Dem "Manifestationsargument" zufolge steht eine realistische Semantik der Wahrheitsbedingungen im Widerspruch zu dem Gedanken, dass das Verstehen von Sätzen eine Fähigkeit ist, die sich im Handeln manifestieren können muss. – Der Aufsatz zeigt, dass sowohl Realisten als auch Anti-Realisten die These aufzugeben haben, dass das Verstehen eines Satzes im Erfassen der jeweiligen Wahrheitsbedingungenbesteht. Die realistische Annahme der Existenz verifikationstranszendenter Wahrheiten steht – unabhängig vom Manifestationsprinzip – im Widerspruch zu einer wahrheitskonditionalen Semantik. Die von heutigen Anti-Realisten vertretenen Theorien des Verstehens sind (...) allerdings einem ähnlichen Einwand ausgesetzt, insofern sie gleichfalls nicht unsere Fähigkeit, unentscheidbare Sätze zu verstehen, erklären können. (shrink)

The paper presents a number of empirical arguments for the perceptual view of speech comprehension. It then argues that a particular version of phenomenal dogmatism can confer immediate justification upon belief. In combination, these two views can bypass Davidsonian skepticism toward knowledge of meanings. The perceptual view alone, however, can bypass a variation on the Davidsonian argument. One reason Davidson thought meanings were not truly graspable was that he believed meanings were private (unlike behavior). But if the perceptual view of (...) speech comprehension is correct, then meanings (or at least conveyed meanings) are public objects like other perceivable entities. Hence, there is no particular problem of language comprehension, even if meanings originate in “private” mental states. (shrink)

According to the inferential view of language comprehension, we hear a speaker’s utterance and infer what was said, drawing on our competence in the syntax and semantics of the language together with background information. On the alternative perceptual view, fluent speakers have a non-inferential capacity to perceive the content of speech. On this view, when we hear a speaker’s utterance, the experience confers some degree of justification on our beliefs about what was said in the absence of defeaters. So, in (...) the absence of defeaters, we can come to know what was said merely on the basis of hearing the utterance. Several arguments have been offered against a pure perceptual view of language comprehension, among others, arguments pointing to its alleged difficulties accounting for homophones and the context-sensitivity of ordinary language. After responding to the arguments against the perceptual view of language comprehension, I provide a new argument in favor of the perceptual view by looking closer at the dependence of the justificatory qualities of experience on the notion of a defeater as well as the perceptual nature of language learning and language processing. (shrink)

In this paper I consider whether the reasons on which our testimonial beliefs are directly based—“testimonial reasons”—are basic reasons for belief. After laying out a Dretske-inspired psychologistic conception of reasons for belief in general and a corresponding conception of basic reasons for belief, I present a prima facie case against the basicality of testimonial reasons. I then respond to a challenge from Audi to this case. To the extent that my response is successful, the viability of an important kind of (...) inferentialism about testimonial belief is preserved. (shrink)

