Históricamente, en los principales análisis filosóficos sobre el concepto de ‘verdad’ estuvo implícita lo que hoy se conoce como la teoría correspondentista de la verdad, la cual puede ser trazada desde Aristóteles hasta Immanuel Kant. A principios del siglo XIX, los detractores de la teoría correspondentista de la verdad comenzaron a argumentar, entre otras cosas, que esta postura es oscura, demasiado estrecha y autocomplaciente o argumentativamente circular. No obstante, en el ámbito científico algunos defensores de ciertas posturas realistas de la (...) ciencia han considerado que la verdad es la meta cognoscitva más importante de la actividad científica. Este estudio se realizó para establecer la plausibilidad de este argumento realista. Mediante el análisis de la validez de algunos argumentos de tipo ontológico, semántico y epistémico propuestos por algunos defensores de distintas versiones del llamado ‘Realismo Científico’, con los que se intenta relacionar el éxito empírico y predictivo de las mejores teorías científicas con la verdad, se muestra que, desde un punto de vista lógico, parece difícil confirmar que tales teorías nos proporcionen conocimiento confiable del mundo natural. Se sugiere que los científicos no son agentes confirmadores; sino agentes probabilísticos, esto es, agentes que buscan calcular la probabilidad con la que un hacedor de verdad convierte en verdadero a un portador de verdad con el que la ciencia comunica sus resultados. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that, if transcendental arguments are to proceed from premises that are acceptable to the skeptic, the Transcendental Premise, according to which “X is a metaphysically necessary condition for the possibility of Y,” must be grounded in considerations of conceivability and possibility. More explicitly, the Transcendental Premise is based on what Szabó Gendler and Hawthorne call the “conceivability-possibility move.” This “inconceivability-impossibility” move, however, is a problematic argumentative move when advancing transcendental arguments for the following reasons. First, (...) from “S cannot conceive of P” it doesn’t necessarily follow that P is inconceivable. Second, from “P is inconceivable” it doesn’t necessarily follow that P is metaphysically impossible. Third, rather than block skeptical doubts, the conceivability-possibility move introduces skeptical doubts. For these reasons, transcendental arguments fail to deliver on their promise to overcome skeptical doubts. (shrink)

I argue that knowing and having points of view are fundamentally different epistemic states if we assume that having justified true beliefs is necessary for knowledge. Knowers necessarily possess justified true beliefs, but persons holding points of view may, for example, lack justification, have false beliefs, or both. I examine these differences and expose other crucial differentiating patterns between the structure of knowledge and points of view that make the latter more likely to lead to disagreements. I hypothesize that these (...) patterns remain invariant in alternative views of knowledge like contextualism as long as we preserve the classical structure. Yet there is much research to be done on the multiple and contrasting properties that emerge if we consider non‐classical analyses of knowledge and points of view. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, feminist philosophy has become recognised as a philosophical sub-discipline in its own right. Among the ‘core’ areas of philosophy, metaphysics has nonetheless until relatively recently remained largely dismissive of it. Metaphysics typically investigates the basic structure of reality and its nature. It examines reality's putative building blocks and inherent structure supposedly ‘out there’ with the view to uncovering and elucidating that structure. For this task, feminist insights appear simply irrelevant. Moreover, the value-neutrality of metaphysics seems (...) prima facie incompatible with feminism's explicitly normative stance in that feminist philosophy involves advocacy: speaking on behalf of some group on political grounds. The prospects of feminist metaphysics thus look grim. Nonetheless, feminist philosophers have in recent years increasingly taken up explicitly metaphysical investigations. The basic ideas behind such investigations can be summed up as follows: feminist metaphysics is about negotiating the natural and going beyond the fundamental. In so doing, feminist investigations have expanded the scope of metaphysics. Further, feminist philosophers typically bring new methodological insights to bear on traditional ways of doing philosophy. With this in mind, the article considers the following questions: when thinking about philosophical methodology, how does feminist metaphysics fare relative to ‘mainstream’ metaphysics? More specifically, is feminism's political advocacy inconsistent with apparent objectivity that some prominent contemporary versions of metaphysics are committed to? (shrink)

