Fodor's thinking on modularity has been influential throughout a range of the areas studying cognition, chiefly as a prod for positive work on modularity and domain-specificity. In _The Mind Doesn't Work That Way_, Fodor has developed the dark message of _The Modularity of Mind_ regarding the limits to modularity and computational analyses. This paper offers a critical assessment of Fodor's scepticism with an eye to highlighting some broader issues in play, including the nature of computation and the role of recent (...) empirical developments in the cognitive sciences in assessing Fodor's position. (shrink)

I argue for the Wittgensteinian thesis that mathematical statements are expressions of norms, rather than descriptions of the world. An expression of a norm is a statement like a promise or a New Year's resolution, which says that someone is committed or entitled to a certain line of action. A expression of a norm is not a mere description of a regularity of human behavior, nor is it merely a descriptive statement which happens to entail a norms. The view can (...) be thought of as a sort of logicism for the logical expressivist---a person who believes that the purpose of logical language is to make explicit commitments and entitlements that are implicit in ordinary practice. The thesis that mathematical statements are expression of norms is a kind of logicism, not because it says that mathematics can be reduced to logic, but because it says that mathematical statements play the same role as logical statements. ;I contrast my position with two sets of views, an empiricist view, which says that mathematical knowledge is acquired and justified through experience, and a cluster of nativist and apriorist views, which say that mathematical knowledge is either hardwired into the human brain, or justified a priori, or both. To develop the empiricist view, I look at the work of Kitcher and Mill, arguing that although their ideas can withstand the criticisms brought against empiricism by Frege and others, they cannot reply to a version of the critique brought by Wittgenstein in the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. To develop the nativist and apriorist views, I look at the work of contemporary developmental psychologists, like Gelman and Gallistel and Karen Wynn, as well as the work of philosophers who advocate the existence of a mathematical intuition, such as Kant, Husserl, and Parsons. After clarifying the definitions of "innate" and "a priori," I argue that the mechanisms proposed by the nativists cannot bring knowledge, and the existence of the mechanisms proposed by the apriorists is not supported by the arguments they give. (shrink)

Paper responding to critique of Maurin (2002) presented by Herbert Hochberg in his “Relations, Properties and Particulars” (2004).

The identity theory’s rise to prominence in analytic philosophy of mind during the late 1950s and early 1960s is widely seen as a watershed in the development of physicalism, in the sense that whereas logical behaviourism proposed analytic and a priori ascertainable identities between the meanings of mental and physical-behavioural concepts, the identity theory proposed synthetic and a posteriori knowable identities between mental and physical properties. While this watershed does exist, the standard account of it is misleading, as it is (...) founded in erroneous intensional misreadings of the logical positivists’—especially Carnap’s—extensional notions of translation and meaning, as well as misinterpretations of the positivists’ shift from the strong thesis of translation-physicalism to the weaker and more liberal notion of reduction-physicalism that occurred in the Unity of Science programme. After setting the historical record straight, the essay traces the first truly modern identity theory to Schlick’s pre-positivist views circa 1920 and goes on to explore its further development in Feigl, arguing that the fundamental difference between the Schlick-Feigl identity theory and the more familiar and influential Place-Smart-Armstrong identity theory has resurfaced in the deep and seemingly unbridgeable gulf in contemporary philosophy of consciousness between inflationary mentalism and deflationary physicalism. (shrink)

Logic begins but does not end with the study of truth and falsity. Within truth there are the modes of truth, ways of being true: necessary truth and contingent truth. When a proposition is true, we may ask whether it could have been false. If so, then it is contingently true. If not, then it is necessarily true; it must be true; it could not have been false. Falsity has modes as well: a false proposition that could not have been (...) true is impossible or necessarily false; one that could have been true is merely contingently false. The proposition that some humans are over seven feet tall is contingently true; the proposition that all humans over seven feet tall are over six feet tall is necessarily true; the proposition that some humans are over seven feet tall and under six feet tall is impossible, and the proposition that some humans are over nine feet tall is contingently false. Of these four modes of truth, let us focus on necessity, plus a fifth: possibility. A proposition is possible if it is or could have been true; hence propositions that are either necessarily true, contingently true, or contingently false are possible. Notions that are similar to the modes of truth in being concerned with what might have been are called modal. Dispositions are modal notions, for example the disposition of fragility. Relatedly, there are counterfactual conditionals, for example “if this glass were dropped, it would break.” And the notion of supervenience is modal.1 But let us focus here on necessity and possibility. Modal words are notoriously ambiguous (or at least context-sensitive2). I may reply to an invitation to give a talk in England by saying “I can’t come; I have to give a talk in California the day before”. This use of “can’t” is perfectly appropriate. But it would be equally appropriate for me to say that I could cancel my talk in California (although that would be rude) and give the talk in England instead. What I cannot do is give both talks.. (shrink)

In the 'Critique of Pure Reason' Kant appears to characterize analytic judgments in four distinct ways: once in terms of “containment,” a second time in terms of “identity,” a third time in terms of the explicative–ampliative contrast, and a fourth time in terms of the notion of “cognizability in accordance with the principle of contradiction.” The paper asks: Which of these characterizations—or apparent characterizations—best captures Kant’s conception of analyticity in the first Critique? It suggests: “the second.” It argues, further, that (...) Kant’s distinction is intended to apply only to judgments of subject–predicate form, and that the fourth alleged characterization is not properly speaking a characterization at all. These theses are defended in the course of a more general investigation of the distinction’s meaning, its epistemology, and its tenability. (shrink)

