In De Trinitate 10, Augustine offers an argument that seemingly proceeds from certain premises about self-knowledge to the conclusion that the mind is incorporeal. Although the argument has sometimes been compared to later Cartesian arguments, it has received relatively little philosophical attention. In this paper, I offer a detailed analysis and original interpretation of Augustine's argument and argue that it is not vulnerable to some of the main objections which have been raised against it. I go on to argue that (...) while an important part of Augustine's argument does face several hitherto neglected objections, Augustine's ultimate case for the incorporeality of the mind is somewhat different and more successful than one might initially think. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a basic assumption tacitly shared by many philosophers of mind and language: that whatever can be meant, can be said. It specifically targets John Searle's account of this idea, focusing on his Principle of Expressibility . In the first part of the paper, PE is exposed underlining its analyticity and its relevance for the philosophy of language , mind , society and action . In the critical part, the notion of Background is (...) taken into account in order to re-evaluate two basic distinctions: the one between sentence and utterance meanings , and the one between native and type speakers . PE is reconsidered in the light of the previous arguments as a methodological strategy that does not prevent uses of language from eventual semantic excesses and deficits , and a complementary Principle of Expression Fallibility is finally proposed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a basic assumption tacitly shared by many philosophers of mind and language: that whatever can be meant, can be said. It specifically targets John Searle’s account of this idea, focussing on his Principle of Expressibility (PE henceforth). In the first part of the paper, PE is exposed underlining its analyticity (1) and its relevance for the philosophy of language (2), mind (3), society and action (4). In the critical part, the notion of (...) Background is taken into account in order to re-evaluate two basic distinctions: the one between sentence and utterance meanings (5), and the one between native and type speakers (6). PE is reconsidered in the light of the previous arguments as a methodological strategy that does not prevent uses of language from eventual semantic excesses and deficits (7), and a complementary Principle of Expression Fallibility is finally proposed (8). (shrink)

While philosophers tend to consider a single type of causal history, biologists distinguish between two kinds of causal history: evolutionary history and developmental history. This essay studies the peculiarity of development as a criterion for the individuation of biological traits and its relation to form, function, and evolution. By focusing on examples involving serial homologies and genetic reprogramming, we argue that morphology (form) and function, even when supplemented with evolutionary history, are sometimes insufficient to individuate traits. Developmental mechanisms bring in (...) a novel aspect to the business of classification—identity of process-type—according to which entities are type-identical across individuals and natural kinds in virtue of the fact that they form and develop through similar processes. These considerations bear important metaphysical implications and have potential applications in several areas of philosophy. (shrink)

Throughout his philosophical career, Hilary Putnam was preoccupied with the question of what survives of the traditional notion of a priori truth in light of the recurring historical phenomenon, made prominent by the scientific revolutions of the early decades of the twentieth century, through which “something that was literally inconceivable has turned out to be true”. Impugning the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Putnam’s redefinition of “conceptual truth” in terms of “quasi-necessity relative to a conceptual scheme” is meant to accommodate the possibility of (...) transitions of just this sort. In this essay, I trace the origins and development of Putnam’s account of “quasi-necessity.” I try to defend it against some objections naturally arising in connection with the interplay of modality and negation. My main contention is that the main tenets of Putnam’s semantic externalism inform his reconception of conceptual truth, and that they must be recognized to hold of such basic logical notions as those of judgment and negation. (shrink)

Entity realism is the view that ‘a good many theoretical entities do really exist’. The main novelty of entity realism was that it provided an account of scientific realism that did not have to endorse realism about theories—the general proposal was that entity realism is noncommittal about whether we should be realist about scientific theories. I argue that the only way entity realists can resist the pull of straight scientific realism about theories is by endorsing a recent new player in (...) the scientific realism debate: singularist semirealism. (shrink)

