This Element, written for researchers and students in philosophy and the behavioral sciences, reviews and critically assesses extant work on number concepts in developmental psychology and cognitive science. It has four main aims. First, it characterizes the core commitments of mainstream number cognition research, including the commitment to representationalism, the hypothesis that there exist certain number-specific cognitive systems, and the key milestones in the development of number cognition. Second, it provides a taxonomy of influential views within mainstream number cognition research, (...) along with the central challenges these views face. Third, it identifies and critically assesses a series of core philosophical assumptions often adopted by number cognition researchers. Finally, the Element articulates and defends a novel version of pluralism about number concepts. (shrink)

Panpsychism, the view that consciousness is present everywhere at the fundamental level of reality, has established itself as an increasingly popular option in the philosophy of mind. Situated between substance dualism and reductive physicalism, panpsychism aims to capture the intuitions behind both, integrating consciousness into the physical world without explaining it in terms of purely physical facts. In this thesis, I offer a defence of panpsychism. -/- First, I examine influential arguments against physicalism, such as Thomas Nagel’s (1974, 1979) perspective-based (...) proposal, Frank Jackson’s (1982) knowledge argument, David Chalmers’ (1996, 2010) conceivability argument, as well as vagueness arguments (Antony 2006a; Tye 1996). I argue that none of them offers a knockdown case against physicalism, particularly because of the threat presented by the phenomenal concept strategy (Chalmers 2007; Papineau 2007a), though they suggest panpsychism as a promising alternative that avoids many common objections. -/- Second, I discuss independent arguments for panpsychism, including the Russellian monist view (Goff 2017; Russell 1927/1992), the intrinsic nature argument (Seager 2006; Strawson 2006), recent developments in the literature as presented by Hedda Hassel Mørch (2018, 2020) and Luca Dondoni (2022), Tye’s (2021b) representational panpsychism based on the vagueness argument, as well as cosmopsychism (Nagasawa & Wager 2016; Shani 2015) – an alternative to panpsychism that shares its aims whilst claiming to avoid its shortcomings. -/- Third, I address the most pressing objection to panpsychism: the combination problem or the question of how fundamental consciousness can combine to lead to complex consciousness (James 1890). Focusing especially on the subject-summing version of the combination problem or the issue of how small subjects can combine to form complex subjects, I go over various proposals for either solving or avoiding it, such as Philip Goff’s (2016) phenomenal bonding relation and William Seager’s (2010) combinatorial infusion proposal, arguing against both and agreeing at the end with Sam Coleman (2014), who advocates that subject-summing is demonstrably incoherent. -/- However, as I argue in the fourth and final chapter, the panpsychist still has an option that avoids the subject-summing problem, while also circumventing the objections faced by the alternative view of cosmopsychism. Inspired though not reliant on the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1902/2005), I introduce what I call monadic panpsychism, the view that the phenomenal character of any given consciousness-bearing physical ultimate is determined by its relations to other such ultimates featuring in the relevant causal structure. -/- The theory consists of two key claims. The first is that phenomenal qualities are relational rather than intrinsic. This view has precedent in literature on the philosophy of mind, such as in Rudolf Carnap (1928), Gottlob Frege (1956), Moritz Schlick (1959), as well as more recently in David Hilbert and Mark Kalderon (2000) and Austen Clark (2000), though not in the context of panpsychism. -/- The second claim is that physical ultimates only possess a very basic form of consciousness necessary for experiencing as such. There are many ways to conceptualise this basic consciousness: non-relational or intrinsic, rudimentary and non-specific, a point of view without experiences, the minimal subject, a mere conduit for experience, phenomenal space, etc. Russellian panpsychists offer a more detailed proposal in which every physical ultimate has an appropriate associated type of experience. For example, all quarks have the same quark-type of experience, assuming for the sake of discussion that quarks are ultimates. Still, arguing for a more minimal notion, as I do, requires making less claims and should not be controversial to any panpsychist. -/- So, what follows from these two claims? I propose that the relational constitution of phenomenal qualities has its endpoint at the fundamental level rather than at the level of a combined complex or emergent subject. Put simply, physical ultimates guarantee the basic consciousness or the point of view that I occupy, while the relational structure constitutes my rich and full human experience. So to speak, relationally constituted phenomenal qualities ‘anchor’ themselves in physical ultimates. As long as these relations result in a phenomenally unified experience, which is an uncontroversial thesis, then no matter where that process reaches the end of its causal chain, it will necessarily be experienced from a subjective point of view. -/- Since only qualities but not subjects need to combine, my proposal avoids the subject-summing version of the combination problem, which is arguably an insurmountable challenge to other forms of panpsychism. Because of this, I conclude that my theory contributes to the field, serving as a good starting point for further developments of neither combinatory nor emergent panpsychism with regard to subjects. (shrink)