This essay is an inquiry into John McDowell’s thinking on ‘subjectivity.’ The project consists in two parts. On the one hand, I will discuss how McDowell understands and responds to the various issues he is tackling; on the other, I will approach relevant issues concerning subjectivity by considering different aspects of it: a subject as a perceiver, knower, thinker, speaker, agent, person and (self-) conscious being in the world. The inquiry begins by identifying and resolving a tension generated by the (...) very idea of ‘rational animal’: human beings are at the same time natural and rational. Later the inquiry proceeds by considering how McDowell’s notion of ‘second nature’ enables us to be human subjects with many faces. By going through the diagnoses and responses of McDowell, two central problems in modern and contemporary philosophy – the narrow conception of nature and the Cartesian inner space model – are identified and repelled. In Episode N I first urge that we should leave room for a certain notion of ‘world.’ I further argue that mentality has many aspects, and to understand those aspects is to understand the many faces of human subject. In Episode Ⅰ the Aristotelian notion of ‘second nature’ is discussed in order to resolve the tension in the very idea of ‘rational animal.’ Later I reply to some worries about this maneuver, including the objection from Crispin Wright. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s distinction between world and environment is introduced and related to McDowell’s thinking. Episode Ⅱ discusses perception and knowledge; McDowell’s main target – the Cartesian inner space – is introduced and criticized. Barry Stroud’s and Simon Blackburn’s positions are evaluated. Later I connect the main theme of Mind and World to the present context; in particular, I discuss McDowell’s invocation of Donald Davidson and Immanuel Kant. And then I discuss a common accusation of idealism, and Robert Brandom’s accusation of ‘residual individualism.’ Episode Ⅲ concentrates on Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein, arguing that the master thesis behind the rule-following paradox is a version of the inner space model, and that Kripke’s Wittgenstein is not Wittgenstein. Martin Kusch’s objections are answered; Michael Dummett’s demand of reductionism is rebutted. After this, I turn to Davidson’s ‘no language’ claim, and discuss to what extent McDowell agrees with him. In Episode Ⅳ I evaluate objections from Hubert Dreyfus concerning action and agency. I discuss how Dreyfus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty commit ‘the Myth of the Disembodied Intellect’ identified by McDowell. I answer Michael Ayer’s charge of intellectualism in passing. Later I bring in McDowell’s objections to Derek Parfit on personhood and to Davidson on the mind-body relation. In Episode Ⅴ I focus on consciousness and self-consciousness. McDowell applies his argument against Parfit to Kant, but Maximilian de Gaynesford dissents. I reply to his objections on McDowell’s behalf. I further connect this to McDowell’s attacks on the dualism of scheme and content. This leads to my McDowellian rejection to the existence of qualia, and further brings me to the debate between intentionalism and disjunctivism in the context of the argument from illusion. I argue against Tim Crane’s ways of conceiving issues about intentionalism and the argument from illusion. Varieties of disjunctivism are also discussed. In my Epilogue, I express my worry about McDowell’s notion of ‘self-determining subjectivity.’ According to McDowell, human freedom consists in causations in the space of reason, but as Richard Gaskin points out, a satisfying story of it is yet to be provided. I close this essay with some rough ideas about how to fill in the details of the McDowellian picture. (shrink)

John McDowell has often emphasized the fact that the use of langauge is a rational enterprise. In this paper, I explore the sense in which this is so, arguing that our use of language depends upon our consciously knowing what our words mean. I call this a 'cognitive conception of semantic competence'. The paper also contains a close analysis of the phenomenon of implicature and some suggestions about how it should and should not be understood.

Defends the view that understanding can be identified with knowledge of T-sentences against the classical criticisms of Foster and Soames.

Defends the view that the study of language should concern itself, primarily, with idiolects. The main objections considered are forms of the normativity objection.

Our folk epistemology says that if someone knows that P and tells you that P, then, given the absence of defeaters, if you believe what they tell you, you will come to know that P as well. A speaker's knowledge that P is then, for the most part, enough for a hearer to come to know that P. But there are counterexamples to this principle: testimonial knowledge does not always transfer from the speaker to the hearer. Why should that be (...) so? Because testimonial knowledge arises through the flow of information--from conclusive grounds--from the speaker through the speaker's assertion to the hearer's state of comprehension as of the speaker's assertion. A speaker's belief can be based on conclusive grounds, but the speaker's assertion may fail to provide conclusive grounds to the hearer. Then the hearer won't acquire knowledge, even from a knowledgeable speaker. Knowledge from testimony then works more like knowledge through perception. But wait, you say, that can't be so because testimony involves free will but perception does not. The essay ends with a broadly Hume inspired reply to this objection. (shrink)

The analyses of the mind–world relation offered by transcendental idealists such as Husserl have often been dismissed with the argument that they remain committed to an outdated form of internalism. The first move in this paper will be to argue that there is a tight link between Husserl’s transcendental idealism and what has been called phenomenological externalism, and that Husserl’s endorsement of the former commits him to a version of the latter. Secondly, it will be shown that key elements in (...) Husserl’s transcendental idealism, including his rejection of representationalism and metaphysical realism, is shared with a number of prominent contemporary defenders of an externalist view on the mind. Ultimately, however, it will be suggested that the very alternative between internalism and externalism—an alternative based on the division between inner and outer—might be inapplicable when it comes to phenomenological conceptions of the mind–world relation. (shrink)

The identity theory of truth, according to which true thoughts are identical with facts, is very hard to formulate. It oscillates between substantive versions, which are implausible, and a merely truistic version, which is difficult to distinguish from deflationism about truth. This tension is present in the form of identity theory that one can attribute to McDowell from his views on perception, and in the conception defended by Hornsby under that name.