On a widespread naturalist view, the meanings of mathematical terms are determined, and can only be determined, by the way we use mathematical language—in particular, by the basic mathematical principles we’re disposed to accept. But it’s mysterious how this can be so, since, as is well known, minimally strong first-order theories are non-categorical and so are compatible with countless non-isomorphic interpretations. As for second-order theories: though they typically enjoy categoricity results—for instance, Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for second-order PA and Zermelo’s quasi-categoricity (...) theorem for second-order ZFC—these results require full second-order logic. So appealing to these results seems only to push the problem back, since the principles of second-order logic are themselves non-categorical: those principles are compatible with restricted interpretations of the second-order quantifiers on which Dedekind’s and Zermelo’s results are no longer available. In this paper, we provide a naturalist-friendly, non-revisionary solution to an analogous but seemingly more basic problem—Carnap’s Categoricity Problem for propositional and first-order logic—and show that our solution generalizes, giving us full second-order logic and thereby securing the categoricity or quasi-categoricity of second-order mathematical theories. Briefly, the first-order quantifiers have their intended interpretation, we claim, because we’re disposed to follow the quantifier rules in an open-ended way. As we show, given this open-endedness, the interpretation of the quantifiers must be permutation-invariant and so, by a theorem recently proved by Bonnay and Westerståhl, must be the standard interpretation. Analogously for the second-order case: we prove, by generalizing Bonnay and Westerståhl’s theorem, that the permutation invariance of the interpretation of the second-order quantifiers, guaranteed once again by the open-endedness of our inferential dispositions, suffices to yield full second-order logic. (shrink)

I reconsider the monism/pluralism debate about natural kinds. Monism claims that there is a privileged division of reality into natural kinds, while pluralism states that there are many ways of classifying objects according to different purposes. I compare three different monistic accounts of natural kinds with the pluralism advocated by promiscuous realism. The analysis of some examples of the classification of celestial objects suggest that there are indeed different legitimate ways of classifying things according to different purposes; contrary to monism, (...) the boundaries between kinds are not fixed. These results show that promiscuous realism is a better account of natural kind. (shrink)

Ontology is the philosophical discipline which aims to understand how things in the world are divided into categories and how these categories are related together. This is exactly what information scientists aim for in creating structured, automated representations, called 'ontologies,' for managing information in fields such as science, government, industry, and healthcare. Currently, these systems are designed in a variety of different ways, so they cannot share data with one another. They are often idiosyncratically structured, accessible only to those who (...) created them, and unable to serve as inputs for automated reasoning. This volume shows, in a nontechnical way and using examples from medicine and biology, how the rigorous application of theories and insights from philosophical ontology can improve the ontologies upon which information management depends. (shrink)

It is often claimed that principles of individuation imply essential properties of the things individuated. For example, sets are individuated by their members, hence sets have their members essentially. But how does this inference work? First I discuss the form of such inferences, and conclude that the essentialist inference is not a purely formal matter: although there is a form which all principles of individuation have in common, it is not true that any statement of that form is a principle (...) of individuation, and hence there is no valid inference based purely on that form. However, I argue that there is a viable version of the essentialist inference nonetheless. The resources for a proper reconstruction of this type of inference can be gathered from reflections upon the role principles of individuation play in the project of the ontologist: such principles turn out to carry a modal weight similar to that of definitions or conceptual truths. It follows that, no matter how austere the ontology, some portion of essentialist modality is inevitable. (shrink)

En este trabajo se defiende el fiabilismo frente al experimento mental clásico del "genio maligno". Al hacerlo, enfatizo dos de sus supuestos clave; y después desarrollo una serie de variadas respuestas asequibles al fiabilista, mostrando que las mismas pueden ser útiles para explicar o negar las intuiciones iniciales de la propuesta del "genio maligno", de una manera consistente con el fiabilismo. Mi conclusión es que el experimento del "genio maligno" no socava la fiablidad como el sello distintivo de la justificación (...) epistémica. (shrink)

This essay presents a novel approach to specifying the meaning of the concept of populism, on the political position it occupies and on the nature of populism. Employing analytic techniques of concept clarification and recent analytic ideology critique, it develops populism as a political kind in three steps. First, it descriptively specifies the stereotype of populist platforms as identified in extant research and thereby delimits the peculiar political position populism occupies in representative democracies as neither inclusionary nor fascist. Second, it (...) specifies on this basis analytically–normatively the particular stance towards liberal representative democracy (in particular towards popular sovereignty and democratic legitimacy) that unifies populism’s political position and explains how populist politics can be compelling for democratic citizens. The normative core (populist ideology) turns out to require no more than two general principles of legitimizing political authority by elections. Surprisingly, it does not need a separate anti-pluralist or exclusionary commitment: it entails it. Third, this normative model allows a response to a contested question in the theoretical discussion, namely, whether populism (properly specified) can be democracy-enhancing. The article defends the negative answer in virtue of the normative core alone and does so as much vis-à-vis a minimal (purely electoral) as vis-à-vis a normatively ambitious (liberal) conception of democracy. The reconstruction of the normative core of populist ideology enables a novel argument to show that populism is incompatible with the continued democratic legitimation of political authority even in the normatively most austere conception of ‘electoral democracy’, not just with ‘liberal democracy’. Assuming a normatively more ambitious concept of democratic legitimation in terms of political autonomy, the model also produces an extremely direct argument showing that populists cannot fulfil their promise of ‘taking back control’ over political decision-making to the population. (shrink)

