Johnston famously argued that the colors are, more or less inclusively speaking, dispositions to cause color experiences by arguing that this view best accommodates his five proposed core beliefs about color. Since then, Campbell, Kalderon, Gert, Benbaji, and others, have all engaged with at least some of Johnston’s proposed core beliefs in one way or another. Which propositions are core beliefs is ultimately an empirical matter. We investigate whether Johnston’s proposed core beliefs are, in fact, believed by assessing the (...) agreement/disagreement of non-philosophers with them. Two experiments are run each with large sample sizes, the second designed to address criticisms of the first. We find that non-philosophers mostly agree with the proposed core beliefs, but that they agree with some more than others. (shrink)

I explain a mechanism I call “incorporation,” that I think is at work in a wide range of cases often put under the heading of “scare-quoting.” Incorporation is flagging some words in one’s own utterance to indicate that they are to be interpreted as if uttered by some other speaker in some other context, while supplying evidence to one’s interpreter enabling them to identify that other speaker and context. This mechanism gives us a way to use others’ vocabularies and contexts, (...) thereby extending our expressive capacities on the fly. -/- Explaining incorporation involves explaining intra-sentential shifts in lexicon and in context. Shifts of the former sort are familiar to linguists under the heading of “code-switching.” Shifts of the latter sort have been less explored; accordingly I explain how to modify Kaplan’s logic of demonstratives to allow for such shifts. -/- I compare the incorporation account of scare-quoting with accounts offered by Brandom, Recanati, Geurts and Maier, Benbaji, Predelli, and Shan. Finally I note a possible implication concerning the speech act of assertion: that you can properly assert a content you do not believe, let alone know, because part of it is expressed with words you do not understand. (shrink)

We argue that there is no tension between Reid's description of science and his claim that science is based on the principles of common sense. For Reid, science is rooted in common sense since it is based on the idea that fixed laws govern nature. This, however, does not contradict his view that the scientific notions of causation and explanation are fundamentally different from their common sense counterparts. After discussing these points, we dispute with Cobb's and Benbaji's interpretations of (...) Reid's views on causation and explanation. Finally, we present Reid's views from the perspective of the contemporary debate on scientific explanation. (shrink)

Traditional just war theory maintains that the two types of rules that govern justice in times of war, jus ad bellum (justice of war) and jus in bello (justice in war), are logically independent of one another. Call this the independence thesis. According to this thesis, a war that satisfies the ad bellum rules does not guarantee that the in bello rules will be satisfied; and a war that violates the ad bellum rules does not guarantee that the in bello (...) rules will be violated. A controversial implication of this is that it’s possible for soldiers to undergo acts that are instrumental in bringing about victory in an unjust war and yet do nothing morally wrong. Some authors – call them purists – claim that this cannot be correct. Participating in an unjust war is by itself morally wrong. Yitzhak Benbaji has given what is to my mind the strongest defense of the independence thesis. In this paper I critically examine Benbaji’s argument and conclude that it is not persuasive. My argument against Benbaji incorporates the concept of honor in the military. I seek to show, in part, that if the recent literature is correct concerning both the nature of honor and the importance of instilling it in soldiers, then Benbaji hasn’t given the purist a compelling reason to give up her view. (shrink)