In this paper I discuss two objections raised against von Fintel’s (1994) and Stanley and Szabó’s (2000a) hidden variable approach to quantifier domain restriction (QDR). One of them concerns utterances of sentences involving quantifiers for which no contextual domain restriction is needed, and the other concerns multiple quantified contexts. I look at various ways in which the approaches could be amended to avoid these problems, and I argue that they fail. I conclude that we need a more flexible account of (...) QDR, one that allows for the hidden variables in the LF responsible for QDR to vary in number. Recanati’s (2002; 2004) approach to QDR, which makes use of the apparatus of “variadic functions”, is flexible enough to account successfully for the two phenomena discussed. I end with a few comments on what I take to be the most promising way to construe variadic functions. (shrink)

This article examines the philosophical methodology of intuitions beginning with an argument developed by Max Deutsch and Herman Cappelen over the descriptive adequacy of what Cappelen calls “methodological rationalism”, and their own preferred view, “intuition nihilism”. Based on inadequacies in both accounts, it offers a descriptive take on intuition-deploying philosophical practice today via what it calls “Protean Crypto-Rationalism”. It then describes the epistemic profile of the appeal to intuition, listing four key aspects of the basic shape of intuition-deploying philosophical practice: (...) primacy of cases, flexibility of report format, freedom of stipulation, and interpretation-hungry. It also considers several sources of error for intuitions featured in at least the informal methodological lore of philosophy, namely: misconstruals, modal confusions, pragmatics/semantics confusion, and “tin ear”. Finally, it explores the problem of methodological ignorance and inferential demand, particularly the typical practices of philosophical inference that operate on the premises delivered by appeal to intuitions. (shrink)

Thought experiments as counterexamples are a familiar tool in philosophy. Frequently understanding a vignette seems to generate a challenge to a target theory. In this paper I explore the content of the judgement that we have in response to these vignettes. I first introduce several competing proposals for the content of our judgement, and explain why they are inadequate. I then advance an alternative view. I argue that when we hear vignettes we consider the normal instances of the vignette. If (...) the normal instance of the vignette exhibits a counter-instance, the vignette constitutes a challenge to the target theory. I argue that this proposal shows how responses to vignettes are an ordinary, everyday judgement, and I explain how the proposal avoids the problems generated by competing theories. Finally, I argue this ‘normalcy proposal’ most naturally accords with our understanding of the method. (shrink)

The history behind the ‘Madagascar’ example of Gareth Evans is traced, suggesting that the decisive reference-shift occurred in the 16th, not the 17, century. The difference between this example and the ‘Gödel’ example of Saul Kripke is explained in terms of the distinction between de re and de dicto beliefs and intentions.

Edmund Gettier is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This short piece, published in 1963, seemed to many decisively to refute an otherwise attractive analysis of knowledge. It stimulated a renewed effort, still ongoing, to clarify exactly what knowledge comprises.

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

When we speak, we mean more than we say. In this book Stephen C. Levinson explains some general processes that underlie presumptions in communication.

We hardly ever mean exactly what we say. I don’t mean that we generally speak figuratively or that we’re generally insincere. Rather, I mean that we generally speak loosely, omitting words that could have made what we meant more explicit and letting our audience fill in the gaps. Language works far more efficiently when we do that. Literalism can have its virtues, as when we’re drawing up a contract, programming a computer, or writing a philosophy paper, but we generally opt (...) for efficiency over explicitness. In.. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the ways in which natural language restricts the domains of quantifiers. Adverbs of quantification are analyzed as quantifying over situations. The domain of quantifiers is pragmatically constrained: apparent processes of "semantic partition" are treated as pragmatic epiphenomena. The introductory Chapter 1 sketches some of the background of work on natural language quantification and begins the analysis of adverbial quantification over situations. Chapter 2 develops the central picture of "semantic partition" as a side-effect of pragmatic processes of anaphora (...) resolution. I argue that the apparent effects of topic/focus articulation and presuppositional information on the interpretation of quantifiers are not the result of a direct and local mechanism of sentence grammar. Instead, I develop an analysis where the link is established via the anaphoric dependence of quantifier domains on the discourse context. Chapter 3 discusses the analysis of conditional clauses as quantifier restrictors, concentrating on the question whether conditional clauses restrict quantifiers directly or indirectly. A treatment is explored which has if-clauses constrain the value of the hidden domain variable of the restricted quantifier. Chapter 4, on unless-clauses, and Chapter 5, on only if- and even if-clauses, present some issues in the compositional analysis of complex conditional clauses. These chapters significantly expand the data coverage of the theory of A-quantification. Building on previous work of mine on exceptives, I analyze unless-clauses as exceptive operators on A-quantifiers. The analysis of only if-clauses, treated as conditional clauses that combine if with the focus adverb only, unearthes some interesting new properties. Chapter 6, finally, examines the phenomenon of donkey-anaphora in the light of the results of the previous chapters. I show that a solution to the proportion problem may become possible once we combine the situation-semantic approach to adverbial quantification with the pragmatic theory developed in Chapter 2 and further elaborated in the analysis of donkey anaphora in complex conditionals. (shrink)

Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one’s intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology (e.g., Nisbett et al. 2001) has shown systematic cognitive differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases (...) (Weinberg et al. 2001). In light of these findings on cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and the paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference. (shrink)

The cross-cultural differences in epistemic intuitions reported by Weinberg, Nichols and Stich (2001; hereafter: WNS) laid the ground for the negative program of experimental philosophy. However, most of WNS’s findings were not corroborated in further studies. The exception here is the study concerning purported differences between Westerners and Indians in knowledge ascriptions concerning the Zebra Case, which was never properly replicated. Our study replicates the above-mentioned experiment on a considerably larger sample of Westerners (n = 211) and Indians (n = (...) 204). The analysis found a significant difference between the ethnic groups in question in the predicted direction: Indians were more likely to attribute knowledge in the Zebra Case than Westerners. In this paper, we offer an explanation of our result that takes into account the fact that replications of WNS’s other experiments did not find any cross-cultural differences. We argue that the Zebra Case is unique among the vignettes tested by WNS since it should not be regarded as a Gettier case but rather as a scenario exhibiting skeptical pressure concerning the reliability of sense-perception. We argue that skepticism towards perception as a means of gaining knowledge is a trope that is deeply rooted in Western epistemology but is very much absent from Classical Indian philosophical inquiry. This line of reasoning is based on a thorough examination of the skeptical scenarios discussed by philosophers of the Indian Nyaya tradition and their adversaries. (shrink)

We provide new findings that add to the growing body of empirical evidence that important epistemic intuitions converge across cultures. Specifically, we selected three recent studies conducted in the US that reported surprising effects of knowledge attribution among English speakers. We translated the vignettes used in those studies into Mandarin Chinese and Korean and then ran the studies with participants in Mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We found that, strikingly, all three of the effects first obtained in the US (...) also emerged in the East Asian cultures we studied. Our findings not only cohere with but also provide—at least moderate—support for the existence of extensive convergences of important epistemic intuitions across cultures. (shrink)

Within the existing metaphilosophical literature on experimental philosophy, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the claim that there are large differences in philosophical intuitions between people of different demographic groups. Some philosophers argue that this claim has important metaphilosophical implications; others argue that it does not. However, the actual empirical work within experimental philosophy seems to point to a very different sort of metaphilosophical question. Specifically, what the actual empirical work suggests is that intuitions are surprisingly robust (...) across demographic groups. Prior to empirical study, it seemed plausible that unexpected patterns of intuition found in one demographic group would not emerge in other demographic groups. Yet, again and again, empirical work obtains the opposite result: that unexpected patterns found in one demographic group actually emerge also in other demographic groups. I cite 30 studies that find this sort of robustness. I then argue that to the extent that metaphilosophical work is to engage with the actual findings from experimental philosophy, it needs to explore the implications of the surprising robustness of philosophical intuitions across demographic differences. (shrink)

It has been pointed out that Gettier case scenarios have deviant realizations and that deviant realizations raise a difficulty for the logical analysis of thought experiments. Grundmann and Horvath have shown that it is possible to rule out deviant realizations by suitably modifying the scenario of a Gettier-style thought experiment. They hypothesize further that the enriched scenario corresponds to the way expert epistemologists implicitly interpret the original one. However, no precise account of this implicit enrichment is offered, which makes the (...) proposal somewhat ad hoc. Drawing on pragmatic theory, I argue that the content of Grundmann and Horvath’s modified scenario corresponds to the default interpretation of the original scenario and that epistemological expertise is not required to access the deviance-proof interpretation. This Default Interpretation proposal offers thus a more general and independently motivated solution to the Problem of Deviant Realizations. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the space of possible analyses of the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction, together with a set of considerations which militate against all but our own proposal. Among the many accounts we consider and reject are the ‘explicit’ approach to quantifier domain restric‐tion discussed, for example, by Stephen Neale, and the pragmatic approach to quantifier domain restriction proposed by Kent Bach. Our hope is that the exhaustive discussion of this special case of (...) context‐dependence will provide guidelines for how to decide, for an arbitrary case of context‐dependent discourse, whether it should be treated syntactically, semantically, or pragmatically. (shrink)

