This essay critically examines one of the dominant tendencies in recent theoretical discussions of anarchism, postanarchism, and argues that this tradition fails to engage sufficiently with anarchism’s history. Through an examination of late 19th-century anarchist political thought—as represented by one of its foremost exponents, Peter Kropotkin—we demonstrate the extent to which postanarchism has tended to oversimplify and misrepresent the historical tradition of anarchism. The article concludes by arguing that all political-theoretical discussions of anarchism going forward should begin with a fresh (...) appraisal of the actual content of anarchist political thought, based on a rigorous analysis of its political, social, and cultural history. (shrink)

Charles Carlini interviews Nathan Salmón about the philosophical work of his mentor and friend, the late Saul Kripke, one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th Century.

C. Thi Nguyen's (2020) recent account of echo chambers as social epistemic structures that actively exclude outsiders’ voices has sparked debate on the connection between echo chambers and epistemic injustice (Santos 2021; Catala 2021; Elzinga 2021).In this paper I am mainly concerned with the connection between echo chambers and testimonial injustice, understood as an instance whereby a speaker receives less epistemic credibility than they deserve, due to a prejudice in the hearer (Fricker 2007). In her reconstruction of the types of (...) testimonial injustice, Catala implicitly equates incidental testimonial injustice as resulting from epistemic prejudice and systematic testimonial injustice as resulting from identity prejudice. As I will argue, there as certain cases that fall in between these interpretations, namely instances of incidental testimonial injustice, whereby the impact on the speaker is localized, but where the credibility deficit nevertheless results from identity prejudice. One example of how this can manifest is the structural distrust against health-care experts in anti-vaccination echo-chambers, wherein said experts’ testimony is dismissed due to unwarranted assumptions regarding their motives qua their social type. To understand the importance and severity of the testimonial injustices in echo chambers, we need to look beyond the specific harms that are done to the targeted speakers and the immediate loss of knowledge, but also take into account the consequences for fairness in public deliberation—the latter being a fundamental condition for procedural democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a challenge for Michael McKenna’s conversational theory of moral responsibility. On his view, to be a responsible agent is to be able to engage in a type of moral conversation. I argue that individuals with autism spectrum disorder present a considerable problem for the conversational theory because empirical evidence on the disorder seems to suggest that there are individuals in the world who meet all of the conditions for responsible agency that the theory lays out (...) but who are nevertheless not responsible agents. Attending to the moral psychology of such individuals will, I think, help shed light on an important gap in the conversational theory. (shrink)

In the transcendental deduction, the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant seeks to secure the objective validity of our basic categories of thought. He distinguishes objective and subjective sides of this argument. The latter side, the subjective deduction, is normally understood as an investigation of our cognitive faculties. It is identified with Kant’s account of a threefold synthesis involved in our cognition of objects of experience, and it is said to precede and ground Kant’s proof of the (...) validity of the categories in the objective deduction. I challenge this standard reading of the subjective deduction, arguing, first, that there is little textual evidence for it, and, second, that it encourages a problematic conception of how the deduction works. In its place, I present a new reading of the subjective deduction. Rather than being a broad investigation of our cognitive faculties, it should be seen as addressing a specific worry that arises in the course of the objective deduction. The latter establishes the need for a necessary connection between our capacities for thinking and being given objects, but Kant acknowledges that his readers might struggle to comprehend how these seemingly independent capacities are coordinated. Even worse, they might well believe that in asserting this necessary connection, Kant’s position amounts to an implausible subjective idealism. The subjective deduction ismeant to allay these concerns by showing that they rest on a misunderstanding of the relation between these faculties. This new reading of the subjective deduction offers a better fit with Kant’s text. It also has broader implications, for it reveals the more philosophically plausible account of our relation to the world as thinkers that Kant is defending – an account that is largely obscured by the standard reading of the subjective deduction. (shrink)

I propose and defend a novel view called “de se consequentialism,” which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it demonstrates—contra Doug Portmore, Mark Schroeder, Campbell Brown, and Michael Smith, among others—that agent-neutral consequentialism is consistent with agent-centered constraints. Second, it clarifies the nature of agent-centered constraints, thereby meriting attention from even dedicated nonconsequentialists. Scrutiny reveals that moral theories in general, whether consequentialist or not, incorporate constraints by assessing states in a first-personal guise. Consequently, de se consequentialism enacts constraints through the (...) very same feature that nonconsequentialist theories do. (shrink)

An expanded version of the author’s candid, autobiographical “My Philosophical Education”.