Plausibly perceptual knowledge satisfies the following: It is knowledge about things from the way they appear. It can embrace more than the way things appear. It is phenomenologically immediate and thus, in one sense, non-inferential. and place a significant constraint on adequate elucidations of . Knowledge about an object, from the way it looks, which embraces more than the way it looks, should not turn out to be inferential in the relevant sense. The paper shows how this constraint can be (...) met, drawing upon a conception of a discriminative capacity. The discussion touches on literature dealing with observation in science, knowledge of other minds, and the possibility of moral knowledge. (shrink)

How much linguistic understanding is required for testimonial knowledge acquisition? One answer is that, so long as we grasp the content expressed by the speaker, it does not matter if our understanding of it is poor. Call this the ‘Liberal View’ of testimony. This approach looks especially promising when combined with the thesis that we share a public language that makes it easy to grasp the right content. In this paper, I argue that this picture is epistemically problematic. Poor linguistic (...) understanding undermines our ability to recognise evidence and counterevidence for the testimonial content. Because of this, in many cases in which a hearer’s understanding is poor, her resultant testimonial belief will lack sufficient warrant to qualify as knowledge. Given that we often do not possess a sufficiently good understanding of the testimony we consume, I argue that we acquire far less knowledge through testimony than the Liberal View suggests. (shrink)

Although the later Wittgenstein appears as one of the most influential figures in Davidson’s later works on meaning, it is not, for the most part, clear how Davidson interprets and employs Wittgenstein’s ideas. In this paper, I will argue that Davidson’s later works on meaning can be seen as mainly a manifestation of his attempt to accommodate the later Wittgenstein’s basic ideas about meaning and understanding, especially the requirement of drawing the seems right/is right distinction and the way this requirement (...) must be met. These ideas, however, are interpreted by Davidson in his own way. I will then argue that Davidson even attempts to respect Wittgenstein’s quietism, provided that we understand this view in the way Davidson does. Having argued for that, I will finally investigate whether, for Davidson at least, his more theoretical and supposedly explanatory projects, such as that of constructing a formal theory of meaning and his use of the notion of triangulation, are in conflict with this Wittgensteinian quietist view. (shrink)

In this paper, we will discuss what is called the “Manifestation Challenge” to semantic realism, which was originally developed by Michael Dummett and has been further refined by Crispin Wright. According to this challenge, semantic realism has to meet the requirement that knowledge of meaning must be publically manifested in linguistic behaviour. In this regard, we will introduce and evaluate John McDowell’s response to this anti-realistic challenge, which was put forward to show that the challenge cannot undermine realism. According to (...) McDowell, knowledge of undecidable sentences’ truth-conditions can be properly manifested in our ordinary practice of asserting such sentences under certain circumstances, and any further requirement will be redundant. Wright’s further objection to McDowell’s response will be also discussed and it will be argued that this objection fails to raise any serious problem for McDowell’s response and that it is an implausible objection in general. (shrink)