Despite the common use of the concept of emergence, no uncontroversial theoretical framework has been yet formulated in this regard. In this paper, I examine what this circumstance suggests about the significance and usefulness of this concept. I first trace a brief history of the notion of emergence from its first formulation among the British Emergentists to its contemporary uses. Then, I outline its most common features and examine three examples of emergent phenomena, namely particle decay, free will, and division (...) of labour in ant colonies. These three cases of emergence exhibit different features and imply criteria which only partially overlap. I then suggest that the multiplicity of features and criteria recognised as defining emergence, rather than being a threat to the tenability of the concept, should encourage the assumption of a pluralist attitude that is consistent with both the employment of this idea in different sciences and the recognition of emergent phenomena across different levels of organisation. Finally, I propose that emergence can be approached in a similar way to how Richard Boyd approached the problem of natural kinds, namely by identifying an open cluster of properties, rather than a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. (shrink)

Commonsense ontology often conflicts with the ontology of our best scientific and philosophical theories. However, commonsense ontology, and commonsense belief systems in general, seems to be remarkably efficient and cognitively fundamental. In cases of contrast, it is better to find a way to reconcile commonsense and ”theoretical” ontologies. Given that commonsense ontologies are typically expressed within natural language, a classical procedure of reconciliation is semantical. The strategy is that of individuating the ”ontologically problematic” expressions of natural language and paraphrasing the (...) sentences in which they appear in a (formal) language whose commitments are compatible with those of our best theories. We believe that this strategy of reconciliation, though quite standard, especially in the philosophical literature, is problematic: for a start, it forces us to conclude that the ”real content” of our commonsense expressions and beliefs is different from what it appears. Commonsense ontology becomes just an illusion. We will thus propose an alternative approach: according to our view, a commonsense ontology is reconciled with a theoretical ontology in case it is shown that the explanation of why we believe in the existence of a problematic entity is compatible with our best theories. We will call this kind of reconciliation ”epistemic”. The advantage of an epistemic reconciliation is that commonsense ontology is treated in its own right and could be taken prima facie. Another advantage of the view is that epistemic reconciliation can be analysed through the notion of explaining away: a commonsense ontology is epistemically reconciled with a theoretical ontology if and only if the problematic entities of the commonsense ontology are explained away by ”respectable” entities of the theoretical ontology. In the final part of the paper, we sketch a formal analysis of explaining away. (shrink)

This volume draws connections between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the work of Saul Kripke, especially his Naming and Necessity. Saul Kripke is regarded as one of the foremost representatives of contemporary analytic philosophy. His most important contributions include the strict distinction between metaphysical and epistemological questions, the introduction of the notions of contingent a priori truth and necessary a posteriori truth and original accounts of names, descriptions, identity, necessity and realism. The chapters in this book elucidate the relevant connections between Kripke's (...) work and Wittgenstein, specifically concerning the standard meter, contingent apriori and rule-following. The contributions shed light on how Kripke's philosophical outlook was influenced by Wittgenstein, and how mainstream analytic philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy can fruitfully engage with one another. Kripke and Wittgenstein will be of interest to philosophers working on Wittgenstein, Kripke, and the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can non-humans be moral beings?, b) Unconscious animal behaviours go beyond any moral judgments. My approach aims to rebuff these anthropomorphic clauses by justifying animals’ moral beings and animals’ moral behaviours from a meta-ethical stance. A meta-ethical outlook may enable an analysis of (...) ethical and normative views through the limit of moral motives and reasoning. Animals’ sense of moral motives and their apparatus of getting involved in moral acts cannot be compared with human actions. In human moral engagement, we abide by moral paradigmatic theories and their diversified attitudes that could have conceptual and linguistic use in our societal discourses. However, animals’ intentional apparatus may have the propensity to choose an act following the moral consequences (care, utility, responsibility, etc.) in their life-forms. (shrink)