It is a common opinion that chance events cannot be understood in causal terms. Conversely, according to a causal view of chance, intersections between independent causal chains originate accidental events, called “coincidences.” The present paper takes into proper consideration this causal conception of chance and tries to shed new light on it. More precisely, starting from Hart and Honoré’s view of coincidental events, this paper furnishes a more detailed account on the nature of coincidences, according to which coincidental events are (...) hybrids constituted by ontic components, that is the intersections between independent causal chains, plus epistemic aspects; where by “epistemic” we mean what is related, in some sense, to knowledge: for example, access to information, but also expectations, relevance, significance, that is psychological aspects. In particular, this paper investigates the role of the epistemic aspects in our understanding of what coincidences are. In fact, although the independence between the causal lines involved plays a crucial role in understanding coincidental events, that condition results to be insufficient to give a satisfactory definition of coincidences. The main target of the present work is to show that the epistemic aspects of coincidences are, together with the independence between the intersecting causal chains, a constitutive part of coincidental phenomena. Many examples are offered throughout this paper to enforce this idea. This conception, despite—for example—Antoine Augustine Cournot and Jacques Monod’s view, entails that a pure objectivist view about coincidences is not tenable. (shrink)

The orthodox position in epistemology, for both externalists and internalists, is that a subject in a ‘bad case’—a sceptical scenario—is so epistemically badly off that they cannot know how badly off they are. Ofra Magidor contends that externalists should break ranks on this question, and that doing so is liberating when it comes time to confront a number of central issues in epistemology, including scepticism and the new evil demon problem for process reliabilism. In this reply, I will question whether (...) Magidor’s argument should persuade externalists, whether it really engages with the orthodox view on what subjects in bad cases can know, and whether the dispute is, as Magidor insists, a significant one for contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

Are the objects and events that take place in Virtual Reality genuinely real? Those who answer this question in the affirmative are realists, and those who answer in the negative are irrealists. In this paper we argue against the realist position, as given by Chalmers (2017), and present our own preferred irrealist account of the virtual. We start by disambiguating two potential versions of the realist position—weak and strong— and then go on to argue that neither is plausible. We then (...) introduce a Waltonian variety of ictionalism about the virtual, arguing that this sort of irrealist approach avoids the problems of the realist positions, fits with a unifying theory of representational works, and offers a better account of the phenomenology of engaging in virtual experiences. (shrink)

Consider the following proposition: It is possible that all of our perceptual experiences are ‘delusive.’ According to Gilbert Ryle, is demonstrably absurd. In this paper I address four questions: What is Ryle’s argument against?; How persuasive is it?; What positions are ruled out if is absurd?; and How does Ryle’s position compare with contemporary work on skepticism?

Metaontology – the study of the nature of ontological issues – has flourished in recent years. The focus of this summary will be on some views and arguments that are central to today’s debate. One theme will be that of how seriously to take ontology: whether there is reason to take a skeptical or deflationary attitude toward ontological claims, as theorists like Rudolf Carnap, Hilary Putnam, and Eli Hirsch in different ways have urged. The other theme will be that of (...) the viability of the Fregean and Quinean approaches to ontology that have been and still are central to analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This is a critical notice of Theodore Sider's book, _Four-Dimensionalism_.

An ambitious project in epistemology is to show that we have justification for anti-skeptical beliefs such as the belief that we are not brains in vats. A much less ambitious project is to account for how perceptual experience justifies ordinary perceptual beliefs like the belief that there is a cat in front of me. One problem is that these two projects are entangled in such manner that the failure of the anti-skeptical project seems to entail the failure of the project (...) of accounting for the justification of ordinary perceptual beliefs. This paper offers a way to disentangle these two projects. (shrink)

Deviant phenomenal knowledge is knowing what it’s like to have experiences of, e.g., red without actually having had experiences of red. Such a knower is a deviant. Some physicalists have argued and some anti-physicalists have denied that the possibility of deviants undermines anti-physicalism and the Knowledge Argument. The current paper presents new arguments defending the deviant-based attacks on anti-physicalism. Central to my arguments are considerations concerning the psychosemantic underpinnings of deviant phenomenal knowledge. I argue that physicalists are in a superior (...) position to account for the conditions in virtue of which states of deviants constitute representations of phenomenal facts. (shrink)