Abstract Both parties in the active philosophical debate concerning the conceptual character of perception trace their roots back to Kant's account of sensible intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason. This striking fact can be attributed to Kant's tendency both to assert and to deny the involvement of our conceptual capacities in sensible intuition. He appears to waver between these two positions in different passages, and can thus seem thoroughly confused on this issue. But this is not, in fact, the (...) case, for, as I will argue, the appearance of contradiction in his account stems from the failure of some commentators to pay sufficient attention to Kant's developmental approach to philosophy. Although he begins by asserting the independence of intuition, Kant proceeds from this nonconceptualist starting point to reveal a deeper connection between intuitions and concepts. On this reading, Kant's seemingly conflicting claims are actually the result of a careful and deliberate strategy for gradually convincing his readers of the conceptual nature of perception. (shrink)

A major point of debate about morally good motives concerns an ambiguity in the truism that good and strong-willed people desire to do what is right. This debate is shaped by the assumption that “what’s right” combines in only two ways with “desire,” leading to distinct de dicto and de re readings of the truism. However, a third reading of such expressions is possible, first identified by Janet Fodor, which has gone wholly unappreciated by philosophers in this debate. I identify (...) Fodor’s nonspecific reading of “desire to do what’s right” and briefly discuss its merits. (shrink)

Toward a theory of n-tuples of individuals and concepts as surrogates for Russellian singular propositions and singular concepts. Alonzo Church proposed a powerful and elegant theory of sequences of functions and their arguments as singular-concept surrogates. Church’s account accords with his Alternative (0), the strictest of his three competing criteria for strict synonymy. The currently popular objection to strict criteria like (0) on the basis of the Russell-Myhill paradox is misguided. Russell-Myhill is not a problem specifically for Alternative (0). Rather (...) it is a disproof of unrestricted concept comprehension. Unrestricted comprehension is also inconsistent with facts about sets of properties. It is demonstrated furthermore that the principal rival conception of propositions, as classes of possible worlds, is subject to a fatal philosophical collapse: It follows on that conception, given that each of us is fallible, that everyone believes everything. Although it is far superior to its principal rival conception, Church’s proposed theory is vulnerable under (0) to a version of Russell’s notorious Gray’s /Elegy/ objection. Some amendments to Church’s proposal are proffered that address Russell’s objection, including an amendment first proposed in the present author’s /Frege’s Puzzle/ (1986). Church’s response (personal correspondence) is considered. (shrink)

The overarching theme of Locke’s Image of the World, by Michael Jacovides, is that Locke’s belief in the best science of his day shapes his philosophy in important ways. Jacovides contends that “by understanding the scientific background to Locke’s thoughts, we can better understand his work” (1), including both his positions and his arguments for those positions. To a lesser extent, Jacovides’s book also treats Locke as a case study in thinking about how much scientific theory should influence philosophy. While (...) much of the science Locke relies on is incomplete or problematic, and so leads him into errors, Jacovides is sympathetic to Locke’s approach of using the best scientific theories to help develop and justify his philosophical positions. Throughout the book Jacovides shows how science – Locke’s study of medicine, and later Boyle’s corpuscularianism, and then later Newton’s physics – influence Locke’s thinking on a variety of topics. The result is an impressive account of the history of science at a critical point in its development through the lens of one of the great philosophers of that time. (shrink)

The alt-right claims it responsibly advocates for its positions while the Ku Klux Klan was “ad-hoc.” This allows them to accept the philosophy of white nationalism while rejecting comparisons with prior white nationalist organizations. I confront this by comparing the methodologies of alt-right trolls and the KKK. After studying each movement’s genesis in pranks done for amusement, I demonstrate that each uses threats to police behavior, encourages comradery around ethnic heritage, and manipulates politics to exclude voices from public deliberation. Differences (...) between alt-right trolls and the KKK originate in the technologies they use, not out of a concern for responsible advocacy. (shrink)