This book offers a defence of Wrightean epistemic entitlement, one of the most prominent approaches to hinge epistemology. It also systematically explores the connections between virtue epistemology and hinge epistemology. -/- According to hinge epistemology, any human belief set is built within and upon a framework of pre-evidential propositions – hinges – that cannot be justified. Epistemic entitlement argues that we are entitled to trust our hinges. But there remains a problem. Entitlement is inherently unconstrained and arbitrary: We can be (...) entitled to any hinge proposition under the right circumstances. In this book, the author argues that we need a non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. This clause, he argues, is to require epistemic virtue. Virtuous cognitive dispositions provide the non-arbitrariness clause that protects entitlement from defeat. The epistemic character of the agent who holds a particular set of hinges tells us something about the hinges’ epistemic status. Conversely, epistemic virtues are cognitive dispositions and capacities that rely on hinge propositions – without trusting in some hinges, we would be unable to exercise our virtues. -/- Trust Responsibly will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on epistemology, Wittgenstein, and virtues. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method (or methods) via which we can assess and improve our concepts. Can conceptual engineering be usefully employed within analytic theology? Given that analytic theology and analytic philosophy effectively share the same philosophical toolkit then if conceptual engineering works well in philosophy then it ought to work well in analytic theology too. This will be our working hypothesis. To make good on this hypothesis, we first address two challenges. The first challenge makes conceptual engineering look to (...) be too inclusive; the second challenge makes it look to be too revolutionary (for analytic theology). To address these challenges, we propose a refined characterisation of conceptual engineering. We then turn to consider a number of case studies where analytic theology and conceptual engineering may fruitfully cooperate. These are: theological disagreements, inter-faith dialogue, meaning change, celibacy, AI, the name of God, and conceptual genealogy. (shrink)

The apparent chasm between two camps in metaphysics, analytic metaphysics and scientific metaphysics, is well recognized. I argue that the relationship between them is not necessarily a rivalry; a division of labour that resembles the relationship between pure mathematics and science is possible. As a case study, I look into the metaphysical underdetermination argument for ontic structural realism, a well‐known position in scientific metaphysics, together with an argument for the position in analytic metaphysics known as ontological nihilism. I argue that (...) we can ascribe the same schema to both arguments, which indicates that analytic metaphysics can offer an abstract model that scientific metaphysics may find useful. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to point out the salient patterns of agreement and dis‐ agreement between Alf Ross and Hans Kelsen's analyses of valid law and efficacy. I argue that the disagreement has the character of systemic postulation on the part of both interlocutors. My main thesis is that the disagreement is not one of philosophical principle, but one that must be resolved on the basis of pragmatic considerations, i.e., the choice between the two valid‐law schemes pertains neither (...) to necessity nor to truth, but to expediency and values. (shrink)

The present PhD dissertation aims to examine the relation between modality and change in Aristotle’s metaphysics. -/- On the one hand, Aristotle supports his modal realism (i.e., worldly objects have modal properties - potentialities and essences - that ground the ascriptions of possibility and necessity) by arguing that the rejection of modal realism makes change inexplicable, or, worse, banishes it from the realm of reality. On the other hand, the Stagirite analyses processes by means of modal notions (‘change is the (...) actuality of what is virtual insofar as it is virtual’). In other words: to grasp what change is, one has to resort to the modal idiom of potentialities, while the fact that there is change is indicative of the fact that nature is full of modal properties. -/- Aristotle’s modal and kinetic realism finds a negative in the figure of the Megaric Diodorus Kronus. The polemical situation of Greek philosophy has indeed the dialectical advantage of not opposing the Aristotelian position to a sui generis straw man. Both in its reduction of modal judgements to temporal quantifications and in its dissolution of the reality of the state-of-being-in-motion in favour of a cinematographic view of processes, the philosophical figure of reductionist antirealism embodied by Diodorus constitutes an alternative that takes the opposite view of Aristotle’s realism. -/- The present study is structured as a discussion between these two positions. In the face of Diodorus’ antirealist challenges, Aristotle articulates modal and kinetic considerations: the answers he gives to Diodorus’ puzzles thus provide valuable insight into his metaphysics. Moreover, the examination of Aristotle’s and Diodorus’ metaphysics, because of their insight and originality, will not fail to interest the philosopher concerned with the metaphysical foundations of modern physics, insofar as the entanglement between modalities and processes is nowadays at the core of mechanics (phase spaces, path integrals, etc.). (shrink)

ABSTRACT The difference between perception and cognition seems introspectively obvious in many cases. Perceiving and thinking have also been assigned quite different roles, in epistemology, in theories of reference and of mental content, in philosophy of psychology, and elsewhere. Yet what is the nature of the distinction? In what way, or ways, do perception and cognition differ? The paper reviews recent work on these questions. Four main respects in which perception and cognition have been held to differ are discussed. First, (...) their phenomenal character, such as the often-remarked vivacity or immediacy of perception. Second, the way in which they represent the world, e.g. the non-propositional nature of the contents, or non-discursive character of the vehicles, that have been held to characterise perceptual representation. Third, their place in cognitive architecture, i.e., roughly, in the information-flow of the mind, such as their alleged (non-)modularity. Fourth, their mind-world relations, e.g. the way in which perceptions seem to be tightly causally linked with distal or proximal stimuli. Against this background, we distinguish some main options for an account of the perception/cognition distinction, in particular concerning whether there is one, several, or no interesting and principled distinction(s) to be drawn here. (shrink)

