18 found
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  1. Weak generics.Mahrad Almotahari - 2022 - Analysis 82 (3):405-409.
    Some generic sentences seem to be true despite the fact that almost all the members of the relevant kind are exceptions. It’s controversial whether generics of this type express relatively weak generalizations or relatively strong ones. If the latter, then we’re systematically mistaken about their truth, but they make no trouble for our semantic theorizing. In this brief note, I present several arguments for the former: sentences of the relevant type are weak generics.
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  2. The Onus in 'Ought'.Mahrad Almotahari & Brian Rabern - 2023 - Analysis 83 (1):13-21.
    We present a puzzle about deontic modals. An adequate resolution requires abandoning the standard theory. What to replace it with isn’t clear. We consider two possibilities.
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  3. Frege Cases and Bad Psychological Laws.Mahrad Almotahari & Aidan Gray - 2021 - Mind 130 (520):1253-1280.
    We draw attention to a series of implicit assumptions that have structured the debate about Frege’s Puzzle. Once these assumptions are made explicit, we rely on them to show that if one focuses exclusively on the issues raised by Frege cases, then one obtains a powerful consideration against a fine-grained conception of propositional-attitude content. In light of this consideration, a form of Russellianism about content becomes viable.
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  4. Is anything just plain good?Mahrad Almotahari & Adam Hosein - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (6):1485-1508.
    Geach and Thomson have argued that nothing is just plain good, because ‘good’ is, logically, an attributive adjective. The upshot, according to Geach and Thomson, is that consequentialism is unacceptable, since its very formulation requires a predicative use of ‘good’. Reactions to the argument have, for the most part, been uniform. Authors have converged on two challenging objections . First, although the logical tests that Geach and Thomson invoke clearly illustrate that ‘good’, as commonly used, is an attributive, they don’t (...)
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  5. Generic cognition: A neglected source of context sensitivity.Mahrad Almotahari - 2024 - Mind and Language 39 (4):472-491.
    What is the relationship between the claim that generics articulate psychologically primitive generalizations and the claim that they exhibit a unique form of context sensitivity? This article maintains that the two claims are compatible. It develops and defends an overlooked form of contextualism grounded in the idiosyncrasies of system 1 thought.
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  6. Frege Cases and Rationalizing Explanations.Mahrad Almotahari & Aidan Gray - forthcoming - Noûs.
    Russellians, Relationists, and Fregeans disagree about the nature of propositional-attitude content. We articulate a framework to characterize and evaluate this disagreement. The framework involves two claims: i) that we should individuate attitude content in whatever way fits best with the explanations that characteristically appeal to it, and ii) that we can understand those explanations by analogy with other ‘higher-level’ explanations. Using the framework, we argue for an under-appreciated form of Russellianism. Along the way we demonstrate that being more explicit about (...)
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  7. The Identity of a Material Thing and its Matter.Mahrad Almotahari - 2014 - Philosophical Quarterly 64 (256):387-406.
    I have both a smaller and a larger aim. The smaller aim is polemical. Kit Fine believes that a material thing—a Romanesque statue, for example, or an open door—can be distinguished from its constituent matter—a piece of alloy, say, or a hunk of plastic—without recourse to modal or temporal considerations. The statue is Romanesque; the piece of alloy is not Romanesque. The door is open; the hunk of plastic is not open. I argue that these considerations, when combined with a (...)
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  8. (1 other version)Kalām and Cognition.Mahrad Almotahari - 2023 - In Mohammad Saleh Zarepour (ed.), Islamic philosophy of religion: analytic perspectives. New York: Routledge.
    An application of some recent work on the science of generic thought.
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  9. Context, Content, and Epistemic Transparency.Mahrad Almotahari & Ephraim Glick - 2010 - Mind 119 (476):1067-1086.
    We motivate the idea that presupposition is a transparent attitude. We then explain why epistemic opacity is not a serious problem for Robert Stalnaker's theory of content and conversation. We conclude with critical remarks about John Hawthorne and Ofra Magidor's alternative theory.
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  10. Metalinguistic negation and metaphysical affirmation.Mahrad Almotahari - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (3):497-517.
    In a series of articles, Kit Fine presents some highly compelling objections to monism, the doctrine that spatially coincident objects are identical. His objections rely on Leibniz’s Law and linguistic environments that appear to be immune to the standard charge of non-transparency and substitution failure. In this paper, I respond to Fine’s objections on behalf of the monist. Following Benjamin Schnieder, I observe that arguments from Leibniz’s Law are valid only if they involve descriptive, rather than metalinguistic, negation. Then I (...)
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  11. Flaws of Formal Relationism.Mahrad Almotahari - 2013 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (4):367-376.
    Formal relationism in the philosophy of mind is the thesis that folk psychological states should be individuated, at least partially, in terms of the purely formal inference-licensing relations between underlying mental representations. It's supposed to provide a Russellian alternative to a Fregean theory of propositional attitudes. I argue that there's an inconsistency between the motivation for formal relationism and the use to which it's put in defense of Russellian propositions. Furthermore, I argue that formal relationism is committed to epiphenomenalism about (...)
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  12. Semantic deflationism deflated.Mahrad Almotahari - 2019 - Synthese 196 (6):2435-2454.
    Deflationism is the view that certain metaphysical debates are defective, leaving it open whether the defect is best explained in semantic, conceptual, or epistemic terms. Local semantic deflationism is the thesis that familiar metaphysical debates, which appear to be about the existence and identity of material objects, are merely verbal. It’s a form of local deflationism because it restricts itself to one particular area of metaphysics. It’s a form of semantic deflationism because the defect it purports to identify in these (...)
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  13. ‘Not’ Again! Another Essay on the Metaphysics of Material Objects.Mahrad Almotahari - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (3):711-737.
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  14. Is direct reference theory incompatible with physicalism?Mahrad Almotahari & Damien Rochford - 2011 - Journal of Philosophy 108 (5):255-268.
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  15. A Little Puzzle about a Piece and a Puddle.Mahrad Almotahari - 2020 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 12. Oxford University Press. pp. 231-261.
    A new puzzle about material constitution is presented and its implications are discussed. The moral of the story is that familiar intuitions supporting a neo-Aristotelian view of the material world are contradictory. To accommodate these intuitions is to embrace inconsistency. Therefore, neo-Aristotelianism is worse off for its intuitive appeal. Furthermore, the puzzle is used to argue for an account of ordinary modal thought and language that’s reconstructive, or ameliorative.
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  16. An Antinomy about Anaphora.Mahrad Almotahari - 2011 - Linguistic Inquiry 42 (3):509-517.
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  17. On Goodness, by David Conan Wolfsdorf. [REVIEW]Mahrad Almotahari - 2022 - Mind 131 (521):326-337.
    On Goodness, by WolfsdorfDavid Conan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xxii + 314.
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  18. Fixing Reference By Imogen Dickie. [REVIEW]Mahrad Almotahari - 2017 - Analysis 77 (3):659-662.
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