Epistemic absolutism is an orthodox view that propositional knowledge is an ungradable concept. Absolutism is primarily grounded in our ungradable uses of “knows” in ordinary language. This paper advances a thorough objection to the linguistic argument for absolutism. My objection consists of two parts. Firstly, arguments for absolutism provided by Jason Stanley and Julien Dutant will be refuted respectively. After that, two more general refutation-strategies will be proposed: counterevidence against absolutism can be found in both English and non-English languages; the (...) linguistic argument for absolutism is subject to a methodological mistake as the linguistic usages of “knows” cannot accurately reflect its conceptual nature. Therefore, we should give epistemic gradualism, as opposed to absolutism, a more serious consideration. (shrink)

When I say “I know Sarah,” or “I know Berlin,” what sort of knowledge am I claiming? Such knowledge of a particular is, I claim, not reducible to either propositional knowledge-that or to traditional physical know-how. Mere, bare knowledge by acquaintance also does not capture the kind of knowledge being claimed here. Using knowledge of a place as my central example, I argue that this kind of knowledge-of, or “objectual knowledge” as it is sometimes called, is of a distinctive epistemological (...) sort. It is a genre of inherently first-personal aesthetic knowledge, but it also, like know-how, involves active skill. I end by exploring a couple of classic problems in aesthetic epistemology, applied to the case of knowledge-of as active aesthetic knowledge. (shrink)

Imagine a zombie world that looks “from the outside” just like ours, but where there is no phenomenal consciousness. Creatures that look like us move about just as we do and make the same noises we do, but nobody experiences or feels anything. How much of the epistemic value that’s exemplified in our world survives in that one? The short answer is: any kind of epistemic value that requires the occurrence of consciousness for its exemplification cannot exist in that world, (...) but epistemic value that doesn’t require consciousness can exist. The real question, though, is what kinds of epistemic value require the occurrence of consciousness. We will consider four central epistemic values: justification, truth, acquaintance, and understanding. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s epistemology had the interesting structural feature that it made propositional knowledge (“S knows that p”) asymmetrically dependent upon what Russell called knowledge by acquaintance. On this view, a subject lacking any knowledge by acquaintance would be unable to know that p for any p. This is something that virtually nobody has defended since Russell, and in this paper I initiate a sympathetic reconsideration.

Russell claims in his autobiography and elsewhere that he discovered his 1905 theory of descriptions while attempting to solve the logical and semantic paradoxes plaguing his work on the foundations of mathematics. In this paper, I hope to make the connection between his work on the paradoxes and the theory of descriptions and his theory of incomplete symbols generally clearer. In particular, I argue that the theory of descriptions arose from the realization that not only can a class not be (...) thought of as a single thing, neither can the meaning/intension of any expression capable of singling out one collection (class) of things as opposed to another. If this is right, it shows that Russell’s method of solving the logical paradoxes is wholly incompatible with anything like a Fregean dualism between sense and reference or meaning and denotation. I also discuss how this realization lead to modifications in his understanding of propositions and propositional functions, and suggest that Russell’s confrontation with these issues may be instructive for ongoing research. (shrink)