Already in ancient philosophy, there was a transition from the implicit and hidden action of the Logical ( lógos) in nature ( phýsis) to the scientific and explicit expression of the logical structures of thought, action, the world and language. Heraclitus' heno-logic with Logos as hidden implicit principle of homologization of opposites ( tà enantía) in nature differs from Parmenides' paraconsistent logic developed in a hypothetical hemidyalectics given in the formula ''All is One'' ( hén pánta eînai). Plato's concept of (...) dia-logic (dialektikè téchne ) with a new concept of Logos as the one genus of beings ( hén tí génon toôn ontoôn) in which the word not-Being (negation) got its place enabled production of dyadic logical structure by the granulation of genera into opposite species and sub-species that it contains. Aristotle's concept of triadic-logic as syl-logistics ( syllogismós) and demonstrative science (epistéme apodeiktikê ) give a new approach by new granulation of the concept of Logos into triadic logical structure: (1) the structure of being (substratum-attributes relation), (2) the structure of thought (substance-second substances relation), and (3) the structure of propositions (subject-predicate relation). Plato's dialectic and Aristotle's syllogistic both deconstructed the implicit ontological unity of the world (pan, kosmos, sphairos ) given through the concept of Logos in Pre-Socratic philosophy in order to make that unity in explicit form given by the logical and semantical structures of the propositions about the world, about the thought and about the language. The hidden implicit of the nature, which had to be known intuitively, was transformed into unhidden explicit inferential logical structures given in the semantics and pragmatics of scientific demonstration. (shrink)

The basic kinds of physical causality that are foundational for other kinds of causality involve objects and the causal relations between them. These interactions do not involve events. If events were ontologically significant entities for causality in general, then they would play a role in simple mechanical interactions. But arguments about simple collisions looked at from different frames of reference show that events cannot play a role in simple mechanical interactions, and neither can the entirely hypothetical causal relations between events. (...) These arguments show that physics, which should be authoritative when it comes to the metaphysics of causality, gives no reasons to believe that events are causal agents. Force relations and some cases of energy-momentum transfer are examples of causal relations, with forces being paradigmatic in the macroscopic world, though it is conceivable that there are other kinds of causal relation. A relation between two objects is a causal relation if and only if when it is instantiated by the two objects there is a possibility that the objects that are the terms of the relation could change. The basic metaphysics of causality is about objects, causal relations, changes in objects, and a causal primitive. The paper also includes a discussion of the metaphysics of forces and a discussion of the metaphysics of energy and momentum exchanges. (shrink)

For some years now, an increasing number of philosophers have been holding that what is given in perception are the physical objects of our surroundings. This is the view called, among others names, “the Relational View”. Basically, this view consists in the claim that experience is not representational, it is not a matter of the subject's taking things in the world to be this or that way; rather, it is just a matter of being presented with things, of being in (...) a certain kind of relation with them, which makes them available to us, nevertheless, to be represented in judgement or belief. The question arises, however, whether this does not imply a new fall into the Myth of the Given. In this article, I argue for an affirmative response to that question. (shrink)

The dominant tradition in analytic philosophy of language views reference as paradigmatically enabled by the acquisition of words from other speakers. Via chains of transmission, these words connect the referrer to the referent. Such a picture assumes the notion of a word as a stable mapping between sound and meaning. Utterances are constructed out of such stable mappings. While this picture of language is both intuitive and historically distinguished, various trends and programs that have developed over the last few decades (...) in theoretical linguistics suggest an alternative. According to these approaches, the word, conceived of as a linguistic ‘building block’, has no special theoretical significance. While natural language systems generate structures mapping sounds onto meanings, they need not do so by composing elements which themselves specify such mappings. I shall describe some of these developments, and show how they pose a problem for traditional philosophical views of language and communication, before identifying an alternative approach to reference which does not rely on this common-sense picture of words. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception have been readier to postulate the existence of a visual field than to acknowledge sensory fields in other modalities. In this paper, I argue that the set of phenomenal features that philosophers have relied on when positing a visual field aptly characterise, mutatis mutandis, bodily sensation. I argue, in particular, that in localised bodily sensations we experience the body as a sensory field. I first motivate this claim for the case of haptic touch, and then generalise it (...) to other kinds of bodily sensation. I demonstrate the theoretical fruitfulness of this notion of a bodily field for the debate on the phenomenology of bodily ownership. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the criteria of identity over time for ordinary objects entail that such objects are permanent members of certain sortal kinds. The sortal kinds in question have come to be known as substance sortal kinds. But in this article, I defend a criterion of identity that is suited to phasalism, the view that alleged substance sortals are in fact phase sortals. The criterion I defend is a sortal‐weighted version of a change‐minimizing criterion first discussed by Eli Hirsch. (...) I present this criterion and then argue that it withstands attempts to show that it is inferior to non‐phasalist rivals. (shrink)

