The widely held assumption about what motivated On Denoting is irreconcilable with Russell's position shortly beforehand; but discarding it leaves one with a carefully worked out solution whose problem is missing. The real motivation is to be found in a notoriously obscure passage in OD, in which Russell exposes a decisive (though easily overlooked) flaw in his former theory of denoting; a flaw which also cripples Frege's theory of sense and reference. A comprehensive account of this passage is the chief (...) concern of the present paper. Recognizing the critical role of this argument of Russell's leads to a more credible account of his argumentation in that essay. It also suggests that the fundamental standpoint underlyingThe Principles of Mathematics remains intact. In this light, the appropriation of OD to the philosophy of language may be misguided. (shrink)

The Millian semantic view of names relies on a metaphysical view of names—often given the label ‘common currency conception’ —on which the names of distinct individuals count as distinct names. While even defenders of the Millian view admit that the CCC ‘does not agree with the most common usage’, I will argue further that the CCC makes names exceptional amongst the class of linguistic expressions: if the CCC is correct, then names must have a sui-generis metaphysical nature, distinct from the (...) metaphysics of every other kind of linguistic expression. Such metaphysical exceptionalism would be justified if the Millian view had a clear, uncontested theoretical advantage over its rivals. However, in the context of a semantic debate about names in which the closest competitors of the Millian view—the Predicate view and Indexicalism—do not result in such exceptionalism, it counts as a strike against the Millian view. (shrink)

The ex ante Pareto principle has an intuitive pull, and it has been a principle of central importance since Harsanyi’s defence of utilitarianism. The principle has been used to criticize and refine a range of positions in welfare economics, including egalitarianism and prioritarianism. But this principle faces a serious problem. I have argued elsewhere :303-323 2017) that the concept of ex ante Pareto superiority is not well defined, because its application in a choice situation concerning a fixed population can depend (...) on how the members of that population are designated. I show in this paper that in almost all cases of policy choice, there will be numerous sets of rival designators for the same fixed population. I explore two ways that we might complete the definition of ex ante Pareto superiority. I call these the ‘supervaluationist’ reading and the ‘subvaluationist’ reading. I reject the subvaluationist reading as uncharitable, and argue that the supervaluationist reading is the most promising interpretation of the ex ante Pareto principle. I end by exploring some of the implications of this principle for prioritarianism and egalitarianism. (shrink)

In his recent book, "The Metaphysicians of Meaning" (2000), Gideon Makin argues that in the so-called "Gray's Elegy" argument (the GEA) in "On Denoting", Russell provides decisive arguments against not only his own theory of denoting concepts but also Frege's theory of sense. I argue that by failing to recognize fundamental differences between the two theories, Makin fails to recognize that the GEA has less force against Frege's theory than against Russell's own earlier theory. While I agree with many aspects (...) of Makin's interpretation of the GEA, I differ with him regarding some significant details and present an interpretation according to which the GEA emerges as simpler, stronger, and more integrated. (shrink)

In this précis I summarise the main ideas of my book Philosophy of Psychedelics. The book discusses philosophical issues arising from the therapeutic use of “classic” psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD. The book is organised around what I call the Comforting Delusion Objection to psychedelic therapy: the concern that this novel and promising treatment relies essentially on the induction of non-naturalistic metaphysical beliefs, rendering it epistemically objectionable. I begin the précis by summarizing material from chapters two and three (...) of the book, which review evidence for the therapeutic efficacy of psychedelics, and the facts about their clinical use that prompt the Comforting Delusion Objection. I then summarize materials from chapters four and five of the book, which argue that psychedelic therapy works neither by experience-independent processes of neuroplasticity, nor by inducing non-naturalistic metaphysical ideations, but by altering mental representations of the self. Next, I summarise the specific, speculative account of how this might work that is developed in chapters six and seven of the book. This account is based on the predictive processing theory of brain function and the self-binding theory of self-representation. Chapters eight and nine of the book argue, on the basis of this account, that psychedelic therapy can have significant epistemic and spiritual benefits that are compatible with a naturalistic worldview. I summarize this material, and then, finally, the overall conclusions about psychedelic therapy drawn in the tenth and final chapter of the book. (shrink)

It is widely accepted among philosophers that there is a tension between acquaintance constraints on singular thought and the plausible assumption that the truths of singular attitude reports ensure the subject's having singular thoughts. From this, anti-acquaintance theorists contend that acquaintance constraints must be rejected. As a response, many acquaintance theorists maintain that there is good reason to doubt a strong connection between singular attitude reports and singular thoughts. In this paper, however, I defend the acquaintance theory by arguing that (...) there is in fact no tension at all. I consider three objections regarding singular attitude reports against the acquaintance theory: (i) ultra-liberal singular attitude reports, (ii) the “There is something that S believes to be F” locution, and (iii) infelicities of singular attitude reports. Then, I argue that none of them succeed in showing a genuine tension. (shrink)

I argue that common nouns should be analyzed as variables, rather than as predicates which take variables as arguments. This necessitates several unusual features to the analysis, such as allowing variables to be modally non-rigid, and assigning their values compositionally. However, treating common nouns as variables offers a variety of theoretical and empirical advantages over a more traditional analysis: It predicts the conservativity of nominal quantification, simplifies the analysis of articleless languages, derives the weak reading of sentences with donkey anaphora, (...) solves the proportion problem presented by quantifiers like ‘most’, improves the analysis of the temperature paradox, allows a more unified analysis of bare plurals, and regularizes the correspondence between syntactic categories and semantic types. (shrink)

There is a continuing debate as to whether externalism about mental content is compatible with certain commonly accepted views about the nature of self-knowledge. Both sides to this debate seem to agree that externalism is _not compatible with the traditional view that self-knowledge is acquired by means of observation. In this paper, I argue that externalism is compatible with this traditional view of self-knowledge, and that, in fact, we have good reason to believe that the self-knowledge at issue is acquired (...) by means of observation. (shrink)

We live in a world of technologies. Classical Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Episte- mology, etc. philosophical disciplines appear insufficient for valid reflections on today's world. The Philo- sophy of Engineering and Design (Technological) Actions is seen promising to become a fruitful field of philosophical reflections and is offered from the perspective of the Philosophy of Action and Agency (Practical Philosophy). The foundations of the latter are presented in Part II. In the Part I, the Phi- losophy of Engineering (...) and Design (Technological) Actions is outlined in a comparative with Philo- sophy of Technology, Humanities Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering, Philosophy of Science, Epistemology, etc. plane. The paradoxes of E. Feenberg's technique, the interpretation of which is proposed in the part III, are involved for the illustrating of the maintained understanding. In the conclusive part (IV) the general danger of distortive philosophical understandings about the tech- nological common world of today are mentioned. (shrink)

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)

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)