The papers collected in this issue were solicited to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Donald Davidson’s birth. Four of them discuss the implications of Davidson’s views—in particular, his later views on triangulation—for questions that are still very much at the centre of current debates. These are, first, the question whether Saul Kripke’s doubts about meaning and rule-following can be answered without making concessions to the sceptic or to the quietist; second, the question whether a way can be found to answer (...) Davidson’s own doubts about the continuity of non-propositional thought and language; third, the question whether normative properties can be at once causal and prescriptive; fourth, the question whether folk psychological explanations can be at once illuminating and autonomous. The fifth paper reexamines Davidson’s take on the principle of compositionality, which always was at the centre of his theorizing about language. (shrink)

Central to the discourse on the intentional structure of consciousness encompasses further forms of experience, for instance, the notion of one’s direct experience of others. In essence, one’s experience of others is materialized through intersubjective engagement which is fundamental in comprehending the relation of the Self and Other. Intersubjective engagement between the two cognizing subjects is evidently interactive negotiation of understanding, thus necessarily meditational. This paper will substantiate the meditational or reflective nature of intersubjective engagement with the phenomenology of self-projection, (...) giving emphasis on the experience of the Self in relation to Others. The activity of self- projection onto others which is argued to take place through introspection, incorporates modes such as representation, simulation, imitation, empathic interaction and self-attribution. Furthermore, this paper will conclude intersubjectivity as an advent of joint construction of meaning and representation between the two cognizing subjects, thus, the collaborative endeavor of shared construction of meaning and representation is attained throughout the process. (shrink)

This volume considers forms of information manipulation and restriction in contemporary society. It explores whether and when manipulation of the conditions of inquiry without the consent of those manipulated is morally or epistemically justified. The contributors provide a wealth of examples of manipulation, and debate whether epistemic paternalism is distinct from other forms of paternalism debated in political theory. Special attention is given to medical practice, science communication, and research in science, technology, and society. Some of the contributors argue that (...) unconsenting interference with or "conceptual engineering" of people’s beliefs and ability of inquire is consistent with, and others that it is inconsistent with, efforts to democratize knowledge and decision-making. (shrink)

According to the sceptic Saul Kripke envisages in his celebrated book on Wittgenstein on rules and private language, there are no facts about an individual that determine what she means by any given expression. If there are no such facts, the question then is, what justifies the claim that she does use expressions meaningfully? Kripke’s answer, in a nutshell, is that she by and large uses her expressions in conformity with the linguistic standards of the community she belongs to. While (...) Kripke’s sceptical problem has gripped philosophers for over three decades, few, if any, have been satisfied by his proposed solution, and many have struggled to come up with one of their own. The purpose of this paper is to show that a more satisfactory answer to Kripke’s challenge can be developed on the basis of Donald Davidson’s writings on triangulation, the idea of two individuals interacting simultaneously with each other and the world they share. It follows from the triangulation argument that the facts that can be regarded as determining meaning are irreducible. Yet, contra Kripke, they are not mysterious, for the argument does spell out what is needed for an individual’s expressions to be meaningful. (shrink)

comparative civilizations in relation to cyclical versus linear concepts of time; translation, intertemporal encounters, and their political ramifications (including international relations); extends Koselleck's _Begriffsgeschichte_ by engaging it in a critical dialogue with translation studies.

At a House hearing on December 5, 2023, the presidents of three universities—Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania—refused to state that certain kinds of hate speech, specifically calls for genocide of Jews, are prohibited on their campuses. The backlash against two of them, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill, was swift and devastating; both of them were successfully pressured to resign. Still, while Professors Gay’s and Magill’s responses were widely criticized as tone-deaf, they were legally correct. At (...) many private, and all public, colleges and universities, even the worst hate speech is generally protected unless it is accompanied by aggressive, threatening, or violent conduct. -/- These “demotions” augur even worse consequences, including termination, for less powerful faculty who say the “wrong” thing, in particular statements in support of Trumpism, an increasingly mainstream ideology that stitches together white supremacy, misogyny, a preference for autocracy over democracy, and several phobias—homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. The question I address in this paper is whether these consequences are constitutional at public schools. Whose right is stronger—a public-school teacher’s First Amendment right to express pro-Trumpist sentiments or a public school’s right to maintain a fair, inclusive, and welcoming learning environment? In this article, I argue that the public school has the upper hand here, that it is indeed constitutionally permitted to prohibit political hate speech that contributes to a hostile learning environment. Still, I narrowly limit this prohibition to dehumanizing speech—that is, speech explicitly suggesting that some human beings are “lesser”, intrinsically less valuable, than other human beings. -/- One objection to this position is that public schools may not prohibit any speech, no matter how dehumanizing, because such prohibition amounts to constitutionally impermissible viewpoint discrimination. I argue, however, that viewpoint discrimination is an integral part of education and therefore constitutionally permissible. Education necessarily involves promoting some values over others. These values fall into seven categories: constitutional principles, the humanist virtues, successful character traits and behaviors, knowledge and truth, art and beauty, health (both mental and physical), and social goods (such as justice, peace, and rule of law). (shrink)

We arrived at the neighborhood in Antwerp where our accommodation, Adagio Aprthotel, was located. The presence of immigrants was the one of the first things that caught my attention. They are everywhere. Enroute to the shops past the train station after dropping off our bags, Amiel and I passed a synagogue, and at McDonald’s (yup, my first meal in Belgium was french fries!), seated at the next table were two Filipinos. Overhearing their chatter, I surmised that they have been (...) living in Antwerp for some time. While intently exploring the surrounding streets, it became obvious that there is a profusion of migrant communities in Antwerp offering a multifaceted panorama of cultural diversity. This iss underscored by the conspicuous presence of Orthodox Jews, Arabs, Africans, and Chinese, the latter ensconced in their own Chinatown. Our neighborhood afforded immersion within a milieu teeming with migrant-owned enterprises, from butcher shops and corner stores to quaint cafés and eateries, predominantly overseen by Middle Easterners and Jews. Our first communal meal was, in fact, at an Arabic restaurant just across our accommodations. (shrink)

This article raises two questions about Robert Myers and Claudine Verheggen's terrific book, Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. The first question, concerning the first part of the book, is whether, starting from the assumption that a solitary individual cannot have thought contents, we can show that adding another individual to the picture cannot resolve the problem. The second question, concerning the second part, is whether a more sophisticated, decision-theoretic, Humean about the pro-attitudes can respond to the objections (...) to the simple Humean view, and whether Davidson was not in fact just such a sophisticated decision-theoretic Humean. RÉSUMÉ: Cet article pose deux questions sur le formidable livre de Robert Myers et Claudine Verheggen, Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. La première question, qui concerne la première partie du livre, consiste à déterminer si, étant donné la supposition qu'un individu solitaire ne peut pas avoir de contenus mentaux, nous pouvons démontrer qu'ajouter un autre individu ne permet pas de résoudre le problème. La seconde question, qui concerne la deuxième partie du livre, est de savoir si un tenant d'une conception humienne des pro-attitudes plus sophistiquée, adhérant à la théorie de la décision, peut répondre aux objections formulées contre la simple conception humienne, et si Davidson n’était pas en fait un tenant de ce second type de conception humienne. (shrink)

In this short survey, I show that one can argue that Peirce’s reception is just starting, with a strong scholarship that has been developing in the last thirty years in France, even if the reception dates, as in Peirce’s own country, back to the 1870s, after a kind of Peircean “craze” in the 1960s and 1970s.