, one should also accept text interpretation as a rational enterprise and should be willing to qualify hermeneutics as a rational methodology of interpretation.

This paper argues that functionalist metasemantic views, such as Conceptual Role Semantics and Interpretivism, face a Euthyphro challenge. The challenge, put roughly, is this: functionalist metasemantic views reverse the order of explanation. According to such views, representational mental states have the contents that they do partly because they play certain roles in our mental lives. According to an intuitive picture of the roles that representational mental states play in our mental lives, however, these states play the roles they do partly (...) because they have the contents that they do. Since explanations—even partial ones—are asymmetric (call this principle ‘the Euthyphro Principle’), we can’t accept both this intuitive picture and a functionalist metasemantics. Hence, we should reject all versions of the latter. This paper can be seen as an attempt to better articulate an intuition that has been suggested in various forms in the literature. The paper proceeds as follows. First, it shows that functionalist metasemantic views imply certain ‘partly because’ claims. Second, it argues for the Euthyphro Principle. Third, it defends the intuitive picture of representational mental states and shows that it implies ‘partly because’ claims that conflict with those made by functionalist metasemantic views. Finally, it considers ways of relaxing the intuitive picture and finds them all wanting. (shrink)

The principle of charity is used in philosophy of language and argumentation theory as an important principle of interpretation which credits speakers with “the best” plausible interpretation of their discourse. I contend that the argumentation account, while broadly advocated, misses the basic point of a dialectical conception which approaches argumentation as discussion between two parties who disagree over the issue discussed. Therefore, paradoxically, an analyst who is charitable to one discussion party easily becomes uncharitable to the other. To overcome this (...) paradox, I suggest to significantly limit the application of the principle of charity depending on contextual factors. (shrink)

The cognitive experience view of thought holds that the content of thought is determined by its cognitive-phenomenal character. Adam Pautz argues that the cognitive experience view is extensionally inadequate: it entails the possibility of mix-and-match cases, where the cognitive-phenomenal properties that determine thought content are combined with different sensory-phenomenal and functional properties. Because mix-and-match cases are metaphysically impossible, Pautz argues, the cognitive experience view should be rejected. This paper defends the cognitive experience view from Pautz’s argument. I build on resources (...) in the philosophy of mind literature to show that cognitive-phenomenal properties are modally independent from sensory-phenomenal and functional properties. The result is that mix-and-match cases, though modally remote, are metaphysically possible. The possibility of mix-and-match cases allows us to move from defensive posture to a critical one: it poses problems for any theory of content that imposes rationality constraints, including Pautz’s positive view, phenomenal functionalism. (shrink)

Nearly 30 years have passed since Donald Davidson first presented his ar- gument against the possibility of psychophysical laws in “Mental Events”. The argument applies to intentional rather than phenomenal properties, so whenever I refer to mental properties and to psychophysical laws it should be understood that I mean intentional properties and laws relating them to physical properties. No consensus has emerged over what the argument actually is, and the subsequent versions of it presented by Davidson show significant differences. But (...) many have been inclined to agree with the spirit of the argument and with its conclusion. (shrink)

En m’appuyant sur une distinction de Daniel Laurier entre holismes métaphysique et épistémique ainsi que sur le fait généralement admis qu’il n’y a que deux types de relations susceptibles de prévaloir entre états mentaux, j’évalue différentes définitions, proposées par Donald Davidson, de l’attitude de tenir une phrase pour vraie, soient celle qui fait de cette attitude une attitude propositionnelle, celle qui prétend qu’elle est une attitude non individuative et, enfin, celle qui suggère qu’elle est une action. J’essaie de voir les (...) conséquences qu’entraîne, sur le plan des relations entre états mentaux, l’inclusion de cette attitude, selon les définitions analysées, dans le holisme psycholinguistique, lequel est un holisme métaphysique et concerne les phrases de la langue d’un locuteur ainsi que ses croyances. Je termine en suggérant que la voie la plus prometteuse concernant cette attitude est de la définir comme une attitude non individuative, qu’il faut prendre soin de distinguer des autres états mentaux à contenu non propositionnel, comme les états expérientiels.Relying on a distinction conceived of by Daniel Laurier between metaphysical and epistemic holism as well as the generally accepted fact that there are only two types of relations thought to prevail between mental states, I will evaluate different definitions, proposed by Donald Davidson, of the attitude of holding a sentence true: one that construes it as a propositional attitude, one claiming that it is a nonindividuative attitude, and finally one suggesting that it is an action. I examine the consequences that follow from an inclusion of this attitude, at the level of relations between mental states and as a result of the various definitions, into psycholinguistic holism. Psycholinguistic holism is a type of metaphysical holism that is concerned with the sentences of a speaker’s language as well as his beliefs. I end by suggesting that the most promising path to take with regard to this attitude is to define it as a nonindividuative attitude, that one must be careful to distinguish it from the other mental states with non-propositional content, such as experience states. (shrink)