This paper argues that a strong thesis of divine providence, whereby God is understood as in complete control of all things, entails pantheism, the thesis that the universe is not ontologically distinct from God. In normal discourse, we distinguish a plan from, on the one hand, the state of affairs which realizes that plan—its execution or expression—and, on the other hand, the person or group whose plan it is. However, with respect to an omnipotent God who displays complete providence, neither (...) of these two distinctions holds. We cannot separate person from plan, or plan from world, and in consequence, neither can we separate person from world, ergo pantheism. Accordingly, the argument of this paper comes in two parts maintaining, first, the impossibility of distinguishing between God’s plan and its execution and, second, the impossibility of distinguishing God himself from his plan. (shrink)

According to widely accepted views in metasemantics, the outputs of chatbots and other artificial text generators should be meaningless. They aren’t produced with communicative intentions and the systems producing them are not following linguistic conventions. Nevertheless, chatbots have assumed roles in customer service and healthcare, they are spreading information and disinformation and, in some cases, it may be more rational to trust the outputs of bots than those of our fellow human beings. To account for the epistemic role of chatbots (...) in our society, we need to reconcile these observations. This paper argues that our engagement with chatbots should be understood as a form of prop-oriented make-believe; the outputs of chatbots are literally meaningless but fictionally meaningful. With the make-believe approach, we can understand how chatbots can provide us with knowledge of the world through quasi-testimony while preserving our metasemantic theories. This account also helps to connect the study of chatbots with the epistemology of scientific instruments. (shrink)

Epistemic externalism offers one of the most prominent responses to the sceptical challenge. Externalism has commonly been interpreted as postulating a crucial asymmetry between the actual-world agent and their brain-in-a-vat counterpart: while the actual agent is in a position to know she is not envatted, her biv counterpart is not in a position to know that she is envatted, or in other words, only the former is in a position to know whether or not she is envatted. In this paper, (...) I argue that there is in fact no such asymmetry: assuming epistemic externalism, both the actual world agent and their biv counterpart are in a position to know whether or not they are envatted. After an introduction, I present the main argument. I examine to what extent the argument survives when one accepts additional externalist-friendly commitments: semantic externalism, a sensitivity condition on knowledge, and epistemic contextualism. Finally, I discuss the implications of my conclusion to a variety of debates in epistemology. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem is supposed to show that straightforward versions of reliabilism are false: reliability is not necessary for justification after all. I argue that it does no such thing. The reliabilist can count a number of beliefs as justified even in demon worlds, others as unjustified but having positive epistemic status nonetheless. The remaining beliefs---primarily perceptual beliefs---are not, on further reflection, intuitively justified after all. The reliabilist is right to count these beliefs as unjustified in demon worlds, (...) and it is a challenge for the internalist to be able to do so as well. (shrink)

Despite widespread confusion over its meaning, the notion of a conceptual scheme is pervasive in Anglo-American philosophy, particularly amongst those who call themselves ' conceptual relativists'. In this paper, I identify three different ways to understand conceptual schemes. I argue that the two most common models, deriving from Kant and Quine, are flawed, and, in addition, useless for the relativist. Instead, I urge adoption of a 'neo-Kantian', broadly Wittgensteinian model, which, it is ' argued, is immune from Davidsonian objections to (...) the very idea of a scheme. (shrink)

Suppose that a physical duplicate of me, right down to the arrangements of subatomic particles, comes into existence at the time at which I finish this sentence. Suppose that it comes into existence by chance, or at least by a causal process entirely unconnected with me. It might be so situated that it, too, is seated in front of a computer, and finishes this paragraph and paper, or a corresponding one, just as I do. (i) Would it have the same (...) thoughts I do? (ii) Would it speak my language? (iii) Would my duplicate have any thoughts or (iv) speak any language at all? To fix the interpretation of these questions, I will take ‘thought’ to cover any mental state which has a representational content, where ‘representational content’ is intended to be neutral with respect to psychological mode. By 'psychological mode' I mean what distinguishes kinds of thoughts, such as belief, visual perceptual experience, desire, etc. Representational content, or thought content, as I will also say, determines the conditions under which a thought is true or false, veridical or non-veridical, or, more broadly, is satisfied or fails to be satisfied, independently of relativization to circumstances, possible worlds, or the like. Beliefs, desires, hopes, intentions, and perceptual experiences will all count as thoughts on this usage. The question whether one person has the same (type of) thought as another is the question whether both have a mental state with the same representational content in the same psychological mode. I will not count epistemic verbs, however, as picking out or expressing a (pure) psychological mode. Thus, although knowing that the time is ripe, seeing that there is a goldfinch in the garden, and remembering that my wife’s birthday is next Tuesday are all thoughts, they do not pick out the thoughts by using a verb that expresses a psychological mode. Therefore knowing, seeing or remembering the same things is not a requirement on having the same thoughts.. (shrink)