Paul Horwich is aware of the fact that his theory as stated in his works is directly applicable only to a language in which a word, understood as a syntactic type, is connected with exactly one literal meaning. Yet he claims that the theory is expandable to include homonymy and indexicality and thus may be considered as applicable to natural language. My concern in this paper is with yet another kind of ambiguity—systematic polysemy—that assigns multiple meanings to one linguistic type. (...) I want to combine the characteristics of systematic polysemy with the Kaplanian insight that meanings of expressions may be defined by semantic rules which assign content in context and to ask the question if minimalism about truth and meaning is compatible with such rule-based systematic polysemy. I will first explain why the expressions that exhibit rule-based systematic polysemy are difficult to combine with a truth theory that is based on a use theory of meaning before proceeding to argue that indexicals and proper names are such expressions. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of indexical expressions and proper names as they are used in proverbs. Both indexicals and proper names contribute properties rather than objects to the propositions expressed when they are used in sentences interpreted as proverbs. According to the proposal, their contribution is accounted for by the mechanism of descriptive anaphora. Indexicals with rich linguistic meaning, such as ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘today’, turn out to be cases of the attributive uses of indexicals, i.e. uses whose contribution (...) relies on the linguistic meaning of the word. Third person pronouns, names of locations as well as surnames are analyzed as non-attributive descriptive uses. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy in the mid-twentieth century underwent a major change of direction when a prior consensus in favour of extensionalism and descriptivism made way for approaches using direct reference, the necessity of identity, and modal logic. All three were first defended, in the analytic tradition, by one woman, Ruth Barcan Marcus. But analytic philosophers now tend to credit them to Kripke, or Kripke and Carnap. I argue that seeing Barcan Marcus in her historical context – one dominated by extensionalism and (...) descriptivism – allows us to see how revolutionary she was, in her work and influence on others. I focus on her debate with Quine, who found himself retreating to softened, and more viable, versions of his anti-modal arguments as a result. I make the case that Barcan's formal logic was philosophically well-motivated, connected to her views on reference, and well-matched to her overall views on ontology. Her nominalism led her to reject posits which could not be directly observed and named, such as possibilia. She conceived of modal calculi as facilitating counterfactual discourse about actual existents. I conclude that her contributions ought to be recognized as the first of their kind. Barcan Marcus must be awarded a central place in the canon of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

When we use a directly referential expression to denote an object, do we incur an ontological commitment to that object, as Russell and Barcan Marcus held? Not according to Quine, whose regimented language has only variables as denoting expressions, but no constants to model direct reference. I make a case for a more liberal conception of ontological commitment—more wide-ranging than Quine’s—which allows for commitment to individuals, with an improved logical language of regimentation. The reason for Quine’s prohibition on commitment to (...) individuals, I argue, is that his choice of regimented language is heavily informed by his holist epistemology, in which objects are introduced via a description of their explanatory role. But non-holists can coherently attempt to commit to individuals using directly referential expressions, modelled in a formal language as constants. While holding on to the insight that a logical language is a helpful medium for ontology, I propose instead a more permissive language of regimentation, one expanded to permit the use of constants to record attempts to commit to individuals, which allows us to make sense of non-holist theories with alternative name-based or name-and-variable-based criteria of ontological commitment as well as Quinean theories. (shrink)

I argue that a popular view about self-locating evidence implies that there are cases in which agents have surprisingly strong evidence for their own reincarnation. The central case is an ‘Immortal Beauty' scenario, modelled after the well-known Sleeping Beauty puzzle. I argue that if the popular ‘thirder’ solution to the puzzle is correct, then Immortal Beauty should be confident that she's going to be reincarnated. The essay also examines another pro-reincarnation argument due to Michael Huemer (2021). I argue that his (...) argument fails, and that my argument establishes an alternative way in which mere existence can be evidence for reincarnation. I then examine whether my result generalizes. (shrink)

The verb ‘to know’ can be used both in ascriptions of propositional knowledge and ascriptions of knowledge of acquaintance. In the formal epistemology literature, the former use of ‘know’ has attracted considerable attention, while the latter is typically regarded as derivative. This attitude may be unsatisfactory for those philosophers who, like Russell, are not willing to think of knowledge of acquaintance as a subsidiary or dependent kind of knowledge. In this paper we outline a logic of knowledge of acquaintance in (...) which ascriptions like ‘Mary knows Smith’ are regarded as formally interesting in their own right, remaining neutral on their relation to ascriptions of propositional knowledge. The resulting logical framework, which is based on Hintikka’s modal approach to epistemic logic, provides a fresh perspective on various issues and notions at play in the philosophical debate on acquaintance. (shrink)

It has been argued that common ground information is unsuited to the role that contexts play in the theory of indexical and demonstrative reference. This paper explores an alternative view that identifies shared information with what is common knowledge among the participants. We argue this view of shared information avoids the problems for the common ground approach concerning reference while preserving its advantages in accounting for communication.