I provide an explanation of moral understanding. I begin by describing decisions, es- pecially moral ones. I detail ways in which deviations from an ideal of decision-making occur. I link deviations to characteristic critical judgments, e.g. being cavalier, banal, coura- geous, etc. Moral judgments are among these and carry a particular personal gravity. The question I entertain in following chapters is: how do they carry this gravity? In answering the question, I try “external” accounts of moral understanding. I distin- guish (...) between the ideas of a person and a life. The idea of a life essayed is of a network of relations to others. The character of those relations, e.g. friendship, is the object of our understanding of ourselves and our lives. I argue that one’s understanding of oneself conditions the context of decision-making. I elaborate one way of making moral under- standing answerable to truth using Plato’s metaphysics in the Philebus. Truth is valued and truth is essential to the independence of the moral such that seeming right and being right are distinct. However, truth is neither primary nor exhaustive of morality, because we have additional distinct resources for morally judging others. I turn instead to an “internal” account of moral understanding to answer the question regarding the personal gravity of moral criticism. Using Winch’s work on universalizabil- ity and fellowship, I argue that our conception of others must be sufficient to reflect their individuality within our moral understanding. Second, using Gaita’s work on remorse and the lucidity of self-reflection, I argue that the truth about ourselves and the wrong we do others can arrest and constrain our moral understanding and our authority. Moral understanding operates in a social milieu: argument, conversation and rational- ity. Arguments are grounded in meanings with primary (shared) sense, but solicit agree- ment in secondary sense—of what is similar, of what follows. Meaning in the secondary sense can be necessarily practical, creating practical necessities within points of view. Accounting for the consequences and understanding of disagreement is identified as pressing. An original contribution is the idea of critical authority. One’s articulation of moral meaning is controlled via the critical authority expressed using critical vocabulary. Accepting another’s critical authority is based, in differing domains, on our relation to them, e.g. friendship, trust, fellowship. The nature of inter-personal relations are delim- ited by the critical authority characteristic of those relations. Critical authority explains the independent and personal force of moral criticism. To be intelligible depends on accepting some critical authorities, though I allow for the intelligible repudiation of morality in some circumstances. Wronging someone is ex- plained as denying his critical authority, thus denying his relation to oneself, and thereby undermining his place in the moral world. The consequence of wrongdoing is the disinte- gration of the moral world. I defend against Nagel’s realism and Korsgaard’s constructivism. Both are committed to judging individuals but their accounts of morality undermine the intelligibility of the personal gravity of moral criticism. Developing the idea of Moral Consensus, I defend myself against the related charge of relativism. (shrink)

What accounts for the capacity of ordinary speakers to comprehend utterances of their language? The phenomenology of hearing speech in one’s own language makes it tempting to many epistemologists to look to perception for an answer to this question. That is, just as a visual experience as of a red square is often taken to give the perceiver immediate justification for believing that there is a red square in front of her, perhaps an auditory experience as of the speaker asserting (...) that p gives the competent hearer immediate justification for believing that the speaker has asserted that p. My aim here is to offer reasons for resisting this temptation. I argue that the perceptual model cannot adequately account for the hearer’s justification in many cases. The arguments here also allow us to draw certain further morals about the role of phenomenology in the epistemology of perception. (shrink)

I defend a perceptual account of face-to-face mindreading. I begin by proposing a phenomenological constraint on our visual awareness of others' emotional expressions. I argue that to meet this constraint we require a distinction between the basic and non-basic ways people, and other things, look. I offer and defend just such an account.

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

The paper develops an account of semantic notions which occupies a middle ground between antirealism and traditional forms of realism, using some ideas from the work of John McDowell. The position is based on a contrast between two points of view from which we might attempt to characterize our linguistic practices from the cosmic exile s point of view and from the midst of language as a going concern. The contrast is drawn in terms of whether our characterization of our (...) linguistic practices is taken to result from engagement in the very same practices that we are trying to characterize. The position takes realism to be correct when understood as an account from the internal perspective, but incorrect when taken as an account from the external perspective. However, the intelligibility of the question as to what our practices would look like from the cosmic exile s point of view is presented as problematic. (shrink)

The article provides a summary of the author's book Understanding People: Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004). It details three areas in which the notion of a normative commitment is made central. These are (1) believing and intending, (2) practices conceived as essentially rule-governed activities, and (3) meaning and concepts. An account is given of how we may best explain the commitments incurred by beliefs and intentions. It is held that those states are themselves essentially normative. A problem (...) of the relevance of rationalizing to rationalizing explanation is explored and the relation between normative commitments and normative reasons is discussed. (shrink)

Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?