This paper explores a late-Ming Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming’s (1472–1529) philosophical assertions showcasing the pivotal role that human mind plays in shaping our worldview. Wang Yangming’s view—especially his declaration that the Mind is the Principle—emphasizes that the human mind is the sole foundation of moral principles and that worldly affairs are identified with human ethical practices. This position has been contentious both in his times and among contemporary scholars. While some critics, notably Chen Lai, find Wang’s synthesis of the ethical (...) and the metaphysical realm problematic, others like Wing-tsit Chan view Wang Yangming’s philosophy as verging on subjective idealism. Both Chen and Chan argue that Wang Yangming commits the fallacy of the conflation of fact and value. In this paper, I defend Wang Yangming’s ethics-oriented metaphysics against such criticisms. I will engage a comparative study between Wang Yangming’s perspective and pragmatist metaphysics—a modern philosophical stance which sees metaphysics as intertwining with human ethics and practices. Building upon this comparative study, this paper aims to highlight the intrinsic bond between metaphysics and ethics and to advocate for the centrality of ethics in shaping the very foundation of metaphysical thinking. The conclusion of this paper is that Wang Yangming’s metaphysics aligns with commonsense realism, rather than with subjective idealism. His metaphysics is not a confused worldview that conflates fact with value, nor is it subjective idealism. Instead, it is a metaphysics with the ethical grounding of human engagements and humanistic concerns. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that the customary understanding of epistemic progress as a kind of belief change is incomplete and that conceptual change has to be acknowledged as a crucial driving force in epistemic progress. The author’s argument for the epistemological relevance of conceptual change proceeds as follows. First, he develops an account of conceptual change that clearly distinguishes conceptual change from belief change. He then takes a closer look at two kinds of conceptual change that (...) are of special interest from an epistemological point of view. He calls them “disclosing” conceptual change and “revisionary” conceptual change. He then shows that the idea of epistemic value that demarcates the realm of epistemological inquiry applies to concepts and conceptual change. (shrink)

Nick Bostrom considered a number of simulations and contended that the probability that we are living in one of them is high or at least nonzero. I present arguments to refute the claim that we are or might be in any one of them.

Philosophical discussion of truthmaking has flourished in recent times, but what exactly does it mean to ‘make’ a truth-bearer true? I argue that ‘making’ is a concept with modal force, and this renders it a problematic deployment for truthmaker theorists with nominalist sympathies, which characterises most current theories. I sketch the outlines of what I argue is a more genuinely realist truthmaker theory, which is capable of answering the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its (...) particular truthbearer(s) true? I do this by drawing on recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a ‘particular double structure’, according to which a proposition not only depicts certain characters of an object, it also depicts itself claiming those characters to pertain to the object. This double structure, I shall argue, also resolves important issues in analytic philosophers’ truthmaker theory, including the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning an infinite regress of truthmaking. (shrink)

Organoids are three-dimensional biological structures grown in vitro from different kinds of stem cells that self-organise mimicking real organs with organ-specific cell types. Recently, researchers have managed to produce human organoids which have structural and functional properties very similar to those of different organs, such as the retina, the intestines, the kidneys, the pancreas, the liver and the inner ear. Organoids are considered a great resource for biomedical research, as they allow for a detailed study of the development and pathologies (...) of human cells; they also make it possible to test new molecules on human tissue. Furthermore, organoids have helped research take a step forward in the field of personalised medicine and transplants. However, some ethical issues have arisen concerning the origin of the cells that are used to produce organoids and their properties. In particular, there are new, relevant and so-far overlooked ethical questions concerning cerebral organoids. Scientists have created so-called mini-brains as developed as a few-months-old fetus, albeit smaller and with many structural and functional differences. However, cerebral organoids exhibit neural connections and electrical activity, raising the question whether they are or will one day be somewhat sentient. In principle, this can be measured with some techniques that are already available, which are used for brain-injured non-communicating patients. If brain organoids were to show a glimpse of sensibility, an ethical discussion on their use in clinical research and practice would be necessary. (shrink)