This essay presents a novel approach to specifying the meaning of the concept of populism, on the political position it occupies and on the nature of populism. Employing analytic techniques of concept clarification and recent analytic ideology critique, it develops populism as a political kind in three steps. First, it descriptively specifies the stereotype of populist platforms as identified in extant research and thereby delimits the peculiar political position populism occupies in representative democracies as neither inclusionary nor fascist. Second, it (...) specifies on this basis analytically–normatively the particular stance towards liberal representative democracy that unifies populism’s political position and explains how populist politics can be compelling for democratic citizens. The normative core turns out to require no more than two general principles of legitimizing political authority by elections. Surprisingly, it does not need a separate anti-pluralist or exclusionary commitment: it entails it. Third, this normative model allows a response to a contested question in the theoretical discussion, namely, whether populism can be democracy-enhancing. The article defends the negative answer in virtue of the normative core alone and does so as much vis-à-vis a minimal as vis-à-vis a normatively ambitious conception of democracy. The reconstruction of the normative core of populist ideology enables a novel argument to show that populism is incompatible with the continued democratic legitimation of political authority even in the normatively most austere conception of ‘electoral democracy’, not just with ‘liberal democracy’. Assuming a normatively more ambitious concept of democratic legitimation in terms of political autonomy, the model also produces an extremely direct argument showing that populists cannot fulfil their promise of ‘taking back control’ over political decision-making to the population. (shrink)

In this essay I address the issue of whether Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity counts against a tensed or "A-series" understanding of time. Though this debate is an old one, it continues to be lively with many prominent authors recently arguing that a genuine A-series is compatible with a relativistic world view. My aim in what follows is to outline why Special Relativity is thought to count against a tensed understanding of time and then to address the philosophical attempts to (...) reconcile the two theories. I conclude that while modern physics on its own does not rule out the possibility of a real A-series, the combination of Einstein's theory and the philosophical arguments against tense is decisive. The upshot is that the tenseless or "B-series" view of time is the best one. (shrink)

Kripke’s most important arguments in Naming and Necessity against the description theory of reference of proper names are the arguments from ignorance and error concerning names of historical figures. The aim of this paper is to put forward a reply to these arguments. The answer to them is grounded on the development of one component of the version of the description theory proposed by the authors that are regarded as the classical contemporary advocates of this theory, namely Searle and Strawson; (...) one of the targets of Kripke’s arguments is precisely the version of the description theory of reference submitted by these authors. The development of that component results in a sort of description theory of reference not affected by Kripke’s arguments from ignorance and error concerning the names of historical figures, deferential descriptivism. (shrink)

According to Marr's theory of vision, computational processes of early vision rely for their success on certain "natural constraints" in the physical environment. I examine the implications of this feature of Marr's theory for the question whether psychological states supervene on neural states. It is reasonable to hold that Marr's theory is nonindividualistic in that, given the role of natural constraints, distinct computational theories of the same neural processes may be justified in different environments. But to avoid trivializing computational explanations, (...) theories must respect methodological solipsism in the sense that within a theory there cannot be differences in content without a corresponding difference in neural states. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Natural Kinds: Language, Science, and Metaphysics. The issue includes new contributions to some of the main questions involved in the present philosophical debates on natural kinds and on natural kind terms. Those debates are relevant to philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and metaphysics. In philosophy of language it is highly debated what the meaning of natural kind terms is, how their reference is determined, as well as whether there are (...) differences and similarities between the semantics of natural kind terms and that of other sorts of kind terms. In philosophy of science, natural kinds are relevant because they are the basis for scientific classifications and play an explanatory role in scientific theories; thus one aim of science is to discover natural kinds and theorize about them. Natural kinds are also relevant in metaphysics, where many questions involving natural kinds are debated and especially those concerning the sort of entities we refer to when using natural kind terms, i.e., the ontological status of natural kinds; in this regard there are different views, such as conventionalism, realism and essentialism. Another metaphysical question is what it is that characterizes the naturalness of kind divisions. The introduction sketches the antecedents of some of the present views on natural kinds and natural kind terms, and indicates some of the topics dealt with in the articles that make up the issue, which can be classified in the following groups: the metaphysics and epistemology of natural kinds the semantics of natural kind terms and other kind terms questions on species and other related issues on natural kinds. However, many of the articles cover more than just one of these topics. (shrink)