We construct an extension P of the standard language of classical propositional logic by adjoining to the alphabet of a new category of logical-pragmatic signs. The well formed formulas of are calledradical formulas (rfs) of P;rfs preceded by theassertion sign constituteelementary assertive formulas of P, which can be connected together by means of thepragmatic connectives N, K, A, C, E, so as to obtain the set of all theassertive formulas (afs). Everyrf of P is endowed with atruth value defined classically, (...) and everyaf is endowed with ajustification value, defined in terms of the intuitive notion of proof and depending on the truth values of its radical subformulas. In this framework, we define the notion ofpragmatic validity in P and yield a list of criteria of pragmatic validity which hold under the assumption that only classical metalinguistic procedures of proof be accepted. We translate the classical propositional calculus (CPC) and the intuitionistic propositional calculus (IPC) into the assertive part of P and show that this translation allows us to interpret Intuitionistic Logic as an axiomatic theory of the constructive proof concept rather than an alternative to Classical Logic. Finally, we show that our framework provides a suitable background for discussing classical problems in the philosophy of logic. (shrink)

William James said that sometimes detailed philosophical argument is irrelevant. Once a current of thought is really under way, trying to oppose it with argument is like planting a stick in a river to try to alter its course: “round your obstacle flows the water and ‘gets there just the same’”. He thought pragmatism was such a river. There is a contemporary river that sometimes calls itself pragmatism, although other titles are probably better. At any rate it is the denial (...) of differences, the celebration of the seamless web of language, the soothing away of distinctions, whether of primary versus secondary, fact versus value, description versus expression, or of any other significant kind. What is left is a smooth, undifferentiated view of language, sometimes a nuanced kind of anthropomorphism or “internal” realism, sometimes the view that no view is possible: minimalism, deflationism, quietism. Wittgenstein is often admired as a high priest of the movement. Planting a stick in this water is probably futile, but having done it before I shall do it again, and—who knows?—enough sticks may make a dam, and the waters of error may subside. (Blackburn, 1998a, 157). (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)

L’opinion est souvent exprimée que Bradley fut un des tout premiers critiques du psychologisme. Dans cet article, j’examine cette thèse en me penchant principalement sur ses Principles of Logic . Je définis le psychologisme au sens étroit comme une thèse portant sur les fondements de la logique, et le psychologisme au sens large comme une thèse plus générale en théorie de la connaissance pour montrer que Bradley a rejeté les deux, même s’il n’avait pas grand chose à dire sur la (...) version étroite. Sa critique de l’autre version est basée sur une distinction entre contenu psychologique et contenu logique, et sur sa défense de la thèse de l’idéalité du contenu logique, avant Frege et Husserl. Cependant, il tient encore à l’idée que le contenu logique provient de la perception. Après une brève présentation de ses critiques de la psychologie associationniste, je montre qu’il fait face à de véritables difficultés en essayant d’éviter de retomber dans le psychologisme en faisant appel à la distinction entre universel abstrait et universel concret. Je termine avec quelques remarques sur la place de Bradley dans l’histoire de la psychologie britannique.One often hears the opinion voiced that Bradley was an early critique of psychologism. In this paper, I investigate that claim, focussing on his Principles of Logic . I define psychologism in the narrow sense as a thesis pertaining to the foundations of logic, and psychologism in the wide sense as a more general thesis concerning the theory of knowledge, and show that Bradley rejected both, although he had little to say on the narrow version. His criticism of the wider version is based on his distinguishing between psychological and logical content and on his defence of the ideality of logical content, before Frege and Husserl. Nevertheless, he still hung to the idea that the latter harks back to ordinary perception. I then review briefly his criticisms of associationism in psychology, to show that he faced some difficulties in trying to avoid lapsing back into psychologism, with an appeal to a distinction between abstract and concrete universals. I conclude with some remarks on the palace of Bradley in the history of British psychology. (shrink)

Although it is obvious that much of language is representational, it is occasionally denied. I have attended conference papers attacking the representational view of language given by speakers who have in their pockets pieces of paper with writing on them that tell them where the conference dinner is and when the taxis leave for the airport. (Jackson, 1997.