As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed individuation (...) conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed individuation conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. (shrink)

Fredegisus of Tours was an Anglo-Saxon scholar who studied under Alcuin of York and later served at the court of Charlemagne. Although he was apparently well respected by his peers, specific details concerning his life are scarce. His only surviving work is a brief epistle entitled De Nihil et Tenebris. This article provides a new translation of the letter, based on Migne 1851 edition, along with biographical information about its author, a brief critical history of the text, and a commentary (...) on Fredegisus’s significance in the history of Western philosophy. The author argues, against extant critical accounts, that Fredegisus evinces a much higher level of philosophical sophistication than is usually attributed to him. This is evidenced by certain crucial similarities between the De Nihil and Augustine’s De Magistro, as well as the decidedly Platonic overtones of Fredegisus’s doctrine of nothingness. (shrink)

Standard compositionality is the doctrine that the semantic content of a compound expression is a function of the semantic contents of the contentful component expressions. In 1954 Hilary Putnam proposed that standard compositionality be replaced by a stricter version according to which even sentences that are synonymously isomorphic (in the sense of Alonzo Church) are not strictly synonymous unless they have the same logical form. On Putnam’s proposal, the semantic content of a compound expression is a function of: (i) the (...) contentful component expressions; and (ii) the expression’s logical form. Kit Fine recently expanded and modified Putnam’s idea into a sweeping theory in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. The present paper is a detailed critique of Fine’s “semantic relationism.” Fine’s notion of coordination is explained in terms of the familiar pragmatic phenomenon of recognition. A serious error in Fine’s formal disproof of standard Millianism is exposed. It is demonstrated furthermore that Church’s original criticism of Putnam’s proposal can be extended to Fine’s semantic relationism. Finally, it is also demonstrated that the positive position Fine proffers to supplant standard Millianism is in fact exactly equivalent to standard Millianism, so that Fine’s overall position not only does not displace standard Millianism but is in fact inconsistent. (shrink)

The wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem is a problem for attempts to analyze normative properties using only facts about the balance of normative reasons, a style of analysis on which the ‘Reasons First’ programme depends. I argue that this problem cannot be solved if the orthodox view of reasons is true --- that is, if each normative reason is numerically identical with some fact, proposition, or state-of-affairs. That’s because solving the WKR problem requires completely distinguishing between the right- and (...) wrong-kind reasons for an attitude. I argue that some facts give both right- and wrong-kind reasons for an attitude. Consequently, no such distinction between the two types of reasons is complete if reasons are facts or the like. I conclude by suggesting that reasons and facts are related by constitution, not identity. (shrink)

Frege believes that the content of declarative sentences divides into a thought and its ‘colouring’, perhaps combined with assertoric force. He further thinks it is important to separate the thought from its colouring. To do this, a criterion which determines sameness of sense between sentences must be deployed. But Frege provides three criteria for this task, each of which adjudicate on different grounds. In this article, rather than expand on criticisms levelled at two of the criteria offered, the author focuses (...) on the most promising candidate. As it stands, this criterion has problems, but not insuperable ones. He suggests an adjusted criterion that relies on the epistemic notion of triviality. He recommends this criterion as both harmonious with Frege’s broader thought and preferable to alternatives offered. The moral is that Frege individuates thoughts by deploying an epistemic concept, and this is the only suitable way for him to do so. (shrink)

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”—so says Hanlon’s Razor. This principle is designed to curb the human tendency toward explaining other people’s behavior by moralizing it. We ask whether Hanlon’s Razor is good or bad advice. After offering a nuanced interpretation of the principle, we critically evaluate two strategies purporting to show it is good advice. Our discussion highlights important, unsettled questions about an idea that has the potential to infuse greater humility and civility into (...) discourse and debate. (shrink)