Patient or public involvement in health research is increasingly expected as a matter of policy. In theory, PPI can contribute both to the epistemic aims intrinsic to research, and to extrinsically valued features of research such as social inclusion and transparency. In practice, the aims of PPI have not always been clear, although there has been a tendency to encourage the involvement of so-called ordinary people who are regarded as representative of an assumed patient perspective. In this paper we focus (...) on the epistemic potential of PPI, using theoretical work in epistemology to develop a nuanced account of patients’ experiential knowledge and how this might contribute directly to conceptual development, hypothesis generation and data interpretation. We also consider how some features of health research pose barriers to this kind of epistemic contribution. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s idea of testimonial injustice, we explore how disciplinary indicators of credibility in clinical and academic health research contexts might be wrongly applied to those involved in PPI, undermining their potential to contribute. Finally we argue for a range of strategies to maximize opportunities for patients to engage with research teams and make epistemologically significant contributions to research. (shrink)

This article presents the knowledge argument against physicalism and objections to it. The focus is on the ways responses to that argument have tried to account for phenomenal knowledge within a physicalist picture. Various ‘phenomenal concepts’ strategies are considered, along with recent arguments against them. Also considered are attempts to explain phenomenal knowledge in terms of indexical knowledge and in terms of acquaintance.

Self-Knowledge and Self-Reference is a defense and reconciliation of the two apparently conflicting theses that the self is peculiarly elusive and that our basic, cogito-judgments are certain. On the one hand, Descartes seems to be correct that nothing is more certain than basic statements of self-knowledge, such as "I am thinking." On the other hand, there is the compelling Humean observation that when we introspect, nothing is found except for various "impressions." The problem, then, is that the Humean and Cartesian (...) insights are both initially appealing, yet they appear to be in tension with one another. In this paper I attempt to satisfy both intuitions by developing a roughly descriptivist account of self-reference according to which our certainty in basic beliefs stems precisely from our needing to know so little in order to have them. (shrink)

Habits figure in action‐explanations because of their distinctive force. But what is the force of habit, and how does it motivate us? In this paper, I argue that the force of habit is the feeling of familiarity one has with the familiar course of action, where this feeling reveals a distinctive reason for acting in the usual way. I do this by considering and rejecting a popular account of habit's force in terms of habit's apparent automaticity, by arguing that one (...) can do something out of habit and from deliberation, before going on to defend The Familiarity View. (shrink)

Russellians can have a no proposition view of empty names. I will defend this theory against the problem of meaningfulness, and show that the theory is in general well motivated. My solution to the problem of meaningfulness is that speakers’ judgements about meaningfulness are tracking grammaticality, and not propositional content.

Views that treat the contents of sentences as structured, Russellian propositions face a problem with empty names. It seems that those sorts of things cannot be the contents of sentences containing such names. I motivate and defend a solution to the problem according to which a sentence may have a singular proposition as its content at one time, and a nonsingular one at another. When the name is empty the content is a nonsingular Russellian structured proposition; when the name is (...) not empty the content is a singular Russellian structured proposition. (shrink)

Discussing Keith Donnellan's distinction between attributive and referential uses of descriptions, Gareth Evans considered a speaker he found it natural to describe as having “given expression to” a singular thought, though he insisted she was not referring to the person she has in mind. On accounts otherwise similar to Evans's, to express a singular thought just is to refer. Thus, as he does not explain why this speaker might speak this way, it is tempting to ignore this as a slip. (...) On the contrary, I shall argue, Evans has good reason to deny that picture of reference. My interest, though, is in the case itself. It turns out it is a presentational use of descriptions: it provides its audience a cognitive ability they would otherwise lack. This characterization raises deep theoretical questions which I only begin to address here. My goal is to show that we ought to address those questions, for there is no better way of understanding examples like Evans's than to see them as presentational. (shrink)

Human subjects seem to have a type of introspective access to their mental states that allows them to immediately judge the types and intensities of their occurrent emotions, as well as what those emotions are about or “directed at”. Such judgments manifest what I call “emotion-direction beliefs”, which, if reliably produced, may constitute emotion-direction knowledge. Many psychologists have argued that the “directed emotions” such beliefs represent have a componential structure, one that includes feelings of emotional responses and related but independent (...) representations of what those feelings are about. I argue that such componentiality may help to explain how emotion-direction knowledge is achievable. I begin by developing a hybrid view of introspection that combines David Chalmers’ phenomenal realism with Alvin Goldman’s “partial redeployment” account of meta-belief content. I then provide a process-reliabilist account of introspectively gained emotion-direction knowledge that outlines the minimum conditions of reliably forming emotion-direction beliefs, and specifies several ways in which the warrant of such beliefs could be defeated by relevant counterfactual alternatives. The overall account suggests how distinct introspective processes might be epistemically synergistic. (shrink)