This is my entry on natural language ontology in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Joint attention is an everyday phenomenon in which two or more individuals attend to an object, event process or property in the presence of each other, such that their attention to that object is to some degree intertwined with the other’s attention to it. This paper argues that joint attention has the normative role of enabling subjects to coordinate their actions in a way that would contribute to the rational execution of a joint action in accordance with a prior shared (...) plan or shared intention. This understanding of the normative function of joint attention underpins a particular understanding of the nature of joint attention: what I shall call Rich Relationalism. Rich Relationalism argues for the view that joint attention acts as an epistemically significant interface between the world, other people, and their background plans and concepts. It understands joint attention as an object-dependent, conceptually structured, token experiential state that is shared by two (or more) people. It can be contrasted with non-relational (i.e., Representational or Enactivist) accounts of joint attention on the one hand, and Lean Relationalist accounts on the other (such as John Campbell’s influential account). (shrink)

Some sensory modalities, such as sight, touch and audition, are arguably spatial, and one way to understand these spatial senses is to investigate spatial representations in them. Here I focus on a specific element in this area— the interplay between perspectival variation and spatial constancy—and discuss recent interdisciplinary works on this topic. With these relevant experimental works, we will see clearly how traditional controversies in philosophy, for example, whether we perceive perspectival shapes as well as objective shapes, and whether any (...) sensory field should be postulated in senses other than vision, can benefit from considerations in empirical sciences. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A growing body of research suggests that political polarization in the United States is at a forty-year high, and that it is rooted less in disagreements over policy than in hostile attitudes toward political opponents. Such attitudes explain the manifest increase of intolerant behavior in American culture and politics in recent years. But what explains the attitudes themselves? One significant contributor may have been the rise of scientism in the early twentieth century, which undermined the metaphysical, epistemic, and institutional (...) foundations of the type of morality required to transcend our instinctual tribalism. (shrink)

The idea that thought and language can be clarified through logical methods seems problematic because, while thought and language are not always exact, logic (by its very nature) must be. According to Kuusela, ideal (ILP, represented by Frege and Russell) and ordinary language philosophy (OLP, represented by Strawson) offer opposed solutions to this problem, and Wittgenstein combines the advantages of both. I argue that, given Kuusela’s characterisation of OLP, Strawson was not an OLP’er. I suggest that, instead of seeing ILP (...) and OLP as opposed to one another, it is better to regard OLP as an extension of ILP. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson contributed to many philosophical domains, including the philosophy of language, the history of philosophy, metaphysics, moral philosophy and philosophical methodology. Most of his contributions in these areas have influenced contemporary debates, either because his views are still defended or because they are still considered worthy of detailed responses. His views on the philosophy of logic have been only rarely discussed, however. My aim in this paper is threefold. First, I provide a systematic account of Strawson’s philosophy of logic. (...) I argue that Strawson is an important predecessor of logical expressivism, a contemporary position in the philosophy of logic most notably defended by Robert Brandom. My main focus is on Strawson’s largely-neglected 1982 paper ‘Logical Form and Logical Constants’, which contains his most mature ideas on the topic. Second, while Strawson’s position is of historical and independent philosophical interest, I argue that he leaves many points unclear. Finally, I propose several clarifications of Strawson’s position. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 221-237, April 2022.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 623-638, June 2022.