What sorts of things are the intuitions generated via thought experiment? Timothy Williamson has responded to naturalistic skeptics by arguing that thought-experiment intuitions are judgments of ordinary counterfactuals. On this view, the intuition is naturalistically innocuous, but it has a contingent content and could be known at best a posteriori. We suggest an alternative to Williamson's account, according to which we apprehend thought-experiment intuitions through our grasp on truth in fiction. On our view, intuitions like the Gettier intuition are necessarily (...) true and knowable a priori. Our view, like Williamson's, avoids naturalistic skepticism. (shrink)

This book is a defense of the methods of analytic philosophy against a recent empirical challenge to the soundness of those methods. The challenge is raised by practitioners of “experimental philosophy” and concerns the extent to which analytic philosophy relies on intuition—in particular, the extent to which analytic philosophers treat intuitions as evidence in arguing for philosophical conclusions. Experimental philosophers say that analytic philosophers place a great deal of evidential weight on people’s intuitions about hypothetical cases and thought experiments. This (...) book argues that this view of traditional philosophical method is a myth, part of “metaphilosophical folklore.” Analytic philosophy makes regular use of hypothetical examples and thought experiments, but philosophers argue for their claims about what is true or not true in these examples and thought experiments. It is these arguments, not intuitions, that are treated as evidence for the claims. The book discusses xphi and some recent xphi studies; critiques a variety of other metaphilosophical claims; examines such famous arguments as Gettier’s refutation of the JTB theory and Kripke’s Gödel Case argument against descriptivism about proper names, and shows that they rely on reasoning rather than intuition; and finds existing critiques of xphi, the “Multiple Concepts” and “Expertise” replies, to be severely lacking. (shrink)

This chapter aims to resolve some of Nathan Salmon's puzzlement by clarifying the relationship between theses and questions about reference and theses and questions about necessity and possibility. It argues that while Saul Kripke defends metaphysical theses about the descriptive semantics of names, the way the reference relation is determined, and the capacities and dispositions of human beings and physical objects, his most important philosophical accomplishment is in the way he posed and clarified the questions, and not in the particular (...) answers that he gave to them. In response to the question about the capacities and potentialities of the things that peoples commonly refer to with names, Kripke defends the thesis that it makes sense to talk about the logical potential of an individual thing independently of how it is referred to, and that this potential is greater in certain ways, and less great in others, than some philosophers have supposed. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Joshua Knobe (2019) offers a startling account of the metaphilosophical implications of findings in experimental philosophy. We argue that Knobe’s account is seriously mistaken, and that it is based on a radically misleading portrait of recent work in experimental philosophy and cultural psychology.

We present several new studies focusing on “salience effects”—the decreased tendency to attribute knowledge to someone when an unrealized possibility of error has been made salient in a given conversational context. These studies suggest a complicated picture of epistemic universalism: there may be structural universals, universal epistemic parameters that influence epistemic intuitions, but that these parameters vary in such a way that epistemic intuitions, in either their strength or propositional content, can display patterns of genuine cross-cultural diversity.

Erratum to: Philos Stud DOI 10.1007/s11098-013-0226-3Dear Reader, due to production systems the following changes could not be made to this article:In the paragraph immediately preceding the case description (ford-iii), the sentenceHere we explicitly state that Smith’s inference is based only on his belief that Jones owns a Ford, and that this logical inference provides Smith’s only justification for believing that someone in his office owns a Ford (to make things fully precise, we also add a time index).should be replaced withHere (...) we explicitly state that Smith’s inference is based only on his belief that Jones owns a Ford (plus the justified background belief that Jones is in his office), and that this logical inference provides Smith’s only justification for believing that someone in his office owns a Ford (to make things fully precise, we also add a time index).The added part is highlighted in boldface.And within the case description (ford-iii), the sentenceFrom this belief alone. (shrink)

Descriptions of Gettier cases can be interpreted in ways that are incompatible with the standard judgment that they are cases of justified true belief without knowledge. Timothy Williamson claims that this problem cannot be avoided by adding further stipulations to the case descriptions. To the contrary, we argue that there is a fairly simple way to amend the Ford case, a standard description of a Gettier case, in such a manner that all deviant interpretations are ruled out. This removes one (...) major objection to interpreting our judgments about Gettier cases as strict conditionals. (shrink)