A recent argument against content internalism bucks tradition: it abandons Twin-Earth-style thought experiments and instead claims that internalism is inconsistent with plausible principles relating belief contents and truth values. Call this the transparency argument. Here, it is shown that there is a structurally parallel argument against content internalism’s foil: content externalism. Preserving the transparency argument while fending off the parallel argument against externalism requires that content-determination and truth-value-determination are implausibly linked together and that eternalism about belief contents is true. Given (...) these requirements, there may be reason to prefer simple, thought-experiment-based arguments against internalism – the sort of arguments that the transparency argument is meant to supersede. (shrink)

Several lines of reasoning have been proposed to show the incompatibility of content externalism with justification internalism. In this paper I examine two such lines of reasoning, which both rely on the general idea that since content externalism is incompatible with certain aspects of the alleged privileged character of self-knowledge, it would tend to undermine justification internalism as well. I shall argue that both lines of reasoning, as they stand, lack plausibility, though the core idea of the second line can (...) be reconstructed into a new argument which shows considerable promise. In particular, relying upon the reliability constraint on knowledge, I shall argue that the so-called ‘two-concept’ version of content externalism is incompatible with ‘the transparency of sameness of content’, and thereby would also undermine justification internalism. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Schwitzgebel has attempted to revive the dispositionalist account of belief by tweaking it a little and claiming a previously unconsidered advantage over representationalism. The tweaks are to include phenomenal and cognitive responses, in addition to overt behaviour, in the manifestations of a given belief; and to soften the account of dispositions by allowing for dispositional stereotypes. The alleged advantage is that dispositionalism can deal with what Schwitzgebel calls cases of in‐between belief, whereas representationalism cannot. In (...) this paper we argue that Schwitzgebel's attempted improvements do not succeed and that, as an account of belief, dispositionalism is seen to be unsatisfactory. The case for this verdict also enables the representationalist position to be enhanced by drawing attention to the diversity of formats in which beliefs are stored. (shrink)

I offer support for the view that physicalist theories of cognition don't reduce to neurophysiological theories. On my view, the mind-brain relationship is to be explained in terms of evolutionary forces, some of which tug in the direction of a reductionistic mind-brain relationship, and some of which which tug in the opposite direction. This theory of forces makes possible an anti-reductionist account of the cognitive mind-brain relationship which avoids psychophysical anomalism. This theory thus also responds to the complaint which arguably (...) lies behind the Churchlands' strongest criticisms of anti-reductionism — namely the complaint that anti-reductionists fail to supply principled explanations for the character of the mind-brain relationship. While lending support to anti-reductionism, the view defended here also insures a permanent place for mind-brain reduction as an explanatory ideal analogous to Newtonian inertial motion or Aristotelian natural motion. (shrink)

A critical survey of recent work on the ontological status of colors supports the conclusion that, while some accounts of color can plausibly be dismissed, no single account can yet be endorsed. Among the remaining options are certain forms of color realism according which familiar colors are instantiated by objects in our extra-cranial visual environment. Also still an option is color anti-realism, the view that familiar colors are, at best, biologically adaptive fictions, instantiated nowhere.I argue that there is simply no (...) fact of the matter as to which of these remaining options is correct. I blame this indeterminacy on the fact that color vision exhibits several of the hallmarks of a modular input system, as described by Jerry Fodor in The Modularity of Mind. (shrink)

Isabelle Delpla a écrit une étude critique riche et généreuse de mon ouvrage Les fondements empiriques de la signification. Cette étude regorge d’analyses fines et de critiques subtiles des positions que je défends. Son titre défaitiste ne m’apparaît toutefois pas motivé, et je vais montrer pourquoi ses principales attaques échouent.

