Wilfrid Sellars’ “myth of the given” had a momentous influence on 20th-century epistemology, putting under pressure the internalist foundationalism so prominent in early analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that the core themes in Sellars’ argument are anticipated in the work of the London philosopher and psychologist Beatrice Edgell (1871-1948). Indeed, in some respects Edgell’s argument against the myth of the given is even more compelling than Sellars’. The paper logically reconstructs and historically contextualizes Edgell’s line of argument, as (...) emerging out of a critique of Russell’s epistemology, with the goal of showing that the “myth of the given” effectively predated Sellars by four decades. (shrink)

While there is no shortage of philosophical literature discussing knowledge by acquaintance, there is a surprising dearth of work about theories of epistemic justification based on direct acquaintance. This paper explores a basic framework for a thoroughly general account of epistemic justification by acquaintance. I argue that this approach to epistemic justification satisfies two importance aspects of justification. After sketching how the acquaintance approach can meet both objective and subjective aspects for epistemic justification, I will outline how this general account (...) of justification by acquaintance can be applied to the analysis of justification for many types of beliefs. Finally, some of the objections to the acquaintance approach will be considered and answered. (shrink)

Michael Huemer has argued for the justification principle known as phenomenal conservativism by employing a transcendental argument that claims all attempts to reject phenomenal conservativism ultimately are doomed to self-defeat. My contribution presents two independent arguments against the self-defeat argument for phenomenal conservativism after briefly presenting Huemer’s account of phenomenal conservativism and the justification for the self-defeat argument. My first argument suggests some ways that philosophers may reject Huemer’s premise that all justified beliefs are formed on the basis of seemings. (...) In the second argument I contend that phenomenal conservativism is not a well-motivated account of internal justification, which is a further reason to reject the self-defeat argument. Consequently, the self-defeat argument fails to show that rejecting phenomenal conservativism inevitably leads one to a self-defeating position. (shrink)

Of the three views of theoretical knowledge which form the focus of this article, the first has its source in the work of Russell, the second in Ramsey, and the third in Carnap. Although very different, all three views subscribe to a principle I formulate as ‘the structuralist thesis’; they are also naturally expressed using the concept of a Ramsey sentence. I distinguish the framework of assumptions which give rise to the structuralist thesis from an unproblematic emphasis on the importance (...) of ‘structural’ differences for the analysis and interpretation of theories belonging to the exact sciences, and I review a number of logical properties of Ramsey sentences using very simple arithmetical theories and their models. I then develop a reconstruction of the views of Russell, Ramsey, and Carnap that clarifies the interrelationships among them by appealing to aspects of the arithmetical examples that inform my discussion of Ramsey sentences. I conclude with an account of the philosophical basis of the structuralist thesis and the fundamental difficulty to which it leads. (shrink)

Is there progress in philosophy? If so, how much? Philosophers have recently argued for a wide range of answers to these questions, from the view that there is no progress whatsoever to the view that philosophy has provided answers to all the big philosophical questions. However, these views are difficult to compare and evaluate, because they rest on very different assumptions about the conditions under which philosophy would make progress. This paper looks to the comparatively mature debate about scientific progress (...) for inspiration on how to formulate four distinct accounts of philosophical progress, in terms of truthlikeness, problem-solving, knowledge, and understanding. Equally importantly, the paper outlines a common framework for how to understand and evaluate these accounts. We distill a series of lessons from this exercise, to help pave the way for a more fruitful discussion about philosophical progress in the future. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell, while expressing his deep concern for a prevailing negligence about an intrinsic aspect of science, which he terms culture, opines that culture is not to be understood as something divorced from science. His demarcation of old culture from young culture; and his claim that it is the young culture which is responsible for valuing science for its usefulness rather than its intrinsic aspect, i.e., prepares the stage for arguing in favour of endorsement of cultural intrinsicality of science. The (...) paper argues that viewed from Russell’s perspective, understanding culture as something unrelated to science will be a mistake, because it will carry a message to the mankind which is detrimental to the entire fabric of social cohesion. The paper focuses on the inculcation of scientific habit, an intrinsic aspect of science, as culture. While doing so, the paper intends to stress on the point that the scientific habit, which is linked to the Russellian method of analysis, common to both science and philosophy, plays a significant role in enabling one to focus on the cultural aspect of science. Analysis, in the province of philosophy, is used by Russell primarily to analyze language. (shrink)