Once upon a time, logical conventionalism was the most popular philosophical theory of logic. It was heavily favored by empiricists, logical positivists, and naturalists. According to logical conventionalism, linguistic conventions explain logical truth, validity, and modality. And conventions themselves are merely syntactic rules of language use, including inference rules. Logical conventionalism promised to eliminate mystery from the philosophy of logic by showing that both the metaphysics and epistemology of logic fit into a scientific picture of reality. For naturalists of all (...) stripes, this was paradise. Alas, paradise was lost. By the end of the twentieth century, logical conventionalism had been almost universally abandoned. But more recently, it has been revitalized. This chapter provides an overview of logical conventionalism and its history, clears away misunderstandings, and briefly responds to both the canonical objections to conventionalism (from Quine, Dummett, Boghossian, and many others) as well as new objections (from Field and Golan). From paradise lost, to paradise regained: logical conventionalism is back. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that Pap’s The Functional A Priori of Physical Theory (Pap 1946, henceforth FAP) and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics (Cassirer 1937, henceforth DI) may be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into (...) account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century. (shrink)

Everyday reasoning is replete with arguments which, though not logically valid, nonetheless harbor a measure of credibility in their own right. Here the claim that such arguments force us to acknowledge material validity, in addition to logical validity, is advanced, and criteria that attempt to unpack this concept are examined in detail. Of special concern is the effort to model these criteria on explications of logical validity that rely on notions of substitutivity and logical form. It is argued, however, that (...) such a parallel is not easily located and that it is uncertain that a construal of material validity can be fashioned after traditional accounts of logical validity. Attention is also given to the topics of enthymemes and to the proper domain of logic. (shrink)

One common objection to Conventionalism about modality is that since it is contingent what our conventions are, the modal facts themselves will thereby be contingent. A standard reply is that Conventionalists can accept this, if they reject the S4 axiom, that what is possibly possible is possible. I first argue that this reply is inadequate, but then continue to argue that it is not needed, because the Conventionalist need not concede that the contingency of our conventions has any bearing on (...) the modal status of necessary truths. It is explained why this does not compromise the Conventionalist claim that necessity – and particularly, essence – is due to conventions. (shrink)

The Laboratory of the Mindwas written with two purposes in mind. The first was to contribute to the growing literature on thought experiments with a selection of the most interesting examples of the genre. The second and much more ambitious purpose was to serve as a “first attempt at a rationalist interpretation of science”.

In Reason and Analysis, Prof. Brand Blanshard criticises the logical empiricist view regarding necessary statements, including the laws of logic. He distinguishes four component these of this view: (I) Necessary statements--here, the laws of logic--are resolutions or reports of linguistic usage. (II) They are conventions. (III) They are analytic (tautologies). (IV) They say nothing about the world. In this paper I first show that Prof. Blanshard is essentially right in his criticisms of (I), (II), and (IV); but that he has (...) done nothing to show that (III) is incorrect with regard to the laws of logic. Then, second, I attempt to show that even though (I), (II), and (more importantly) (IV) are false, (III) is true. That is, the laws of logic are tautologies, and yet, in a sense to be distinguished, they say something about the world. (shrink)

This paper examines the view that ordinary particulars are complexes of universals. Russell's attempt to develop such a theory is articulated and defended against some common misinterpretations and unfounded criticisms in Section I. The next two sections address an argument which is standardly cited as the primary problem confronting the theory: (1) it is committed to the necessary truth of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles; (2) the principle is not necessarily true. It is argued in Section II that (...) a proponent of the theory need not accept (1) and an argument against (2) is presented in Section III. The final section attempts to show that Russell's theory ultimately fails because of inadequacies in its treatment of space and time. The paper closes with a suggestion for remedying this difficulty. (shrink)

The ordinary attribution of intentionality to (nonhuman) animals raises serious problems for fashionable linguistic accounts of belief and of intentionality generally; and many of the alleged problems arise from such linguistic theories of mind. Another deeper source of alleged problems is the apartness thesis, that there is a significant difference in kind, with substantial moral import, between humans and other animals; for the last lines of defence of this erroneous thesis consist in making out that there are significant intentional differences. (...) A wide range of recent arguments against assigning intentionality (in the full sense) to animals are criticized in detail: those of Stich and Williams, in terms of animals lacking effective or specifiable concepts (concepts now replacing souls); those of Stich and Davidson based on the requirement for beliefs of an isomorphic belief network; those based on the usual opacity of intentionality; those of Descartes and Davidson and others based on the requirement of, or arguments to the essentiality of, language use for attributions of intentionality; arguments based on the requirement of capacity for pretence or awareness of error; and arguments used by Vendler and Malcolm. Several different arguments for assigning intentionality to animals are then advanced, arguments from cerebral organization, exteriorization arguments, and interiorization arguments from the semantical analysis of intentionality. The main arguments advanced are not analogical; they are not anthropocentric, or the result of personifying languageless animals; and the attributions of intentionality they lead to are not impoverished or of reduced status. (shrink)

The analytic/synthetic distinction has played a central role in discussions of a priori knowledge throughout the twentieth century. One of the primary reasons for the prominence of this distinction is the widespread influence of the tradition of logical empiricism which endorsed the following principles: All analytic propositions are knowable a prioriand All propositions knowable a priori are analytic.Hence, proponents of the a priori often argue in support of the contention that the propositions of a particular discipline, say mathematics or logic, (...) are knowable a priori by arguing that it consists solely of analytic propositions. On the other hand, detractors of the a priori often reject such knowledge on the grounds that the analytic/synthetic distinction is not cogent. My primary goal in this paper is to challenge the prevalent acceptance of. (shrink)

...its identity in the pragmatics of elucidation, and not in some sort of special knowledge...yer's essay (`Implicit Thoughts: Quine, Frege and Kant on Analytic Propositions...by Quine, and attributed to Kant, Frege and Carnap, has nothing in common..