The view that mathematics deals with ideal objects to which we have epistemic access by a kind of perception has troubled many thinkers. Using ideas from Husserl’s phenomenology, I will take a different look at these matters. The upshot of this approach is that there are non-material objects and that they can be recognized in a process very closely related to sense perception. In fact, the perception of physical objects may be regarded as a special case of this more universal (...) way of recognizing objects of any kind. (shrink)

This paper deals with the question of what the most appropriate semantic theory for theoretical terms would be. Traditionally, in the contemporary literature of philosophy of language, there have been two widely held semantic theories: the descriptivist theory and the causal theory. Comparing theoretical terms with natural kind terms, I attempt to show that the causal theory of reference applies to natural kinds owing to certain ontological and epistemological assumptions of natural kinds realism. I argue that there is no reason (...) to keep these assumptions with respect to theoretical entities. Consequently, the causal theory of reference cannot be applied to theoretical terms. Instead, because of certain ontological and epistemological features of theoretical entities, the rival semantic theory, i.e., the descriptivist theory of reference, properly explains how the referents of these terms get fixed and how these terms find their referents. The paper is structured as follows: the first part deals with the question of how a theoretical entity/kind should be distinguished from non-theoretical ones. The second part facilitates a comparison between theoretical kinds and natural kinds to reveal the ontological and epistemological features of each category. In the third part, I argue why the causal theory of reference fails to be a plausible semantic for theoretical terms, and why its rival theory, i.e., the descriptivist theory, provides an appropriate semantic for such terms. Finally, I raise two potential objections regarding my proposed view and try to show how these objections can be overcome. (shrink)

Non-actualist theories promise straightforward accounts of meaning, truth and reference of fictional discourse but are ostensibly saddled with a Selection Problem, that multiple possible candidates satisfy the role-descriptions associated with names used in fictions and no principled way to distinguish between them; yet if names are referential, there can only be one referent. The problem is often taken to be a serious—even decisive—obstacle for non-actualism, and the aim of this article is to show that the challenge can be met. I (...) suggest that storytellers and authors fix the referents of referential terms they use by arbitrary selecting referents through simple acts of stipulation, and then determine which of the worlds containing the relevant individuals serve as truth-makers for the story by adding properties to the characters. The resulting view of reference is consistent with reasonable, foundational requirements on reference, such as a causal-historical theory, and can moreover be used to support plausible theories of truth in fiction and facilitate elegant models of fiction as a type of discourse. (shrink)

Recently, Erik Baldwin and Tyler McNabb have brought Madhva's epistemological framework into active dialogue with Alvin Plantinga's religious epistemology and have argued that individuals within Madhva's tradition cannot make full use of Plantinga's epistemology, according to which, Christian belief resists de jure objections and can also have warrant. While I do not contest this specific claim, I demonstrate that an analysis of Madhva's epistemological framework reveals that this framework has its own resources through which it can resist de jure objections. (...) I address various objections to the rationality of Mādhvic belief and conclude that there are no de jure objections to Mādhvic belief that are independent of de facto objections. (shrink)

The paper describes the evolution of russell's theory of judgment between 1910 and 1913, With especial reference to his recently published "theory of knowledge" (1913). Russell abandoned the book and with it the theory of judgment as a result of wittgenstein's criticisms. These criticisms are examined in detail and found to constitute a refutation of russell's theory. Underlying differences between wittgenstein's and russell's views on logic are broached more sketchily.