For some, the states and processes involved in the realisation of phenomenal consciousness are not confined to within the organismic boundaries of the experiencing subject. Instead, the sub-personal basis of perceptual experience can, and does, extend beyond the brain and body to implicate environmental elements through one’s interaction with the world. These claims are met by proponents of predictive processing, who propose that perception and imagination should be understood as a product of the same internal mechanisms. On this view, as (...) visually imagining is not considered to be world-involving, it is assumed that world-involvement must not be essential for perception, and thus internalism about the sub-personal basis is true. However, the argument for internalism from the unity of perception and imagination relies for its strength on a questionable conception of the relationship between the two experiential states. I argue that proponents of the predictive approach are guilty of harbouring an implicit commitment to the common kind assumption which does not follow trivially from their framework. That is, the assumption that perception and imagination are of the same fundamental kind of mental event. I will argue that there are plausible alternative ways of conceiving of this relationship without drawing internalist metaphysical conclusions from their psychological theory. Thus, the internalist owes the debate clarification of this relationship and further argumentation to secure their position. (shrink)

According to act theories, propositions are structured cognitive act‐types. Act theories appear to make propositions inherently representational and truth‐evaluable, and to provide solutions to familiar problems with alternative theories, including Frege’s and Russell’s problems, and the third‐realm and unity problems. Act theories have critical problems of their own, though: acts as opposed to their objects are not truth evaluable, not structured in the right way, not expressed by sentences, and not the objects of propositional attitudes. I show how identifying propositions (...) with other cognitive event‐types, namely thoughts, has the perceived virtues of act theories without the defects. (shrink)

This book explores the richness of contemporary philosophical reflection in Eastern and Central Europe. Philosophers from Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and the United States discuss the status of democracy, nationalism, language, economics, education, women, and philosophy itself in the aftermath of communism. Fresh ideas are combined with renewed traditions as poignant problems are confronted.

I develop and argue for a kind of externalism about certain kinds of non-doxastic attitudes that I call policy externalism. Policy externalism about a given type of attitude is the view that all the reasonable policies for having attitudes of that type will not involve the agent's beliefs that some relevant conditions obtain. My defense primarily involves attitudes like hatred, regret, and admiration, and has two parts: a direct deductive argument and an indirect linguistic argument, an inference to the best (...) explanation of some strange ways we use certain conditionals. The main thought throughout is that attitudes we reason with, like belief, are very different from attitudes we don't reason with, in a way that constrains the former but not the latter. Finally, I investigate some consequences of policy externalism, including that it secures the possibility of genuine conditional apologies. (shrink)

Perceptual illusionism is the view that perceptual experience is, in general, radically illusory. That is, perceptual experience presents objects as having certain sensible properties and standing in certain sensible relations, but nothing in the subject’s environment has those properties or stands in those relations. This paper makes the case for perceptual illusionism by showing how a broad set of philosophical and scientific considerations converge to support illusionism about the full range of sensible properties and relations. After clarifying the illusionist thesis, (...) I set out the argument in three parts. First, I briefly make the case for an illusionist view of color. I then argue for illusionism about the spatial/temporal properties presented in experience on the assumption that some “radical” view of space (and/or time) is correct—that is, some view according to which nothing like our ordinary three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional spacetime) exists at the fundamental level. Finally, I argue that there is a strong case for illusionism even if all radical views turn out to be false. (shrink)

This commentary on Adam Pautz's excellent book, Perception, explores the consequences of “spatial illusionism,” the view that the spatial properties presented in experience aren't instantiated in the extra-mental world. First, I consider whether spatial illusionism entails that our ordinary beliefs about the physical world are mostly false. I then argue that spatial illusionism threatens to undermine two arguments Pautz's defends in Perception: his argument that sense data theory is incompatible with physicalism, and his central argument against the internal physical state (...) view of perception. (shrink)

An epistemology of art has seemed problematic mainly because of arguments claiming that an essential element of a theory of knowledge, truth, has no place in aesthetic contexts. For, if it is objectively true that something is beautiful, it seems to follow that the predicate “is beautiful” expresses a property – a view asserted by Plato but denied by Hume and Kant. But then, if the belief that something is beautiful is not objectively true, we cannot be said to know (...) that something is beautiful and the path to an epistemology of art is effectively blocked. The article places the existence aesthetic properties in the proper context; presents a logically correct argument for the existence of such properties; identifies strategies for responding to this argument; explains why objections by Hume, Kant, and several other philosophers fail; and sketches a realization account of beauty influenced by Hogarth. (shrink)

This article examines the distinction that Russell drew between his work as a philosopher and his work as a journalist. It explains why, when warning against the threat posed by a nuclear arms race, Russell thought it better to write as a journalist (speaking on behalf of common sense) rather than as a philosopher. It is argued that to put aside philosophy in favour of common sense is, in this instance, a mistake.