Mathematical practice prompts theories about aprioricity, necessity, abstracta, and non-causal epistemic connections. But it is not clear what to count as the data: mathematical necessity or the appearance of mathematical necessity, abstractness or apparent abstractness, a prioricity or apparent aprioricity. Nor is it clear whether traditional metaphysical theories provide explanation or idle redescription. This paper suggests that abstract objects, rather than doing explanatory work, provide codifications of the data to be explained. It also suggests that traditional rivals—conceptualism, nominalism, realism—engage different (...) explanatory projects, and thus are not rivals at all. (shrink)

The Problem of Overlappers is a puzzle about what makes it the case, and how we can know, that we have the parts we intuitively think we have. In this paper, I develop and motivate an overlooked solution to this puzzle. According to what I call the self-making view it is within our power to decide what we refer to with the personal pronoun ‘I’, so the truth of most of our beliefs about our parts is ensured by the very (...) mechanism of self-reference. Other than providing an elegant solution to the Problem of Overlappers, the view can be motivated on independent grounds. It also has wide-ranging consequences for how we should be thinking about persons. Among other things, it can help undermine an influential line of argument against the permissibility of elective amputation. After a detailed discussion and defence of the self-making view, I consider some objections to it. I conclude that none of these objections is persuasive and we should at the very least take seriously the idea that we are to some extent self-made. (shrink)

Many of those who accept the universalist thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted also maintain that the folk typically restrict their quantifiers in such a way as to exclude strange fusions when they say things that appear to conflict with universalism. Despite its prima facie implausibility, there are powerful arguments for universalism. By contrast, there is remarkably little evidence for the thesis that strange fusions are excluded from the ordinary domain of quantification. Furthermore, this reconciliatory strategy seems hopeless when applied (...) to the more fundamental conflict between universalism and the intuitions that tell against it. (shrink)

Materialism—the view that all of reality is wholly determined by the very, very small—and extreme nominalism—the view that properties, kinds, and qualities do not really exist—have been the dominant view in analytic philosophy for the last 100 years or so. Both views, however, have failed to provide adequate accounts for the possibility of intentionality and of knowledge. We must therefore look to alternatives. One well-tested alternative, the hylomorphism of Aristotle and the medieval scholastics, was rejected without being refuted and so (...) deserves further examination. I will argue that Aristotelian hylomorphic provides a markedly superior account of knowledge, cognitive normativity, and intentionality. (shrink)

Functions play an important role in neo-pragmatism. This paper advances neo-pragmatism’s prospects by investigating how functions are to be understood on this account. It argues that prominent ways of understanding functions do not suit neo-pragmatists’ meta-semantic commitments or their preferred methodology. It then presents an account that fits both, based on Laura and François Schroeter’s theory of rationalizing self-interpretation. On this account, a term’s function is what it allows us to do that makes our tradition with the term rational.

A core commitment of meta-ethical expressivism is that ordinary descriptive judgements are representational states, while normative judgements are non-representational directive states. Traditionally, this commitment has been understood as a psychological thesis about the nature of normative judgements, as the view that normative judgements consist in certain sorts of conative propositional attitudes. This paper’s aim is to challenge this reading and to show that changing our view on how this commitment is to be understood opens up space for attractive forms of (...) expressivism. The paper argues this by example: by presenting one of the possible expressivist views that can be developed on this reading and by arguing that this view has distinctive advantages over forms of expressivism that endorse the traditional interpretation of expressivism. (shrink)

Two main theories of concepts have emerged in the recent psychological literature: the Prototype Theory (which considers concepts to be self-contained lists of features) and the Theory Theory (which conceives of them as being embedded within larger theoretical networks). Experiments supporting the first theory usually differ substantially from those supporting the second, which suggests that these the· ories may be operating at different levels of explanation and dealing with different entities. A convergence is proposed between the Theory Theory and the (...) intentional stance in the philosophy of language and mind. From this stance, concepts should not be thought of as concrete physical entities. (shrink)

This paper addresses the ongoing debate over the relation between belief and credence. A proposal is made to reverse the currently predominant order of analysis, by taking belief as conceptually basic and credence as the phenomenon to be clarified. In brief, the proposal is to explicate an agent’s credence in a proposition P as the agent’s tendency toward believing P. Platitudinous as this reduction may seem, it runs counter to all of the major positions in the debate, including the Threshold (...) View, the Certainty View as conventionally understood, Dualism, Eliminativism, as well as Credence Primitivism. Section 1 gives an overview on the current state of the debate. Section 2 considers unsuccessful predecessors of the proposed belief-first approach to credence. Section 3 motivates and lays out the basics of a conceptual framework for thinking about doxastic states that characterizes such states in terms of two formally independent dimensions, one pertaining to the agent’s tendency toward believing P, the other to the level of resilience with which the agent manifests that tendency. Against this backdrop, it is argued in Sect. 4 that the present reduction satisfies a set of standard, theoretically neutral criteria of adequacy for theories of credence, at least once they are purged of a quite common conflation of tendency and resilience. Section 5 argues against all of the above competing accounts. (shrink)