This paper examines Russell's substitutional theory of classes and relations, and its influence on the development of the theory of logical types between the years 1906 and the publication of Principia Mathematica (volume I) in 1910. The substitutional theory proves to have been much more influential on Russell's writings than has been hitherto thought. After a brief introduction, the paper traces Russell's published works on type-theory up to Principia. Each is interpreted as presenting a version or modification of the substitutional (...) theory. New motivations for Russell's 1908 axiom of infinity and axiom of reducibility are revealed. (shrink)

E.E.C. Jones’s early logical writings have recently been rescued from obscurity and it has been claimed that, in her works dating from the 1890s, she anticipated Frege’s distinction between sense and reference. This claim is challenged on the ground that it is based on a common but inadequate reading of Frege, which runs together his concept/object and sense/reference distinctions. It is admitted that a case can be made for Jones having anticipated something very like Frege’s analysis of categorical propositions, and (...) that she offered a sound rebuttal of Russell’s objection to Frege’s account of the informativeness of identity statements. However, these significant achievements should not be misrepresented as an anticipation of Frege on sense and reference, a claim that encourages a defective reading of both philosophers. (shrink)

This paper offers an interpretation of Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgment which characterizes it as direct application of the 1905 theory of definite descriptions. The paper maintains that it was by regarding propositional symbols (when occurring as subordinate clauses) as disguised descriptions of complexes, that Russell generated the philosophical explanation of the hierarchy of orders and the ramified theory of types of _Principia mathematica (1910). The interpretation provides a new understanding of Russell's abandoned book _Theory of Knowledge (1913), the 'direction (...) problems' and Wittgenstein's criticisms. (shrink)

On the traditional relationalist conception of singular thought, a thought has singular content when it is based on an ‘information relation’ to its object. Recent work rejects relationalism and suggests singular thoughts are distinguished from descriptive thoughts by their inferential role: only thoughts with singular content can be employed in ‘direct’ inferences, or inferences that ‘trade on identity’. Firstly this view is insufficiently clear, because it conflates two distinct ideas—one about a kind of inference, the other a kind of process (...) that grounds inferences—under the title, ‘trading on identity’. Secondly, this leaves us without a notion that can be used as an alternative to relationalism about singular thought. The first notion is no more applicable to singular than to descriptive thought. The second may help us better understand singular thought, but does so, not by replacing the view that singular thoughts are information-based, but by helping us understand the nature of information-based thought. (shrink)

A thesis I call the name-based singular thought thesis is part of orthodoxy in contemporary philosophy of mind and language: it holds that taking part in communication involving a proper name puts one in a position to entertain singular thoughts about the name’s referent. I argue, first, that proponents of the NBT thesis have failed to explain the phenomenon of name-based singular thoughts, leaving it mysterious how name-use enables singular thoughts. Second, by outlining the reasoning that makes the NBT thesis (...) seem compelling and showing how it can be resisted, I argue that giving up the NBT thesis is not a cost, but rather a benefit. I do this by providing an expanded conception of understanding for communication involving names, which sheds light on the nature of communication involving names and the structure of name-using practices. (shrink)

This paper has a narrow and a broader target. The narrow target is a particular version of what I call the mental-files conception of singular thought, proposed by Robin Jeshion, and known as cognitivism. The broader target is the MFC in general. I give an argument against Jeshion's view, which gives us preliminary reason to reject the MFC more broadly. I argue Jeshion's theory of singular thought should be rejected because the central connection she makes between significance and singularity does (...) not hold. However, my argument grants Jeshion's claim that there is a connection between significance and file-thinking. The upshot is not only that we have reason to reject Jeshion's significance constraint on singular thought, but that we have reason to question the connection made by MFC proponents between file-thinking and singularity. (shrink)

Early twentieth-century philosophers of perception presented their naïve realist views of perceptual experience in anti-Kantian terms. For they took naïve realism about perceptual experience to be incompatible with Kant’s claims about the way the understanding is necessarily involved in perceptual consciousness. This essay seeks to situate a naïve realist account of visual experience within a recognisably Kantian framework by arguing that a naïve realist account of visual experience is compatible with the claim that the understanding is necessarily involved in the (...) perceptual experience of those rational beings with discursive intellects. The resultant view is middle way between recent conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of Kant, holding that the understanding is necessarily involved in the kind of perceptual consciousness that we, as rational beings, enjoy whilst allowing that the relations of apprehension which constitute perceptual consciousness are independent of acts of the understanding. (shrink)