Consider two similarity facts: a is similar to b with respect to G, and c is similar to d with respect to G. According to the Platonist approach to similarity, the analysis of such facts forces us to admit that similarity facts are to be analyzed into facts about universal similarities of the form: a is similar to b with respect to G, and c is similar to d with respect to G, where similarity is a universal. In this paper, (...) I defend Neutralism, a view according to which there are properties and similarities, but these are not universals, particulars, or of other categories. After presenting the Platonist analysis of similarity proposed by Russell and Grossmann, I examine the question of whether or not the Platonist analysis of similarity leads us inevitably to a conception of similarity as a universal. Then I offer a novel, alternative analysis of similarity free of commitment to universals. (shrink)

The paper comments on a rather uncommon approach to mathematics called physicalist formalism. According to this view, the formal systems mathematicians concern with are nothing more and nothing less than genuine physical systems. I give a brief review on the main theses, then I provide some arguments, concerning mostly with the practice of mathematics and the uniqueness of formal systems, aiming to show the implausibility of this radical view.

Analytic philosophy is sometimes said to have particularly close connections to logic and to science, and no particularly interesting or close relation to its own history. It is argued here that although the connections to logic and science have been important in the development of analytic philosophy, these connections do not come close to characterizing the nature of analytic philosophy, either as a body of doctrines or as a philosophical method. We will do better to understand analytic philosophy—and its relationship (...) to continental philosophy—if we see it as a historically constructed collection of texts, which define its key problems and concerns. It is true, however, that analytic philosophy has paid little attention to the history of the subject. This is both its strength—since it allows for a distinctive kind of creativity—and its weakness—since ignoring history can encourage a philosophical variety of “normal science.”. (shrink)

Our ordinary judgments and our metaphysical theories share a common commitment to facts about resemblance. The nature of resemblance is, however, a matter of no small controversy. This essay examines some of the pressing questions that arise regarding the status and structure of resemblance. Among those to be discussed in what follows: what kinds of resemblance relations are there? Can resemblance be analyzed in terms of the sharing of properties? Is resemblance an objective or subjective matter? What, if any, resemblance (...) facts are fundamental? How does resemblance relate to naturalness? (shrink)

According to haecceitism, some maximal possibilities differ even while they are qualitatively indiscernible. Since haecceitism is a modal thesis, it is typically defended by appeal to conceivability arguments. These arguments require us to conceive of qualitatively indiscernible possibilities that differ only with respect to the identity of the individuals involved. This paper examines a series of conceivability arguments for haecceitism and a variety of anti-haecceitist responses. It concludes that there is no irresistible conceivability argument for haecceitism even while anti-haecceitist responses (...) do come with certain notable commitments. (shrink)

Much contemporary philosophy of religion suffers from an overly abstract and intellectualized methodology. A more ‘humane’ approach would acknowledge the vital contribution of the emotions and passions to a proper cognitive grasp of the nature of the cosmos and our place within it. The point is illustrated by reference to a number of writers, including Descartes, whose path to knowledge of God, often thought to depend on dispassionate argument alone, in fact relies on a synergy between intellect and emotions.

Ability and achievement are not traits: they are relations. Mistaking traits for relations has a history even in science (our understanding of gravity). This mistake is possibly responsible for the lackluster performance of the results of our educational research when we have tried to use it to inform policy. It is particularly troublesome for interventions that target “children at risk.” The paper provides a quasi-formal outline of achievement as a relation and it then uses the outline to explain some problematic (...) research findings. (shrink)