This article aims at putting in context and at pursuing the concept elaborated by the later Putnam of an ethics without ontology, which I associate with certain other contemporary philosophers like Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond; and in general of a philosophy without ontology. Putnam’s ambition is to get rid of ontology by refocusing reflection on ethics in a realistic spirit. This calls for a reappraisal of the entirety of Putnam’s evolution after the 1980s, especially his “Wittgensteinian turn,” which has (...) sometimes been underappreciated. To say that ethics has nothing to do with ontology is to make a claim not only about ethics, but also about realism. That is why Putnam’s later work matters today, especially his radical break with the fact/value distinction. This does not only concern ethics, for as Diamond has said and as Putnam reiterates in his own style and culture, we must refocus reflection on ethics and on the place of ethics in our forms of life and of language. (shrink)

The article offers formal and doctrinal reasons that prove the existence of the “Harvard Philosophical School” as a real historico-philosophical phenomenon. The author includes Willard Van Orman Quine, Nelson Goodman, and Hilary Putnam in this school. The aim of this article is to compare the conceptualism, relativism and anti-realism of Quine, Goodman and Pantem, on the basis of pragmatic tendencies in their philosophical studies. Formal reasons: all these philosophers were professors at Harvard University; in addition, Quine was a teacher of (...) Goodman and Putnam, Goodman was a teacher of Putnam. Doctrinal reasons: Quine, Goodman, and Putnam, each in his own specific pragmatic way, stood on the positions of relativism, anti-realism, conceptualism, and tried to separate themselves from “cultural relativism”; common touchstone concepts and tendencies in particular in their philosophical investigations are: conceptual scheme, indeterminacy of translation, internal criteria, ontological relativity and others; the obvious analogy between Quine's standards of similarity, Goodman's standards of correctness, and standards for Putnam's conceptual schemes. Thus, we have strong reasons to consider Quine, Goodman and Putnam as representatives of a common philosophical school. The role played in their doctrines by the ideas of William James, who also taught at Harvard, at least hypothetically allows us to expand the boundaries of this school. (shrink)

Matti Eklund’s fascinating and wide-ranging Choosing Normative Concepts is an excellent contribution to metaethical debates (and beyond).1 Eklund’s professed di.

Consider the laws of nature—the laws of physics, for example. One familiar philosophical question about laws is this: what is it to be a law of nature? More specifically, is a law of nature a regularity, or a generalization stating a regularity? Or is it something else? Another philosophical question is: how, and to what extent, can we have knowledge of the laws of nature? I am interested here in Kant's answers to these questions, and their place within his broader (...) theoretical philosophy during the period spanning from the first to the third Critique. (shrink)

This paper concerns a fundamental dispute in ontology between the “Foundational Ontologist”, who believes that there is only one correct way of characterizing what there is, and the ontological “Skeptic”, who believes that there are viable alternative characterizations of what there is. I examine in detail an intriguing recent proposal in Dorr (2005), which promises to yield (i) a way of interpreting the Skeptic by means of a counterfactual semantics; and (ii) a way of converting the Skeptic to a position (...) within Foundational Ontology, viz., that of Nihilism (according to which nothing composes anything and the world consists of mereological simples); this alleged conversion crucially turns on a novel notion of “metaphysical analyticity”. I argue that both components of Dorr’s proposal are problematic in central ways: as a result, the Foundational Ontologist gains an indirect argument against the coherence of the Skeptic’s position; and the non-Nihilist Foundational Ontologist may feel confirmed in his doubts towards the Nihilist outlook. (shrink)