People’s concept of free will is often assumed to be incompatible with the deterministic, scientific model of the universe. Indeed, many scholars treat the folk concept of free will as assuming a special form of nondeterministic causation, possibly the notion of uncaused causes. However, little work to date has directly probed individuals’ beliefs about what it means to have free will. The present studies sought to reconstruct this folk concept of free will by asking people to define the concept (Study (...) 1) and by confronting them with a neuroscientific claim that free will is an illusion (Study 2), which invited them to either reconcile or contrast free will with determinism. The results suggest that the core of people’s concept of free will is a choice that fulfills one’s desires and is free from internal or external constraints. No evidence was found for metaphysical assumptions about dualism or indeterminism. (shrink)

Considerable attention has been given to the accessibility of legal documents, such as legislation and case law, both in legal information retrieval (query formulation, search algorithms), in legal information dissemination practice (numerous examples of on-line access to formal sources of law), and in legal knowledge-based systems (by translating the contents of those documents to ready-to-use rule and case-based systems). However, within AI & law, it has hardly ever been tried to make the contents of sources of law, and the relations (...) among them, more accessible to those without a legal education. This article presents a theory about translating sources of law into information accessible to persons without a legal education. It illustrates the theory by providing two elaborated examples of such translation ventures. In the first example, formal sources of law in the domain of exchanging police information are translated into rules of thumb useful for policemen. In the second example, the goal of providing non-legal professionals with insight into legislative procedures is translated into a framework for making available sources of law through an integrated legislative calendar. Although the theory itself does not support automating the several stages described, in this article some hints are given as to what such automation would have to look like. (shrink)

Williamson (2000) [Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press] argues that attempts to substitute narrow mental states or narrow/environmental composites for broad and factive mental states will result in poorer explanations of behavior. I resist Williamson.

The Moral Twin Earth challenge to ethical naturalism threatens to undermine an otherwise promising metaethical view by showing that typical, naturalist-friendly theories of reference determination predict diverging reference in Twin Earth scenarios, making it difficult to account for substantive moral disagreement. Several theorists have recently invoked David Lewis’s doctrine of reference magnetism as a solution, claiming that a highly elite moral property—a moral “joint in nature”—could secure shared reference between ourselves and our twins on Twin Earth, despite our diverging usages (...) of moral terms. This paper argues that this move has significant methodological implications: namely, it entails that a certain sort of simplicity is truth-conducive. Consequently, when applied to moral theories, this gives certain views, specifically monist ones like utilitarianism and contractualism, an advantage over their more complicated rivals, forms of pluralism and particularism. Thus, ethical naturalists cannot invoke reference magnetism without a substantial impact on first-order theorizing. (shrink)

Are we perhaps in the "matrix", or anyway, victims of perfect and permanent computer simulation? No. The most convincing—and shortest—version of Putnam's argument against the possibility of our eternal envattment is due to Crispin Wright (1994). It avoids most of the misunderstandings that have been elicited by Putnam's original presentation of the argument in "Reason, Truth and History" (1981). But it is still open to the charge of question-begging. True enough, the premisses of the argument (disquotation and externalism) can be (...) formulated and defended without presupposing external objects whose existence appears doubtful in the light of the very skeptical scenario which Putnam wants to repudiate. However, the argument is only valid if we add an extra premiss as to the existence of some external objects. In order to avoid circularity, we should run the argument with external objects which must exist even if we are brains in a vat, e.g. with computers rather than with trees. As long as the skeptic is engaged in a discussion of the brain-in-a-vat scenario, she should neither deny the existence of computers nor the existence of causal relations; for if she does, she is in fact denying that we are brains in a vat. (shrink)

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

This essay argues for internalism in maintaining that there is a sense of “determination” – namely “a selection of one” – according to which phenomenological content determines the object of an experience. The subject may not be able to describe the object in a way which distinguishes it from all other objects, but the object is nevertheless determined by the unity of sense, or noema, which presents it.

In this paper, I address one recent objection to Andy Clark and David Chalmers’s functionalist argument for the extended mind thesis. This objection is posed by Kengo Miyazono, who claims that they unjustifiably identify the original cognitive subject with the hybrid one in order to reach their conclusion about the mind extension. His attack consists of three steps: distinguishing hybrid from traditional cognitive subjects based on the systems reply originally directed at Searle’s Chinese room argument; pointing out that the conclusion (...) of the functionalist argument for EM must be rephrased to state that there are hybrid, and not extended, systems with widely realized mental states; and arguing that functionalist EM cannot justify the assumption about the identity of these two kinds of subjects without circularity. I argue that Miyazono’s main argument is ill-founded but that it, nevertheless, points out one important issue, namely, that we need further justification of the identity assumption, without which EM loses much of its flavor. Thus, I am going to challenge Miyazono’s argument, provide a reinterpretation of the argumentation in the EM debate, defend the possibility of wide and extended selves, and offer a justification of the identity assumption, which I find crucial not only for vindicating EM but also for differentiating EM from other similar theses, such as the thesis about group minds. (shrink)