Philosophers increasingly argue that collective agents can be blameworthy for wrongdoing. Advocates tend to endorse functionalism, on which collectives are analogous to complicated robots. This is puzzling: we don’t hold robots blameworthy. I argue we don’t hold robots blameworthy because blameworthiness presupposes the capacity for a mental state I call ‘moral self-awareness’. This raises a new problem for collective blameworthiness: collectives seem to lack the capacity for moral self-awareness. I solve the problem by giving an account of how collectives have (...) this capacity. The trick is to take seriously individuals’ status as flesh-and-blood material constituents of collectives. The idea will be: under certain conditions that I specify, an individual can be the locus of a collective's moral self-awareness. The account provides general insights concerning collectives’ dependence on members, the boundaries of membership, and the locus of collectives’ phenomenology. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo pretendemos mostrar as vantagens do modelo epistemológico coerentista quando aplicado ao universo moral. O ponto de partida será apontar que a justificação da crença moral é dada pela coerência com um sistema coerente de crenças que é consistente e que isso pretende resolver o problema da dicotomia entre fato e valor. Posteriormente, apresentam-se as características centrais do coerentismo holístico e investiga-se o método do equilíbrio reflexivo. O próximo passo será fazer referência a três conhecidas objeções ao coerentismo, (...) a saber: o problema do isolamento, os sistemas coerentes alternativos e a circularidade viciosa. Por fim, procuramos responder a essas objeções apelando para os seguintes argumentos: holismo social, razoabilidade e estabilidade social. ABSTRACT In this paper we aim to demonstrate the advantages of the epistemological coherentist model when applied to the moral sphere. The starting point will be to show that the justification of moral belief is a matter of how beliefs fit together with a coherent system of beliefs that is consistent and that it tries to solve the issue of the fact/value dichotomy. Following this, we shall point out the core characteristics of the holistic coherentism and we will investigate the reflective equilibrium method. Next step is to show three standard objections to coherentism, namely, the isolation problem, the alternative coherent systems objection and the vicious circularity. Finally, we shall then try to respond these criticisms with the following arguments: social holism, reasonableness and social stability. (shrink)

Students of perception have long puzzled over a range of cases in which perception seems to tell us distinct, and in some sense conflicting, things about the world. In the cases at issue, the perceptual system is capable of responding to a single stimulus — say, as manifested in the ways in which subjects sort that stimulus — in different ways. This paper is about these puzzling cases, and about how they should be characterized and accounted for within a general (...) theory of perception. After rehearsing the sort of case at issue (§1), I’ll examine critically some of the strategies by which philosophers and perceptual psychologists have attempted to account for them (§2). Finally, I’ll present an alternative computational account of the puzzle cases, argue that this view is superior to its competitors, and examine some of its implications (§3). (shrink)

Are colors relational or non-relational properties of their bearers? Is red a property that is instantiated by all and only the objects with a certain intrinsic (/non-relational) nature? Or does an object with a particular intrinsic (/non-relational) nature count as red only in virtue of standing in certain relations - for example, only when it looks a certain way to a certain perceiver, or only in certain circumstances of observation? In this paper I shall argue for the view that color (...) properties are relational (henceforth, relationalism), and against the view that colors are not relational (henceforth, anti- or non-relationalism). (shrink)

According to an influential contextualist solution to skepticism advanced by Keith DeRose, denials of skeptical hypotheses are, in most contexts, strong yet insensitive. The strength of such denials allows for knowledge of them, thus undermining skepticism, while the insensitivity of such denials explains our intuition that we do not know them. In this paper we argue that, under some well-motivated conditions, a negated skeptical hypothesis is strong only if it is sensitive. We also consider how a natural response on behalf (...) of DeRose appears to be equally available to his primary rival (viz., the sensitivity theorist). (shrink)

What one is acquainted with has always been important for the rejection or acceptance of any ontological description. Yet the relevance of acquaintance to ontology has not always been clearly stated. Some philosophers have held that they were acquainted with the simple entities of ontological analysis. They also held that if they were not acquainted with such entities, their analysis would be inadequately supported. In this paper I argue that acquaintance with ontological simples cannot be a reason for accepting or (...) rejecting any ontological analysis. At the same time, I examine what I believe to be the relevance of acquaintance to ontological description. (shrink)

In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge—i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? (...) A natural idea about perception is that a perception makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you sensorily aware of the concrete objects it is about. The analogous idea about intuition is that an intuition makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you intellectually aware of the abstract objects it is about. I expand both ideas into fuller accounts of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, explain the main challenge to this sort of account of intuitive knowledge (i.e. the challenge of making sense of intellectual awareness), and develop a response to it. (shrink)