The paper discusses possible roles of consciousness in a semiotic activity of a cognitive agent. The discussion, we claim, is based on two related approaches to consciousness: on Chalmers’ theory of phenomenal and psychological consciousness and on Damasio’s neural theory, which draws a distinction between core and extended consciousness. Two stages of cognitive-semiotic processing are discussed: the moment of perception of a sign as a meaningful entity and the metasemiotic processes understood as the human capacity to reflect on signs and (...) their usage, analyse and control processes of recognition, interpretation of signs and to detect and correct errors in semiotic activity. In the case of the first stage, it is argued that signs as meaningful entities have a distincly experiential character. The feeling of meaningfulness is a result of phenomenal consciousness, in particular a result of the so-called valuation features of phenomenal experience. I claim that this aspect of cognitive-semiotic activity is possible owing to a special neural mechanism called a semiotic marker. It is argued that semiotic systems have to be able to use signs as signs, i.e. they should display some metacognitive capacities, in particular an ability to analyse semiosis at a metalevel. It is argued that such metasemiosis is dependent on psychological consciousness and is realized at the neural level in the form of extended consciousness. The paper is based on a particular understanding of cognitive semiotics as a discipline involving analyses of cognitive processes as semiotic processes, i.e. processes requiring usage of signs. (shrink)

I develop an expressivist account of verbal disagreements as practical disagreements over how to use words rather than factual disagreements over what words actually mean. This account enjoys several advantages over others in the literature: it can be implemented in a neo-Stalnakerian possible worlds framework; it accounts for cases where speakers are undecided on how exactly to interpret an expression; it avoids appeals to fraught notions like subject matter, charitable interpretation, and joint-carving; and it naturally extends to an analysis of (...) metalinguistic negotiations. (shrink)

The scales across which physical properties exist are vast and subtle in their effects on particular systems placed locally on such scales. For example, human experiential access is restricted only to partial segments of the mass density, size, and temperature scales of the universe. I argue that philosophers must learn to appreciate better the effects of physical scales. Specifically, thought experiments in philosophy should be more sensitive to physical scale effects, because the conclusion of a thought experiment may be undermined (...) by unintentionally ignored scale effects, and the changes required to obtain the foreground state of affairs in a thought experiment might require unacknowledged scale-spanning changes to the contextual background. I discuss four philosophical thought experiments: Putnam's Twin Earth and Brain in a Vat, Searle's Chinese Room, and Chalmers's Zombies Without Qualia. I close by briefly defending the greater interest and importance of physical possibility over logical possibility. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there is an affinity between Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is maintained, in particular, that Kuhn's notion of paradigm draws on such Wittgensteinian concepts as language games, family resemblance, rules, forms of life. It is also claimed that Kuhn's incommensurability thesis is a sequel of the theory of meaning supplied by Wittgenstein's later philosophy. As such its assessment is not fallacious, since it is not an empirical hypothesis and it does (...) not have the relativistic implications Kuhn's critics repeatedly indicated. Although concepts are indeed relative to a language game or paradigm, interparadigmatic intelligibility is preserved through the standard techniques of translation or praxis. The impossibility of radical translation which is captured by the claim of incommensurability lies with that which cannot be said but only shown. (shrink)

The central motivation behind the scientific realism debate is explaining the impressive success of scientific theories. The debate has been dominated by two rival types of explanations: the first relies on some sort of static, referentially transparent relationship between the theory and the unobservable world, such as truthlikeness, representation, or structural similarity; the second relies on no robust relationship between the theory and unobservable reality at all, and instead draws on predictive similarity and the stringent methodology of science to explain (...) success. I argue that this is a false dichotomy, at least insofar as dynamical theories are concerned. The best explanation of the success of dynamical theories, I argue, must appeal to a robust but referentially opaque theory–world relation. The dynamical notion of ‘tracking’ fulfills this promise. I formulate a modified no miracles argument that is liberated from the false dichotomy and show how tracking responds to the modified argument. (shrink)