I respond to the frequent objection that structural realism fails to sharply state an alternative to the standard predicate-logic, object / property / relation, way of doing metaphysics. The approach I propose is based on what I call a ‘math-first’ approach to physical theories (close to the so-called ‘semantic view of theories') where the content of a physical theory is to be understood primarily in terms of its mathematical structure and the representational relations it bears to physical systems, rather than (...) as a collection of sentences that attempt to make true claims about those systems (a ‘language-first’ approach). I argue that adopting the math-first approach already amounts to a form of structural realism, and that the choice between epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism is then a choice between a language-first and math-first view of metaphysics; I then explore the status of objects (and properties and relations) in fundamental and non-fundamental physics for both versions of math-first structural realism. (shrink)

Perception is a central means by which we come to represent and be aware of particulars in the world. I argue that an adequate account of perception must distinguish between what one perceives and what one's perceptual experience is of or about. Through capacities for visual completion, one can be visually aware of particular parts of a scene that one nevertheless does not see. Seeing corresponds to a basic, but not exhaustive, way in which one can be visually aware of (...) an item. I discuss how the relation between seeing and visual awareness should be explicated within a representational account of the mind. Visual awareness of an item involves a primitive kind of reference: one is visually aware of an item when one's visual perceptual state succeeds in referring to that particular item and functions to represent it accurately. Seeing, by contrast, requires more than successful visual reference. Seeing depends additionally on meta-semantic facts about how visual reference happens to be fixed. The notions of seeing and of visual reference are both indispensable to an account of perception, but they are to be characterized at different levels of representational explanation. (shrink)

This paper presents a distinctively metaphysical version of the problem of other minds. The main source of this version of the problem lies in the principle that, when it comes to consciousness, no distinction can sensibly be drawn between appearance and reality. I will argue that, unless we want to call that principle into question, we should seriously consider the possibility of accepting the conclusion that other minds are not like our own. This option is less problematic than it might (...) seem at first if we are willing to reconceive facts of consciousness as subjective rather than objective in nature. -/- . (shrink)

It seems that there are important differences concerning the way in which space itself is presented in visual and tactile modalities. In the case of vision, it is usually accepted that visual objects are experienced as located in a visual field. However, it is controversial whether similar field-like characteristics can be attributed to the space in which tactile entities are experienced to be located. The paper investigates whether postulating the presence of a tactile field is justified. I argue that the (...) answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ due to the dual nature of touch: touch is both an interoceptive modality that presents states of one’s body and an exteroceptive modality that presents external entities. More specifically, the interoceptive tactile space has a character of a spatial field. On the other hand, the exteroceptive tactile space does not have characteristics necessary for ascribing the field-status. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a novel defense of descriptivism about reference. Our argument is based on principles about the relevance of speaker intentions to reference that are shared by many opponents of descriptivism, including Saul Kripke. We first show that two such principles that are plausibly endorsed by Kripke and other prominent externalists in fact entail descriptivism. The first principle states that when certain kinds of speaker intentions are present, they suffice to determine and explain reference. According to the (...) second principle, certain speaker intentions must be present whenever something determines or explains reference. We then go on to make these principles more precise and argue that it would be costly to deny either of them. Since on the more precise understanding we suggest, the conjunction of these principles still entails descriptivism, we conclude that opponents of descriptivism have to give up some highly plausible assumption about the relation between speaker intentions and reference. (shrink)

The main accounts of the documentary in contemporary analytic aesthetics have difficulties in dealing with the distinction between documentaries and docudramas. On the one hand, the assertion-based accounts proposed by Noël Carroll, Trevor Ponech, and Carl Plantinga cannot properly differentiate documentaries from docudramas. On the other hand, Gregory Currie's account can do so by relying on the notion of trace, but this involves an undesirable side effect, namely, the exclusion, from the documentary, of those documentaries that do not include traces (...) of their subjects, as, for instance, documentaries that resort to reenactment. Is there a way to exclude docudramas from the documentary without also excluding other films that we usually treat as documentaries? This article affirmatively answers by relying on the notion of perceptual belief, that is, a belief that one can form by endorsing the demonstrative content of one's perception. While documentaries primarily involve the formation of perceptual beliefs, docudramas invite us to form nonperceptual beliefs by primarily involving the formation of perceptual imaginings. That is why docudramas are not documentaries. By contrast, a documentary that resorts to reenactment primarily involves the formation of perceptual beliefs, namely, perceptual beliefs about the reenactment itself. (shrink)

Can young children such as 3-year-olds represent the world objectively? Some prominent developmental psychologists—such as Perner and Tomasello—assume so. I argue that this view is susceptible to a prima facie powerful objection: To represent objectively, one must be able to represent not only features of the entities represented but also features of objectification itself, which 3-year-olds cannot do yet. Drawing on Burge's work on perceptual constancy, I provide a response to this objection and motivate a distinction between three different kinds (...) of objectivity. This distinction helps advance current research on both objectivity and teleological action explanations in young children. (shrink)