Awareness is a two-place determinable relation some determinates of which are seeing, hearing, etc. Abstract objects are items such as universals and functions, which contrast with concrete objects such as solids and liquids. It is uncontroversial that we are sometimes aware of concrete objects. In this paper I explore the more controversial topic of awareness of abstract objects. I distinguish two questions. First, the Existence Question: are there any experiences that make their subjects aware of abstract objects? Second, the Grounding (...) Question: if an experience makes its subject aware of an abstract object, in virtue of what does it do so? I defend the view that intuitions, specifically mathematical intuitions, sometimes make their subjects aware of abstract objects. In defending this view, I develop an account of the ground of intuitive awareness. (shrink)

Profit is a concept that both causes and manifests deep conflict and division. It is not merely that people disagree over whether it is good or bad. The very meaning of the concept and its role in competing theories necessitates the deepest possible disagreement; people cannot agree on what profit is. Still, simply learning the starkly different sentiments expressed about profit gives us some feel for the depth of the conflict. Friends of capitalism have praised profit as central to the (...) achievement of prosperity and to civilized modern life. Calvin Coolidge, that silent sentinel of American business, said, “Profit and civilization go hand in hand.” F. A. Hayek tells us that in the evolution of the structure of human activities, profitability works as a signal that guides selection towards what makes man more fruitful; only what is more profitable will, as a rule, nourish more people, for it sacrifices less than it adds. (shrink)

Whether empirical givenness has the reliability that foundationalists expect is a point about which some philosophers are highly skeptical. Sellars took the doctrine of givenness as a “myth,” denying the existence of immediate perceptual experience. The arguments in contemporary Western epistemology are concentrated on whether sensory experience has conceptual contents, and whether there is any logical relationship between perceptions and beliefs. In fact, once the elements of words and conceptions in empirical perception are affirmed, the logical relationship between perceptual experience (...) and empirical belief is also affirmed. This relationship takes place through perceptual experience acting as evidence for beliefs. The real problem lies in how one should distinguish between the different relationships with perception of singular beliefs and of universal beliefs, and in how singular beliefs can provide justification for universal beliefs. (shrink)

The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article (...) outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge? (shrink)

According to the traditional bundle theory, particulars are bundles of compresent universals. I think we should reject the bundle theory for a variety of reasons. But I will argue for the thesis at the core of the bundle theory: that all the facts about particulars are grounded in facts about universals. I begin by showing how to meet the main objection to this thesis (which is also the main objection to the bundle theory): that it is inconsistent with the possibility (...) of distinct qualitative indiscernibles. Here, the key idea appeals to a non-standard theory of haecceities as non-well-founded properties of a certain sort. I will then defend this theory from a number of objections, and finally argue that we should accept it on the basis of considerations of parsimony about the fundamental. (shrink)

Truth-makers are the dark matter of metaphysics. On the one hand, truth-makers seem obvious and necessary: if there are truths then there must be something that makes these truths true. On the other hand, it’s proven difficult to say exactly what these truth-makers are. Even defenders disagree about what sort of entity truth-makers are or whether all truths have truth-makers. Skeptics have questioned whether truth-makers are actually so obvious and necessary, or even whether they exist at all. Here I offer (...) an account of this unhappy state of affairs and a modest proposal. First, I argue that not only are there no good arguments for truth-makers but it’s unlikely that there ever will be. Second I point to how much can be done without resorting to truth-makers in the first place: they are not as essential as often assumed. Finally, I conclude that we needn’t jettison the concept of truth-makers entirely. Understood in a modest and pragmatic spirit we can hold on to truth-makers while recognizing their inherent limitations. (shrink)

In ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions', Keith Donnellan claimed that Bertrand Russell and Peter Strawson ignored referential uses of definite descriptions. The intense debate that followed Donnellan's paper focused on the contrast between Donnellan and Russell, leaving Strawson aside. In this paper, I focus on the contrast between Donnellan and Strawson. By focusing on this contrast, my aim is, first, to clarify the nature of Donnellan's distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions and, second, to argue that a proper (...) understanding of referential uses holds the key to a proper understanding of direct reference. Contrary to the standard view, the crucial issue is not the nature of the proposition expressed (singular versus general) but how a speaker comes to talk about an object. (shrink)

Different authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve per- ceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another lead- ing attempt is assessed in a companion paper, which also sketches an alternative representational account.