On their alethic reading, formulas,, and codify three of the most basic principles of possibility and its dual. This paper discusses these formulas on a broadly epistemic reading, and in particular as candidate principles about conceivability and its dual. As will be shown, the question whether and its classical dual equivalent, as well as and hold on this reading is not only a logical one but involves a distinctively metaphysical controversy between realist and antirealist views on the relation between truth (...) on the one hand and various cognitive conditions such as knowability, conceivability, and thinkability on the other. It will be argued that the stance we take with regard to the metaphysical dispute has consequences for our assessment of the plausibility not only of and its classical equivalent, but also of and—when that stance is combined with a structural account of propositions—potentially of as well; with all four taken in the above epistemic sense. A second upshot will be that the same sensitivity to metaphysical background commitment also applies to our view as to whether or not inconceivability of the opposite coincides with, or even entails, apriority. (shrink)

Pragmatists are usually very antagonistic toward the correspondence theory of truth. They contend that the evidence-transcendent standard entailed by the theory is antithetical to the pragmatist methodology of elucidating concepts by exposing their practical bearings. What use could truth be to us if it offers a target we cannot even see? After judging the correspondence theory to be in violation of the Pragmatic Maxim, the pragmatist is prone to banishing it to the wastelands of empty metaphysics, where nothing of practical (...) importance could ever grow. This article makes the case that this unjust condemnation must be appealed and overturned. The ground for my case is an argument to the effect that the correspondence conception of truth can be practically advantageous, which provides proof of the fact that, contrary to popular pragmatist belief, the correspondence theory does comply with the Pragmatic Maxim. (shrink)

In this paper I question the view that realism must delineate the basic ontological furniture of the world rather than giving arguments in semantic or epistemic terms for the existence of a mind-independent world. I call this view of stating and defending realism the Ontological Defence of Realism and take Devitt’s account of realism as a paradigmatic case of ODR. I argue that ODR cannot block ‘verificationist antirealism’ because the specific nature of what exists is not enough to secure the (...) mind-independence of what exists and, additionally, every element purported to achieve this, it compromises seriously the idea that realism is primarily an ontological issue. I also stress that ODR is in tension with a plausible realist insight namely the priority of the world over our theorizing. Because of this tension ODR weakens realism in several domains with no good reason. Specifically, I argue that in these domains ODR faces a dilemma: either to reject realism or to take realism to be dependent on a reductive account violating the realist insight. My point is that we should keep realism and ontology distinct and that compliance with the realist insight initiates a better strategy for the defence of realism. I address three possible objections thereby further clarifying my point. I conclude by presenting my view about the relation between ontology and realism. (shrink)

A widespread intuition is that words, musical works, and flags are intentionally produced and that they’re abstract types that can have incorrect tokens. But some philosophers, notably Julian Dodd and Nicholas Wolterstorff, think intention-dependence isn’t necessary; tokens just need to have certain relevant intrinsic features to be tokens of a given type. I show how there’s an unappreciated puzzle that arises from these two views: if tokens aren’t intention-dependent and types can admit of correct and incorrect tokens, then some driftwood (...) that washes up and forms what seems like the word ‘cat’ may simultaneously be a misspelling of ‘act’ and innumerable other misspelt words. I consider various ways Dodd and Wolterstorff can respond to this counterintuitive result and argue that biting the bullet, as well as nearby views, are implausible. Thus, they need to give up one of the two commitments, and I argue that requiring the intention-dependence of tokens, rather than the mere possession of certain intrinsic properties, is the best option. (shrink)

In “Models and Reality”, H. Putnam formulated his model-theoretic argument against “metaphysical realism”. The article proposes a meta-reconstruction of Putnam’s model-theoretic argument in the light of two mutually compatible interpretations of it–elaborated by Manuel Garcia-Carpintero and Igor van Douven. A critical reflection on these interpretations and their adequacy for Putnam’s argument allows us to expose new theses coherent with Putnam’s reasoning and indicate new paths to improve this argument for our reconstruction task. In particular, we show that Putnam’s position may (...) be coherent with van Douven’s versions of Global Descriptivism under some conditions, but Putnam cannot reject realism as quickly as Carpintero suggests. We show that Suszko’s canonic axiomatic system and Sneed’s concept of theory may provide valuable support for Putnam’s argument. Finally, we critically evaluate Carpintero’s theses about the genesis of unintended interpretations of our languages, adopting the machinery of the Upward Skolem–Loewenheim Theorem and Knight’s Theorem. (shrink)