Frege claims that sentences of the form ‘A’ are equivalent to sentences of the form ‘it is true that A’ (The Equivalence Thesis). Frege also says that there are fictional names that fail to refer, and that sentences featuring fictional names fail to refer as a result. The thoughts such sentences express, Frege says, are also fictional, and neither true nor false. Michael Dummett argues that these claims are inconsistent. But his argument requires clarification, since there are two ways The (...) Equivalence Thesis has been formulated, according as the thesis equates the senses or the referents of the relevant sentences. -/- I have two aims in this paper. The first is to demonstrate that a sameness of sense thesis is inconsistent with Frege’s other theses. The second is to argue that a sameness of reference thesis is consistent with them. Thus, all else being equal, Frege ought to endorse a sameness of reference, rather than a sameness of sense thesis. (shrink)

This article evaluates an emerging element in popular debate and inquiry: DYOR. (Haven’t heard of the acronym? Then Do Your Own Research.) The slogan is flexible and versatile. It is used frequently on social media platforms about topics from medical science to financial investing to conspiracy theories. Using conceptual and empirical resources drawn from philosophy and psychology, we examine key questions about the slogan’s operation in human cognition and epistemic culture.

Intellectual humility is commonly thought to be a mindset, disposition, or personality trait that guides our reactions to evidence as we seek to pursue the truth and avoid error. Over the last decade, psychologists, philosophers, and other researchers have begun to explore intellectual humility, using analytical and empirical tools to understand its nature, implications, and value. This review describes central questions explored by researchers and highlights opportunities for multidisciplinary investigation.

Quine’s criterion of theoretical ontological commitment is subject to a variety of interpretations, all of which save one yield incorrect verdicts. Moreover, the interpretation that yields correct verdicts is not what Quine meant. Instead the intended criterion unfairly imputes ontological commitments to theories that lack those commitments and fails to impute commitments to theories that have them. Insofar as Quine’s criterion is interpreted so that it yields only correct verdicts, it is trivial and of questionable utility. Moreover, the correct criterion (...) invokes analyticity, a notion that Quine spent most of his life tirelessly combating. This yields a dilemma for Quinean philosophy: Either his criterion of ontological commitment is incorrect, or else Quine is committed to a traditional philosophical notion that he emphatically rejected as disreputable. (shrink)

In mid-2019, the controversy regarding South African runner Caster Semenya’s eligibility to participate in competitions against other female runners culminated in a Court of Arbitration for Sport judgement. Semenya possessed high endogenous testosterone levels (arguably a performance advantage), secondary to a disorder of sexual development. In this commentary, Aristotelean teleology is used to defend the existence of ‘male’ and ‘female’ as discrete categories. It is argued that once the athlete’s sex is established, they should be allowed to compete in the (...) category of their sex without obligatory medical treatment. Indeed, other athletes who possess advantageous genetic or phenotypic traits that fall outside of the human norm have been allowed to compete as humans without restraint. In both cases, if an athlete possesses the essential attributes of being a human or being male or female they should be permitted to compete in those respective categories; athletes’ eligibilities should not be based upon accidental attributes. (shrink)

While it is tempting to suppose that an act has moral worth just when and because it is motivated by sufficient moral reasons, philosophers have, largely, come to doubt this analysis. Doubt is rooted in two claims. The first is that some facts can motivate a given act in multiple ways, not all of which are consistent with moral worth. The second is the orthodox view that normative reasons are facts. I defend the tempting analysis by proposing and defending a (...) heterodox account of both normative and motivating reasons that is inspired by Donald Davidson’s primary reasons. We should adopt the heterodox view, I argue, because it addresses an overlooked but fatal defect in the orthodox conception of reasons, of which challenges to the tempting analysis are a special case. (shrink)

Some philosophers defend legal punishment by appealing to a natural right to punish wrongdoers, a right people would have in a state of nature. Many of these philosophers argue that legal punishment can be justified by transferring this right to the state. I’ll argue that such a right may not be transferrable to the state because such a right may not survive the transition out of anarchy. A compelling reason for the natural right claim – that in a state of (...) nature there are few if any viable non-punitive enforcement options – isn’t obviously true in state contexts. (shrink)