The sceptic about the external world presents us with a paradox: an apparently acceptable argument for an apparently unacceptable conclusion—that we do not know anything about the external world. Some paradoxes, for instance the liar and the sorites, are very hard. The defense of a purported solution to either of these two inevitably deploys the latest in high-tech philosophical weaponry. On the other hand, some paradoxes are not at all hard, and may be resolved without much fuss. They do not (...) contain profound lessons about the human condition. Where should we place the sceptical paradoxes? (shrink)

The target article is an attempt to make some progress on the problem of color realism. Are objects colored? And what is the nature of the color properties? We defend the view that physical objects (for instance, tomatoes, radishes, and rubies) are colored, and that colors are physical properties, specifically types of reflectance. This is probably a minority opinion, at least among color scientists. Textbooks frequently claim that physical objects are not colored, and that the colors are "subjective" or "in (...) the mind." The article has two other purposes: first, to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to some distinctively philosophical tools that are useful in tackling the problem of color realism and, second, to clarify the various positions and central arguments in the debate. (shrink)

Anything is similar to anything, provided the respects of similarity are allowed to be gerrymandered or gruesome, as Goodman observed.2 But similarity in non-gruesome or—as I shall say—genuine respects is much less ecumenical. Colors, it seems, provide a compelling illustration of the distinction as applied to similarities among properties.3 For instance, in innumerable gruesome respects, blue is more similar to yellow than to purple. But in a genuine respect, blue is more similar to purple than to yellow (genuinely more similar, (...) as I shall sometimes put it). (shrink)

I begin with an exposition of the two main variants of the Prosentential Theory of Truth (PT), those of Dorothy Grover et al. and Robert Brandom. Three main types of criticisms are then put forward: (1) material criticisms to the effect that (PT) does not adequately explain the linguistic data, (2) an objection to the effect that no variant of (PT) gives a properly unified account of the various occurrences of "true" in English, and, most importantly, (3) a charge that (...) the comparison with proforms is explanatorily idle. The last objection is that, given a complete semantic account of pronouns, proadjectives, antecedents, etc., together with a complete (PT), the essential semantic character of "true" could be deduced, but then, the idleness of the comparison with pronouns would be apparent. It turns out that objections (2) and (3) are related in the following way: the prosentential terminology is held to conceal the lack of unity in (PT), by describing the different data in the same terms ("proform", "antecedent", etc.). But this, I argue, is only a way of truly describing, rather than explaining, the data, these being certain relations of equivalence and consequence between sentences. I consider a language for which (PT) would be not only true, but also explanatory, but note that this language is very different from English. I end by showing that Robert Brandom's case that "is true" is not a predicate fails, and that his motivation for saying so is based on fallacious reasoning (namely, Boghossian's argument against deflationism). (shrink)

The paper discusses what kind of truth bearer, or truth-ascription, a deflationist should take as primary. I first present number of arguments against a sententialist view. I then present a deflationary theory which takes propositions as primary, and try to show that it deals neatly with a wide range of linguistic data. Next, I consider both the view that there is no primary truth bearer, and the most common account of sentence truth given by deflationists who take propositions as primary, (...) and argue that they both attribute an implausible type of ambiguity to “true”. This can be avoided, however, if truth-ascriptions to sentences are taken as a certain form of pragmatic ellipses. I end by showing how this hypothesis accommodates a number of intuitions involving truth-ascriptions to sentences. (shrink)

It is a pleasure to read Hume, and to watch him explore recalcitrant problems with agility of mind and grace of style. Ironically these twin abilities have worked against each other from the beginning, in the first place because in the matter of writing Hume was an innovator — nobody before him had so successfully albeit unwittingly adapted French syntax to the writing of English-and-Scottish - and in the second place because on the grace of his style subtleties of thought (...) flow past his readers, who then accuse him of obscurity. So abstruse were his writings to his contemporaries that he failed to achieve the literary recognition for which he craved; and even today, long after the elegance of his style has been received, it is said by Passmore that Hume in contrast to Berkeley ‘was a philosophical puppy-dog, picking up and worrying one problem after another, always leaving his teeth-marks in it, but casting it aside when it threatened to become wearisome.’ Similarly Selby-Bigge says in his introduction to the Enquiries:His pages, especially those of the Treatise, are so full of matter, he says so many things in so many different ways and different connexions, and with so much indifference to what he has said before, that it is very hard to say positively that he taught, or did not teach, this or that particular doctrine. He applies the same principles to such a great variety of subjects that it is not surprising that many verbal, and some real inconsistencies can be found in his statements. He is ambitious rather than shy of saying the same thing in different ways, and at the same time he is often slovenly and indifferent about his words and formulae. This makes it easy to find all philosophies in Hume, or, by setting up one statement against another, none at all. (shrink)