Concepts are highly theoretical entities. One cannot study them empirically without committing oneself to substantial preliminary assumptions. Among the competing theories of concepts and categorization developed by psychologists in the last thirty years, the implicit theoretical assumption that what falls under a concept is determined by description () has never been seriously challenged. I present a nondescriptionist theory of our most basic concepts, which include (1) stuffs (gold, milk), (2) real kinds (cat, chair), and (3) individuals (Mama, Bill Clinton, the (...) Empire State Building). On the basis of something important that all three have in common, our earliest and most basic concepts of substances are identical in structure. The membership of the category like that of is a natural unit in nature, to which the concept does something like pointing, and continues to point despite large changes in the properties the thinker represents the unit as having. For example, large changes can occur in the way a child identifies cats and the things it is willing to call without affecting the extension of its word The difficulty is to cash in the metaphor of in this context. Having substance concepts need not depend on knowing words, but language interacts with substance concepts, completely transforming the conceptual repertoire. I will discuss how public language plays a crucial role in both the acquisition of substance concepts and their completed structure. (shrink)

Realism about musical works is often tied to some type of Platonism. Nominalism, which posits that musical works exist and that they are concrete objects, goes with ontological realism much less often than Platonism: there is a long tradition which holds human-created objects (artifacts) to be mind-dependent. Musical Platonism leads to the well-known paradox of the impossibility of creating abstract objects, and so it has been suggested that only some form of nominalism becoming dominant in the ontology of art could (...) cause a great change in the field and open up new possibilities. This paper aims to develop a new metaontological view starting from the widely accepted claim that musical works are created. It contends that musical works must be concrete and created objects of some sort, but, nevertheless, they are mind-independent, and we should take the revisionary methodological stance. Although musical works are artifacts, what people think about them does not determine what musical works are. Musical works are similar to natural objects in the following sense: semantic externalism applies to the term ‘musical work’ because, firstly, they possess a shared nature, and, secondly, we can be mistaken about what they are. (shrink)

What are biological species? Aristotelians and Lockeans agree that they are natural kinds; but, evolutionary theory shows that neither traditional philosophical approach is truly adequate. Recently, Michael Ghiselin and David Hull have argued that species are individuals. This claim is shown to be against the spirit of much modern biology. It is concluded that species are natural kinds of a sort, and that any 'objectivity' they possess comes from their being at the focus of a consilience of inductions.

In this paper I discuss a variant of the knowledge argument which is based upon Frank Jackson's Mary thought experiment. Using this argument, Jackson tries to support the thesis that a purely physical – or, put generally: an objectively scientific – perspective upon the world excludes the important domain of `phenomenal' facts, which are only accessible introspectively. Martine Nida-Rümelinhas formulated the epistemological challenge behind the case of Mary especially clearly. I take her formulation of the problem as a starting-point and (...) present a solution which is based solely on the concepts of capability and of metalinguistic beliefs. References to epiphenomenal facts, phenomenal knowledge etc. will be avoided completely. I specify my proposal against the backdrop of Burge's critical reflections about metalinguistic reinterpretation of expressions of belief and the externalist thesis held by Burge, Putnam and others that meanings and mental states are dependent upon the environment. My solution is then compared with Lewis' and Nemirow's ability objection. Finally I argue that the much discussed ``knowing what it is like'' has in its ordinary meaning nothing much to do with `phenomenal knowledge' or knowledge of `epiphenomenal' facts. (shrink)

Psychological essentialism is the belief that some internal, unseen essence or force determines the common outward appearances and behaviors of category members. We investigated whether reasoning about transplants of bodily elements showed evidence of essentialist thinking. Both Americans and Indians endorsed the possibility of transplants conferring donors' personality, behavior, and luck on recipients, consistent with essentialism. Respondents also endorsed essentialist effects even when denying that transplants would change a recipient's category membership (e.g., predicting that a recipient of a pig's heart (...) would act more pig-like but denying that the recipient would become a pig). This finding runs counter to predictions from the strongest version of the “minimalist” position (Strevens,2000), an alternative to essentialism. Finally, studies asking about a broader range of donor-to-recipient transfers indicated that Indians essentialized more types of transfers than Americans, but neither sample essentialized monetary transfer. This suggests that results from bodily transplant conditions reflect genuine essentialism rather than broader magical thinking. (shrink)