Among the philosophical accounts of reference, Quine’s The Roots of Reference stands out in offering an integrated account of the acquisition of linguistic reference and object individuation. Based on a non-referential ability to distinguish bodies, the acquisition of sortals and quantification are crucial steps in learning to refer to objects. In this article, we critically re-assess Quine’s account of reference. Our critique will proceed in three steps with the aim of showing that Quine effectively presupposes what he sets out to (...) explain, namely, reference to objects. We are going to argue that sortals do not individuate, that bodies are already objects, and that the acquisition of variables presupposes a notion of identity. The result is diagnostic of a central desideratum for any theory of reference: an explanation of spatiotemporal object individuation. (shrink)

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between (...) a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)

The primary goal of this paper is to provide substantial motivation for exploring an Acquaintance account of phenomenal consciousness, on which what fundamentally explains phenomenal consciousness is the relation of acquaintance. Its secondary goal is to take a few steps towards such an account. Roughly, my argument proceeds as follows. Motivated by prioritizing naturalization, the debate about the nature of phenomenal consciousness has been almost monopolized by representational theories. Among them, Self-Representationalism is by far the most antecedently promising. However, on (...) thorough inspection, Self-Representationalism turns out not explanatorily or theoretically better than the Acquaintance account. Indeed, the latter seems to be superior in at least some important respects. Therefore, at the very least, there are good reasons to take the Acquaintance account into serious consideration as an alternative to representational theories. The positive contribution of this paper is a sketch of an account of consciousness on which phenomenal consciousness is explained partly in representationalist terms, but where a crucial role is played by the relation of acquaintance. (shrink)

First, language and axioms of Church's paper 'Comparison of Russell's Resolution of the Semantical Antinomies with that of Tarski' are slightly modified and a version of the Liar paradox tentatively reconstructed. An obvious natural solution of the paradox leads to a hierarchy of truth predicates which is of a different kind from the one defined by Church: it depends on the enlargement of the semantical vocabulary and its levels do not differ in the ramified-type-theoretical sense. Second, two attempts are made (...) in order to justify the Russellian, and perhaps Churchian, idea that language should not be fragmented beyond what is required by type distinctions. After all, because of reducibility, which seems to allow a semantics without propositions, this comes out to be possible only at the cost of resorting to two disputable theses. (shrink)

An increasing number of studies have seen the light over the last few decades concerning the epistemology of the book of Ecclesiastes. The extant research seems to be limited to try to find a suitable philosophical profile for Qohelet’s concept of knowledge whilst ignoring a whole array of topics and theories in contemporary analytic epistemology. The available research thus reveals an ‘inside-out’ approach that is, reading Qohelet and then seeking to link his thought to a particular epistemological stance. In this (...) study, however, an ‘outside-in’ approach is opted for that involves noting all the various issues in epistemology and then comparing each with what, if anything, Qohelet assumed in relation to the specific matter at hand. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that in typical cases of singular thought, a thinker stands in an evidential relation to the object of thought suitable for providing knowledge of the object's existence. Furthermore, a thinker may generate representations that purport to refer to particular objects in response to appropriate, though defeasible, evidence of the existence of such an object. I motivate these constraints by considering a number of examples introduced by Robin Jeshion in support of a view she calls ‘cognitivism’ (...) (Jeshion, 2010b). Although I agree with Jeshion that acquaintance is not required for all cases of singular thought, I argue that her account doesn't go far enough in rejecting semantic instrumentalism, the view that we can generate singular thoughts arbitrarily, by manipulating the mechanisms of direct reference. (shrink)

Is Anscombean practical knowledge independent of what the agent actually does on an occasion? Failure to understand Anscombe’s answer to this question is a major obstacle to appreciating the subtlety and plausibility of her view. I argue that Anscombe’s answer is negative, and turns on the nature of mistakes in performance, and reveals a distinctive implicit metaphysics of mind and knowledge, structured by related capacities and exercises of capacities. If my interpretation is correct, then practical knowledge shares features with knowledge-how (...) and knowledge-that, but deserves its own epistemic category. (shrink)