While research on object individuation assumes that even very young children are able to perceive objects as particulars, we argue that the results of relevant studies can be explained in terms of feature discrimination. We propose that children start out navigating the world with a feature‐based ontology and only later become able to individuate objects spatiotemporally. Furthermore, object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement resting on a uniquely human form of enculturation, namely the acquisition of deictic demonstratives. We conclude by (...) outlining empirical expectations for operationalizations of our proposal. (shrink)

I explain what Aristotle means when, after puzzling about the matter of motion in incomplete animals (those without sight, smell, hearing), he suggests in De Anima III 11.433b31–434a5 that just as incomplete animals are moved indeterminately, desire and phantasia are present in those animals, but present indeterminately. I argue that self-motion and its directing faculties in incomplete animals differ in degree but not in kind from those of complete animals. I examine how an object of desire differs for an incomplete (...) animal. Using a comparison with Aristotle’s account of recollection, especially in unfavorable circumstances, I describe indeterminate self-motion. Finally, I discuss implications for our understanding of Aristotle’s accounts of the faculties of the soul and incomplete animals. (shrink)

Davidson has attempted to offer his own solution to the problem of self-knowledge, but there has been no consensus between his commentators on what this solution is. Many have claimed that Davidson’s account stems from his remarks on disquotational specifications of self-ascriptions of meaning and mental content, the account which I will call the “Disquotational Explanation”. It has also been claimed that Davidson’s account rather rests on his version of content externalism, which I will call the “Externalist Explanation”. I will (...) argue that not only are these explanations of self-knowledge implausible, but Davidson himself has already rejected them. Thus, neither can be attributed to Davidson as his suggested account of self-knowledge. I will then introduce and support what I take to be Davidson’s official and independent account of self-knowledge, that is, his “Transcendental Explanation”. I will defend this view against certain potential objections and finally against the objections made by William Child. (shrink)

Social and political concepts are indispensable yet historically and culturally variable in a way that poses a challenge: how can we reconcile confident commitment to them with awareness of their contingency? In this article, we argue that available responses to this problem—Foundationalism, Ironism, and Right Wittgensteinianism—are unsatisfactory. Instead, we draw on the work of Bernard Williams to tease out and develop a Left Wittgensteinian response. In present-day pluralistic and historically self-conscious societies, mere confidence in our concepts is not enough. For (...) modern individuals who are ineluctably aware of conceptual change, engaged concept-use requires reasonable confidence, and in the absence of rational foundations, the possibility of reasonable confidence is tied to the possibility of critically discriminating between conceptual practices worth endorsing and those worth rejecting. We show that Left Wittgensteinianism offers such a basis for critical discrimination through point-based explanations of conceptual practices which relate them to the needs of concept-users. We end by considering how Left Wittgensteinianism guides our understanding of how conceptual practices can be revised in the face of new needs. (shrink)

Perception of a property (e.g. a colour, a shape, a size) can enable thought about the property, while at the same time misleading the subject as to what the property is like. This long-overlooked claim parallels a more familiar observation concerning perception-based thought about objects, namely that perception can enable a subject to think about an object while at the same time misleading her as to what the object is like. I defend the overlooked claim, and then use it to (...) generate a challenge for a standard way of thinking about the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. Put informally, that view holds that just as we can mislead others by saying something false, illusory experience misleads by misrepresenting how things stand in the world. I argue that we ought to abandon this view in favour of some radical alternative account of the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. (shrink)

Internalism about moral responsibility is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's mental states; externalism is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's overt behaviour and by circumstances external to the agent. In a series of papers, Michelle Ciurria has argued that most if not all current accounts of moral responsibility, including Strawsonian ones, are internalist. Ciurria defends externalism against these accounts, and she argues that, in contrast to his contemporary followers, P.F. (...) Strawson himself was an externalist. I believe that Ciurria's reading of Strawson is problematic. The aim of this paper is to elucidate Strawson's position with regard to the internalism-externalism issue against the background of Ciurria's reading of him. I conclude that Strawson was neither an internalist nor an externalist about moral responsibility. I draw extensively upon the whole body of Strawson's work, much of which is sadly neglected in discussions of ‘Freedom and Resentment’, although it illuminates many of the issues discussed there. (shrink)

According to constitution views of persons, we are constituted by spatially coinciding human animals. Constitution views face an ‘overpopulation’ puzzle: if the animal has my brain, there is another thinker where I am. An influential solution to this problem distinguishes between derivative and non‐derivative property possession: persons non‐derivatively have their personal properties, while inheriting others from their constituters. I will show that this solution raises a new problem, by constructing a puzzle with the absurd result that we instantiate certain properties (...) incompatibly. In setting up the puzzle, I demonstrate the relevance of the bodily awareness and self‐awareness literatures to overpopulation puzzles. (shrink)