Phenomenal Conservatism is an ethics of belief that has received considerable support in recent years. One of the main arguments for it is the Self-Defeat Argument. The argument claims that the denial of Phenomenal Conservatism is self-defeating. The argument is at present highly controversial, with both supporters and critics. Critics have failed to discern the real problems with the argument: (I) that there are reasons to deny Phenomenal Conservatism that avoid the self-defeat in question and (II) the conclusion of the (...) Self-Defeat Argument, even if true, is still compatible with our properly denying Phenomenal Conservatism. I spell out these problems in more detail here. (shrink)

Ontological Pluralism is the thesis that there are different ways of being. In his recent paper, ‘The only way to be’, Trenton Merricks has presented an important challenge to Pluralism in the form of a dilemma. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I argue that Merricks’s argument against Pluralism, as stated, is unsound. I will argue that one horn of the dilemma is unproblematic for contemporary versions of Pluralism, defended by Jason Turner and Kris McDaniel, that are formulated (...) in the framework of Ted Sider. However, my second task is to provide a new dilemma against Pluralism, which, when combined with Merricks’s arguments, constitutes a sound argument against all forms of Pluralism. The new dilemma will reveal that the real problem with Ontological Pluralism is its conflict with Ted Sider’s principle of Purity. (shrink)

It is a familiar experience to perceive a material object as maintaining a stable shape even though it projects differently shaped images on our retina as we move with respect to it, or as maintaining a stable color throughout changes in the way the object is illuminated. We also perceive sounds as maintaining constant timbre and loudness when the context and the spatial relations between us and the sound source change over time. But where does this perceptual invariance ‘come from’? (...) What is it about our perceptual systems that makes them able to ‘transform’ incoming unstable and fluctuating sensory inputs into generally stable and coherent conscious experiences? And what exactly do we experience as invariant in cases like those described above? There are two main approaches to the Problem of Perceptual Invariance: the Local-Inferential approach and the Global-Structural approach. Although both approaches include an account of the sub-personal perceptual mechanisms ‘stabilizing’ variant and invariant components in incoming sensory stimulation and a proposal regarding the phenomenology of perceptual invariance, in this paper I argue that the latter provides a better solution to the problem overall. (shrink)

In current histories, C.I. Lewis is credited for bringing the strict concept of qualia – concerned solely with sensory states – into contemporary philosophy. It is this strict notion which is then credited with bringing in worries about inverted spectra, philosophical zombies, and the idea that we can individuate the senses introspectively. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistaken reading of Lewis and the history of qualia. I argue that the strict notion of qualia stems from the (...) work of Johannes Müller in the mid-nineteenth century and his work on individuating the senses. The structuralist psychologists who followed in his wake, in turn, developed an account where the qualitative character of experience played no causal role. I also show that Lewis adamantly rejects this strict concept of qualia. He instead endorses a pragmatic conception of qualia derived from William James in which evaluative states – such as the painfulness of pain – play an essential, causal role in the life of the organism. The upshot is that Lewis positions himself against the strict conception of qualia, arguing it is phenomenologically false and philosophically wrong-headed. (shrink)

The distinction between true belief and knowledge is one of the most fundamental in philosophy, and a remarkable effort has been dedicated to formulating the conditions on which true belief constitutes knowledge. For decades, much of this epistemological undertaking has been dominated by a single strategy, referred to here as the modal approach. Shared by many of the most widely influential constraints on knowledge, including the sensitivity, safety, and anti-luck/risk conditions, this approach rests on a key underlying assumption — the (...) modal profiles available to known and unknown beliefs are in some way asymmetrical. The first aim of this paper is to deconstruct this assumption, identifying its plausibility with the way in which epistemologists frequently conceptualize human perceptual systems as excluding certain varieties of close error under conditions conducive to knowledge acquisition. The second aim of this paper is to then argue that a neural phase phenomenon indicates that this conceptualization is quite likely mistaken. This argument builds on the previous introduction of this neural phase to the context of epistemology, expanding the use of neural phase cases beyond relatively narrow questions about epistemic luck to a much more expansive critique of the modal approach as a whole. (shrink)