This Thesis reconsiders the prospects for an approach to global justice centring on the proposal that every human being should possess a certain bundle of goods, which would include certain members of a distinctive category: the category of capabilities. My overall aim is to present a clarified and well-developed framework, within which such claims can be made. To do this, I visit a number of regions of normative and metanormative theorising. I begin by introducing the motivations for the capability approach, (...) and clarifying some of its most distinctive features. Next, I focus on Martha Nussbaum's version of the approach, and identify several problems therein. The most important concerns epistemology, and especially the challenges that constructivist theories pose. The middle part of the Thesis presents an alternative, based on the work of John McDowell, which I argue has superior prospects. Then, I turn to two further problems: that of making sense of the universalistic aspirations of cosmopolitanism, and that of integrating the microscopic prescriptions of ethics with the macroscopic analyses of political philosophy. Using the Aristotelian interpretation of its core framework that I have developed, I conclude that the capability approach can provide compelling answers to important questions about global justice. (shrink)

The central premise of Michael Dummett's global argument for anti-realism is the thesis that a speaker's grasp of the meaning of a declarative, indexical-free sentence must be manifested in her uses of that sentence. This enigmatic thesis has been the subject of a great deal of discussion, and something of a consensus has emerged about its content and justification. The received view is that the manifestation thesis expresses a behaviorist and reductive theory of meaning, essentially in agreement with Quine's view (...) of language, and motivated by worries about the epistemology of communication. In the present paper I begin by arguing that this standard interpretation of the manifestation thesis is neither particularly faithful to Dummett's writings nor philosophically compelling. I then continue by reconstructing, from Dummett's texts, an account of the manifestation thesis, and of its justification, that differ sharply from the received view. On my reading, the thesis is motivated not epistemologically, but conceptually. I argue that connections among our conceptions of meaning, assertion, and justification lead to a conclusion about the metaphysics of meaning: we cannot form a clearly coherent conception of how two speakers can attach different meanings to a sentence without at the same time differing in what they count as justifying assertions made with that sentence. I conclude with some suggestions about how Dummett's argument for global anti-realism should be understood, given my account of the manifestation thesis. (shrink)

This paper addresses what I call ‘the constitutive question’ concerning the rules we follow: namely, what determines the standard for a rule's correct application. John McDowell has offered a putative ‘middle position’ between two extreme, unacceptable answers: empirical idealism, which takes the requirements of a rule in any given situation to be constituted by our reaction to the case; and hard platonism, which takes these requirements to be delivered by unvarnished reality as absolutely the simplest or most natural way to (...) carry on. Tellingly, however, McDowell's position is itself unacceptably idealist in his picture of the way in which we are ‘involved’ on the right-hand side of biconditionals such as, ‘“Diamonds are hard” is true if and only if diamonds are hard’.In response to this stultifying state of affairs, I suggest that McDowell has followed the empirical idealist and hard platonist in assuming that the requirements of a rule must be grounded by something else: something external to the rule, which mediates between the rule and the standard for its correct application. This assumption is false. What is more, one application of a metaphor to which Wittgenstein has a somewhat equivocal relation—that of rules as rails invisibly laid to infinity—can help this point to stick. (shrink)

L’idéalisme britannique est un mouvement qui a dominé les universités britanniques pendant une cinquantaine d’années à la fin du xixe siècle et au début du xxe siècle, mais qui est passé presque totalement inaperçu dans le monde francophone. Rejetés en bloc par les philosophes analytiques, ces auteurs ont aussi été ignorés pendant longtemps dans leur pays, mais certains d’entre eux, notamment Bradley et Collingwood, jouissent d’un regain d’intérêt à la faveur d’un renouveau des études sur les origines de la philosophie (...) analytique. Ce texte est une introduction à l’idéalisme britannique, qui retrace, dans une première partie plus historique, les grandes lignes de sa genèse, son développement et son déclin. Dans une deuxième partie, nous donnons quelques arguments en faveur d’une étude plus approfondie de ce mouvement.British Idealism is a philosophical movement that dominated British universities , for fifty years around the turn from the XIXth to the XXth century, but it went largely unnoticed in the French-speaking world. Condemned by analytic philosophers, these authors were also ignored in their own country, but some of them, notably Bradley and Collingwood, are now enjoying a newly found popularity within the larger trend towards a study of the origins of analytic philosophy. This text is an introduction to British Idealism that plots, in an historical first part, the outlines of its rise, development and decline. In the second part, we provide reasons for further studies of this movement. (shrink)