Strawsonians about moral responsibility often claim that our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, rather than the other way round. Many have argued that such ‘reversal’ claims have an unwelcome consequence: If our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, does this not imply, absurdly, that if we held severely mentally ill people responsible, they would be responsible? We provide a new Strawsonian answer to this question, and we explore the relation (...) between reversal claims and (in)compatibilism. (shrink)

While P.F. Strawson’s essay ‘Freedom and Resentment’ has had many commentators, discussions of it can be roughly divided into two categories. A first group has dealt with the essay as something that stands by itself in order to analyse Strawson’s main arguments and to expose its weaknesses. A second group of commentators has looked beyond ‘Freedom and Resentment’ by emphasizing its Humean, Kantian or Wittgensteinian elements. Although both approaches have their own merits, it is too often forgotten that Strawson was (...) an original thinker with his own views on the nature of philosophical problems and how to appropriately deal with them. The aim of this article is to remedy this forgetfulness and to make sense of ‘Freedom and Resentment’ from a Strawsonian perspective, by looking at Strawson’s own views on philosophical methodology. (shrink)

This discussion note aims to address the two points which Lizza raises regarding my critique of his paper “Defining Death: Beyond Biology,” namely that I mistakenly attribute a Lockean view to his ‘higher brain death’ position and that, with respect to the ‘brain death’ controversy, both the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are unclear and vague. First, it is known from the writings of constitutionalist scholars that the constitution view of human persons, a theory which (...) Lizza also holds, has its roots in John Locke’s thought. Second, contrary to Lizza’s claims, the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are both more than adequately described in the biomedical and biophilosophical literature. (shrink)

In Replacing Truth, Scharp takes the concept of truth to be fundamentally incoherent. As such, Scharp reckons it to be unsuited for systematic philosophical theorising and in need of replacement – at least for regions of thought and talk which permit liar sentences and their ilk to be formulated. This replacement methodology is radical because it not only recommends that the concept of truth be replaced, but that the word ‘true’ be replaced too. Only Tarski has attempted anything like it (...) before. I dub such a view Conceptual Marxism. In assessing this view, my goals are fourfold: to summarise the many components of Scharp’s theory of truth; to highlight what I take to be some of the excess baggage carried by the view; to assess whether, and to what extent, the extreme methodology on offer is at all called for; finally, to briefly propose a less radical replacement strategy for resolving the liar paradox. (shrink)

This paper develops a form of transcendental naïve realism. According to naïve realism, veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational. According to transcendental naïve realism, the naïve realist theory of perception is not just one theory of perception amongst others, to be established as an inference to the best explanation and assessed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis that weighs performance along a number of different dimensions: for instance, fidelity to appearances, simplicity, systematicity, fit with scientific theories, and so on. (...) Rather, naïve realism enjoys a special status in debates in the philosophy of perception because it represents part of the transcendental project of explaining how it is possible that perceptual experience has the distinctive characteristics it does. One of the potentially most interesting prospects of adopting a transcendental attitude towards naïve realism is that it promises to make the naïve realist theory of perception, in some sense, immune to falsification. This paper develops a modest form of transcendental naïve realism modelled loosely on the account of the reactive attitudes provided by Strawson in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, and suggests one way of understanding the claim that naïve realism is immune to falsification. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider whether a reading of Kant's solution to the Third Antinomy can offer material for devising a new model of transcendental argument. The problem that this form of argument is meant to address is an antinomy between two apparently contradictory claims, q and ¬q, where we seem equally justified in holding both. The model has the following form: p; q is a necessary condition of p; the only justification we have for q is that it is (...) a necessary condition of p; p is justified only in domain X (where X is a domain of objects of cognition); therefore, q is justified only in domain X. Because the argument shows that our justification for q is valid only in X, it also establishes that there is conceptual space to hold ¬q outside of X. (shrink)

I reconstruct early Yogācāra theory of no-self based on works by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. I introduce the idea of the cognitive schema (CS) of the self, a conception borrowed from the developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget. A fundamental CS is a psychological function that guides the formation of perceptions. I propose that Manas can be understood in terms of being the CS of the self, a psychological mechanism from which perceptions of external objects are formed. In addition, I argue that non-imaginative (...) wisdom can be regarded as an experience during which the CS of the self does not function, such that one only possesses pure sensations without perceptions of external objects. After the repeated experience of non-imaginative wisdom, the CS of the self is changed to the purified CS of no-self. It still supports interactions with the external world, but in a way that does not allow the four afflictions (self-delusion, self-belief, self-conceit, and self-love) to arise. (shrink)