I argue that an experience’s sensuous elements play an ineliminable role in our being intentionally directed upon an entity through perception. More specifically, I argue that whenever we appreciate a sensuous element in experience, we appreciate an intrinsic and irreducibly phenomenal aspect of experience that I call phenomenal presence – an aspect of experience that I show is central to its presentational character – and that the appreciation of phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality. If an experience is to (...) possess intentionality, the experience itself must make an entity available as an object of perceptually-based singular beliefs and the experiencing subject, by virtue of undergoing the experience, must in some sense be able to appreciate that it has done so. Phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality because it plays an ineliminable role in making an entity available to its subject in this way. (shrink)

In this paper, I look at Susan Stebbing’s articles and reviews that critically engage logical positivism. These appeared before the publication of A.J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic and helped shape the early British reception of logical positivism. I highlight Stebbing’s adoption of G.E. Moore’s tripartite distinction between knowing a proposition, understanding it, and giving an analysis of it and, in light of this distinction, her focus on whether the principle of verifiability can ground a plausible account of communication. Stebbing (...) thinks not, and I reconstruct her reasons, as well as her own account of communication. In doing this, I relate her criticisms to her rejection of methodological solipsism and her dissatisfaction with the logical positivist treatment of statements about other minds and the past. I also argue that Stebbing’s work provides a bridge to later criticisms of logical positivism from ordinary language philosophers. Foregrounding Stebbing’s engagement with logical positivism, especially her focus on communication, paints a fuller picture of how the logical positivists came to be part of analytic philosophy despite having different concerns than many of the British philosophers engaging their work. (shrink)

In this article I try to show the philosophical continuity of Russell's ideas from his paradox of classes to Principia mathematica. With this purpose, I display the main results (descriptions, substitutions and types) as moments of the same development, whose principal goal was (as in his The principles) to look for a set of primitive ideas and propositions giving an account of all mathematics in logical terms, but now avoiding paradoxes. The sole way to reconstruct this central period in Russell (...) is to resort to unpublished manuscripts, which show the publications of these years to be the extremities of one same iceberg. Thus the logical problems (doubts about propositions, matrices and functions) are parallel to the ontological (the searching for genuine logical subjects) and methodological ones (the status of eliminative reduction). Paradoxes were the cause that the kind of (constructive) definition already applied by Russell, as an inheritance of Moorean analysis, obtained a new trait: ontological elimination, which, beginning with a ?no classes theory? and the theory of descriptions, led to a new theory of judgment (already present in manuscripts from 1906), ?incomplete symbols, and logical constructions. (shrink)

A perennial epistemological question is whether things can be known just as they are in the absence of any awareness of them. This epistemological question is posterior to ontological considerations and more specific ones pertaining to mind. In light of such considerations, the author propounds a naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge of things in themselves, one that makes crucial use of the work of Brentano. After introducing the resources provided by Brentano’s study of mind, the author reveals the ontological (...) framework in which it takes place. Doing so is instrumental to illuminating acquaintance, the state that enables the direct engagement of a mind and some other thing. The author discusses this state and shows how it has the epistemic heft, with a Brentanian account of judgment, to provide the foundations of one’s knowledge of the world. A naïve realist, foundationalist account of knowledge is open to a compelling objection; the author presents this objection with the means of undermining it. In conclusion, the author recurs to the opening theme of the primacy of ontology and suggests that familiar misgivings about knowing things in themselves are all based on questionable—and ultimately untenable—ontological presuppositions. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 661-675, June 2022.

Russell’s theory of memory as acquaintance with the past seems to square uneasily with his definition of acquaintance as the converse of the relation of presentation of an object to a subject. We show how the two views can be made to cohere under a suitable construal of ‘presentation’, which has the additional appeal of bringing Russell’s theory of memory closer to contemporary views on direct reference and object-dependent thinking than is usually acknowledged. The drawback is that memory as acquaintance (...) with the past falls short of fulfilling Russell’s requirement that knowledge by acquaintance be discriminating knowledge – a shortcoming shared by contemporary externalist accounts of knowledge from memory. (shrink)