The present paper challenges the narrow scientistic conception of Nature that underlies current projects of naturalization involving, say, evaluative or intentional discourse. It is more plausible to hold that science provides only a partial characterization of the natural world. I consider McDowell's articulation of a more liberal naturalism, one which recognizes autonomous normative facts about reasons, meanings and values, as genuine constituents of Nature on a more liberal conception of it. Several critics have claimed that this account is vitiated by (...) the threat of supernaturalism. Responsiveness to normative facts is, I argue, a phenomenological datum that we have good reason to take at face value. I trace the source of the supernaturalist objection to a misreading of McDowell's perceptual analogy with respect to value and a related failing to clearly distinguish physical and logical notions of an object. (shrink)

In the first chapter of From Metaphysics to Ethics, Frank Jackson begins, as he puts it, ‘by explaining how serious metaphysics by its very nature raises the location problem.’ (1998, p. 1) He gives us two examples of location problems. The first concerns semantic properties, such as truth and reference: Some physical structures are true. For example, if I were to utter a token of the type ‘Grass is green’, the structure I would thereby bring into existence would be true (...) ... How are the semantic properties of the sentence related to the non-semantic properties of the sentence? Where, if anywhere, are the semantic properties of truth, content and reference to be found in the non-semantic, physical or naturalistic account of the sentence?’ (1998, p. 2) Jackson notes two possible answers to questions of this kind. The first denies that there are any such semantic properties. (shrink)

This article selectively surveys recent work touching consciousness. It discusses some recent arguments and positions with a view to throwing light on a working principle of much influential philosophical psychology, namely that the first?person point of view is theoretically redundant. The discussion is divided under a number of headings corresponding to specific functions that have been attributed to the first?person viewpoint, from the experience of something it is like to undergo physical processes, to the presence of selfhood, mental substance, meaning, (...) understanding, and value. Arguments indicating limitations of the working principle are adduced, as well as arguments indicating possible exploitations of those limitations by first?personalist positions. Although some of the latter also have limitations, the direction in which the examination tends is that of a progressive widening of the concept of consciousness. (shrink)

Philosophy, like modern agriculture, is a little too prone to monoculture. Happily, unpopular philosophical traditions are less in danger of complete extinction than varieties of apple, say, or breeds of pig. For this difference, however, the subject is often indebted to a few far-sighted individuals who appreciate the value of presently unfashionable ideas – who stand ready to reinvigorate the gene pool, when popular approaches succumb to pests and inbreeding.

A natural view is that linguistic understanding is a source of justification or evidence: that beliefs about the meaning of a text or speech act are prima facie justified when based on states of understanding. Neglect of this view is largely due to the widely held assumption that understanding a text or speech act consists in knowledge or belief. It is argued that this assumption rests, in part, on confusing occurrent states of understanding and dispositions to understand. It is then (...) argued that occurrent states of understanding are not states of belief of knowledge since a subject may fail to believe that a text or speech act means what she understands it to mean if she doubts the reliability or truth- fulness of that understanding. States of understanding, it is maintained, belong in the same epistemic category as states of perception and memory. (shrink)

In this piece I characterise global expressivism, as I understand it, by contrasting it with five other views: the so-called Canberra Plan; Moorean non-naturalism and platonism; ‘relaxed realism’ and quietism; local expressivism; and response-dependent realism. Some other familiar positions, including fictionalism, error theories, and idealism, are also mentioned, but as sub-cases to one of these five.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the metaphysical doctrine of realism about the external world and semantic realism, as characterised by Michael Dummett. I argue that Dummett's conception of the relationship is flawed, and that Crispin Wright's account of the relationship, although designed to avoid the problems which beset Dummett's, nevertheless fails for similar reasons. I then aim to show that despite the fact that Dummett and Wright both fail to give a plausible account of the relationship between (...) semantic realism and the metaphysical doctrine of realism, the semantic issue and the metaphysical issue are importantly related. I outline the precise sense in which the evaluation of semantic realism is relevant to the evaluation of realism about the external world, a sense overlooked by opponents of Dummett, such as Simon Blackburn and Michael Devitt. I finish with some brief remarks on metaphysics, semantics, and the nature of philosophy, and suggest that Dummett's arguments against semantic realism can retain their relevance to metaphysical debate even if we reject Dummett's idea that the theory of meaning is thefoundation of all philosophy. (shrink)