I present a paradoxical combination of desires. I show why it's paradoxical, and consider ways of responding. The paradox saddles us with an unappealing trilemma: either we reject the possibility of the case by placing surprising restrictions on what we can desire, or we deny plausibly constitutive principles linking desires to the conditions under which they are satisfied, or we revise some bit of classical logic. I argue that denying the possibility of the case is unmotivated on any reasonable way (...) of thinking about mental content, and rejecting those desire-satisfaction principles leads to revenge paradoxes. So the best response is a non-classical one, according to which certain desires are neither determinately satisfied nor determinately not satisfied. Thus, theorizing about paradoxical propositional attitudes helps constrain the space of possibilities for adequate solutions to semantic paradoxes more generally. (shrink)

More than ever, it is in vogue to argue that no norms either play a role in or directly follow from the theory of mental content. In this paper, I present an intuitive theory of intentionality (including a theory of mental content) on which norms are constitutive of the intentional properties of attitude and content in order to show that this trend is misguided. Although this theory of intentionality—the teleological theory of intentional representation—does involve a commitment to representational norms, these (...) norms are not problematic in the way critics have suggested they would be. In particular, these norms do not guide thinking by motivating intentional agents to (intentionally) accord with them; as a result, no obvious vicious regress threatens the theory. In the final section of this paper, I argue that accepting this teleological theory of intentionality need not commit one to thinking that intentionality is the product of natural selection. (shrink)

With substance dualism and the existence of God, Swinburne (2004, The Existence of God, Oxford University Press, Oxford) and Moreland (2010, Consciousness and the Existence of God, Routledge, New York) have argued for a very powerful explanatory mechanism that can readily explain several philosophical problems related to consciousness. However, their positions come with presuppositions and ontological commitments which many are not prepared to share. The aim of this paper is to improve on the Swinburne-Moreland argument from consciousness by developing an (...) argument for the existence of God from consciousness without being committed to substance dualism. The argument proceeds by suggesting a solution to the exceptional-point-of-view problem, i.e., the question how it can be explained that there is a conscious being lucky enough to experience the point of view of a relatively tiny brain amidst a giant universe that is indifferent about which physical entities it brings about according to the laws of physics. (shrink)

Global metaphysical antirealism (or “antirealism”) is often thought to entail that the identity of each and every concrete entity in our world ultimately depends on us—on our adoption of certain social and linguistic conventions, for instance, or on our use of certain conceptual schemes. Drawing on the middle‐period works of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, I contend that metaphysical antirealism entails nothing of the sort. For Merleau‐Ponty, I argue, entities do not ultimately owe their identities to us, even though—as he puts it—their “articulations (...) are the very ones of our existence.” Once this is recognised, I maintain, certain interpretations of phenomenology are revealed to be caricatures and certain general objections to antirealism lose their force. (shrink)

Hillary Putnam has famously argued that we can know that we are not brains in a vat because the hypothesis that we are is self-refuting. While Putnam's argument has generated interest primarily as a novel response to skepticism, his original use of the brain in a vat scenario was meant to illustrate a point about the "mind/world relationship." In particular, he intended it to be part of an argument against the coherence of metaphysical realism, and thus to be part of (...) a defense of his conception of truth as idealized rational acceptability. Putnam's conclusions about the scenario are, however, actually out of line with central and plausible aspects of his own account of the relationship between our minds and the world. Reflections on semantics give us no compelling reason to suppose that claims like "I am a brain in a vat" could not turn out to be true. (shrink)

Semantic holists view what one's terms mean as function of all of one's usage. Holists will thus be coherentists about semantic justification: showing that one's usage of a term is semantically justified involves showing how it coheres with the rest of one's usage. Semantic atomists, by contrast, understand semantic justification in a foundationalist fashion. Saul Kripke has, on Wittgenstein's behalf, famously argued for a type of skepticism about meaning and semantic justification. However, Kripke's argument has bite only if one understands (...) semantic justification in foundationalist terms. Consequently, Kripke's arguments lead not to a type of skepticism about meaning, but rather to the conclusion that one should be a coherentist about semantic justification, and thus a holist about semantic facts. (shrink)

The long-standing dispute between absolutists and relativists traditionally focuses on whether there are absolute truths, absolute epistemic norms, and absolute.