In this article I address the question of what makes addiction morally problematic, and seek to answer it by drawing on values salient in the sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. Specifically, I appeal to life-force and communal relationship, each of which African philosophers have at times advanced as a foundational value, and spell out how addiction, or at least salient instances of it, could be viewed as unethical for flouting them. I do not seek to defend either vitality or community as (...) the best explanation of when and why addiction is immoral, instead arguing that each of these characteristically African values grounds an independent and plausible account of that. I conclude that both vitalism and communalism merit consideration as rivals to accounts that Western ethicists would typically make, according to which addiction is immoral insofar as it degrades rationality or autonomy, as per Kantianism, or causes pain or dissatisfaction, à la utilitarianism. (shrink)

The “therapeutic obligation” is a physician’s duty to provide his patients with what he believes is the best available treatment. We begin by discussing some prominent formulations of the obligation before raising two related considerations against those formulations. First, they do not make sense of cases where doctors are permitted to provide suboptimal care. Second, they give incorrect results in cases where doctors are choosing treatments in challenging epistemic environments. We then propose and defend an account of the therapeutic obligation (...) that solves the problems that undermined previous efforts at formulating the TO. We conclude by considering how apparent problems with our proposal actually rest on difficulties with informed consent. (shrink)

This paper compares tracking and phenomenal intentionality theories of intentionality with respect to the issue of naturalism. Tracking theories explicitly aim to naturalize intentionality, while phenomenal intentionality theories generally do not. It might seem that considerations of naturalism count in favor of tracking theories. We survey key considerations relevant to this claim, including some motivations for and objections to the two kinds of theories. We conclude by suggesting that naturalistic considerations may in fact support phenomenal intentionality theories over tracking theories.

The paper discusses the problems raised by the inexactness of experiential concepts for a deductivist account of theoretical explanation. The process of theoretical explanation is explicated in terms of the devising of exact forms of inexact concepts. Analysis of the adjustments of concepts and their exact forms to each other reveals an implicit criterion of adequacy for theories which is related to the principle of connectivity.

Can physicalism (or materialism) be non-reductive? I provide an opinionated survey of the debate on this question. I suggest that attempts to formulate non-reductive physicalism by appeal to claims of event identity, supervenience, or realization have produced doctrines that fail either to be physicalist or to be non-reductive. Then I treat in more detail a recent attempt to formulate non-reductive physicalism by Derk Pereboom, but argue that it fares no better.

There is a fairly general consensus that names are Millian (or Russellian) genuine terms, that is, are singular terms whose sole semantic function is to introduce a referent into the propositions expressed by sentences containing the term. This answers the question as to what sort of proposition is expressed by use of sentences containing names. But there is a second serious semantic problem about proper names, that of how the referents of proper names are determined. This is the question that (...) I will discuss in this paper. Various views consistent with Millianism have been proposed as to how the semantic referents of proper names are determined. These views can be classified into (1) description theories and (2) causal theories, but they can also be classified into (3) social practice theories, on which a name’s referent is determined by a social practice involving the referent, and (4) individualistic theories, on which the referent of the use of a name is determined by the speaker’s state of mind. Here I argue against social practice theories of the sorts proposed by Kripke and Evans and in favor of an individualistic approach to name reference. I argue that social practice is irrelevant to determining name reference and that, as a consequence, names have no meanings in natural languages. In the second part of the paper I motivate and propose a new form of individualistic theory which incorporates features of both description theories and Evans’s social practice theory. (shrink)

Tyler Burge's (1979) famous thought experiment concerning 'arthritis' is commonly assumed to show that all ascriptions of content to beliefs and other attitudes are dependent for their truth upon facts about the agent's social and linguistic environment. It is also commonly claimed that Burge's argument shows that Putnam's (1975) result regarding natural kind terms applies to all general terms whatever, and hence shows that all such terms have wide meanings.1 But I wish to show here, first, that neither Burge's initial (...) thought experiment nor a second type of example that Burge describes supports either of these conclusions. Second, I will identify the proper conclusion to draw from Burge's discussion and show that this conclusion does not really pose a serious problem for individualism about the mental. And finally, I will argue that Burge's discussion does not in fact provide a conclusive reason for believing its proper conclusion. (shrink)