Hume’s argument against believing the testimony of miracles is the most influential treatment of the topic, but there is not yet a consensus on how to interpret his argument. Two arguments are attributed to him. First, Hume seems to start with the infrequency of miracles and uses this to infer that the testimony of a miracle is exceedingly unlikely, and this then creates strong but defeasible evidence against the testimony of any miracle. Second, perhaps Hume takes the constancy of our (...) experience of the laws of nature as decisive or indefeasible evidence against the testimony of any miracle. I explain the basis for each of these interpretations of Hume’s argument, and then develop a novel criticism of his view: namely, any inductive inference depends on the relevant similarity between the observed and the unobserved, but we may have reason for thinking that purported miracles are not relevantly similar, and thus our past experience cannot be used as reliable evidence about the testimony of (some) miracles. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scholarship on anarchism, very little attention has been paid to the historical and theoretical relationship between anarchism and philosophy. Seeking to fill this void, Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy draws upon the combined expertise of several top scholars to provide a broad thematic overview of the various ways anarchism and philosophy have intersected. Each of its 18 chapters adopts a self-consciously inventive approach to its subject matter, examining anarchism's relation to other philosophical theories and (...) systems within the Western intellectual tradition as well as specific philosophical topics, subdisciplines and methodological tendencies. (shrink)

I argue that Davidson's conception of motivating reasons as belief-desire pairs suggests a model of normative reasons for action that is superior to the orthodox conception according to which normative reasons are propositions, facts, or the truth-makers of such facts.

While intimately familiar, gender eludes theorizing. We argue that well-known challenges to gender’s analysis originate in a subtle ambiguity: questions about gender sometimes express questions about gender categories themselves (e.g., womanhood, manhood, and so on), while at other times expressing questions about what makes someone a member of these categories. Distinguishing these questions accentuates gender’s connections to morality, making a novel “antirealist” view of gender, or as we call it, “unrealist” view, especially natural. Gender’s relations to identity, sex, and social (...) position are illuminated along the way. Taking cues from both historical and contemporary debates in metaethics about the roles that attitudes can play in metaphysical and semantic analysis, we introduce and begin developing a comprehensive non-ameliorative framework for explicating gender’s nature and our thought and talk about it. In a slogan, on the view we defend, you belong to the gender category to which you intrinsically desire to belong. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Locke takes sensitive knowledge (i.e. knowledge from sensation) to be genuine knowledge that material objects exist. Samuel Rickless has recently argued that, for Locke, sensitive knowledge is merely an “assurance”, or a highly probable judgment that falls short of certainty. In reply, I show that Locke sometimes uses “assurance” to describe certain knowledge, and so the use of the term “assurance” to describe sensitive knowledge does not entail that it is less than certain. Further, (...) I show that sensitive knowledge includes the perception of a relation between ideas, and thus it satisfies Locke’s definition of knowledge. He also repeatedly claims that sensitive knowledge is certain. So, despite recent challenges to this interpretation raised in the secondary literature, Locke really does take sensitive knowledge to be certain knowledge. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that punishment is intentionally harmful and that this makes it especially hard to morally justify. Explanations for the latter intuition often say questionable things about the moral significance of the intent to harm. I argue that there’s a better way to explain this intuition.

There’s a long but relatively neglected tradition of attempting to explain why many researchers working on the nature of phenomenal consciousness think that it’s hard to explain.1 David Chalmers argues that this “meta-problem of consciousness” merits more attention than it has received. He also argues against several existing explanations of why we find consciousness hard to explain. Like Chalmers, we agree that the meta-problem is worthy of more attention. Contra Chalmers, however, we argue that there’s an existing explanation that is (...) more promising than his objections suggest. We argue that researchers find phenomenal consciousness hard to explain because phenomenal concepts are complex demonstratives that encode the impossibility of explaining consciousness as one of their application conditions. (shrink)

Alonzo Church provided three criteria for “strict synonymy”, i.e., sameness of semantic content: Alternatives (0), (1), and (2)--in order of increasing course-grainedness of content. On (2) expressions are strictly synonymous iff they are logically equivalent. (1) is a significant improvement over (2). On (1) expressions are synonymous iff they are lambda-convertible. Even on (1), assuming the Millian account of proper names, ‘Tully admires Cicero’ is deemed synonymous with ‘Cicero is self-admiring’. On (0) expressions are strictly synonymous iff they are “synonymously (...) isomorphic” in Church’s sense. A fourth alternative, here called ‘(3)’, has been maintained by several philosophers. On (3) expressions are strictly synonymous iff they are co-intensional. In particular, sentences are strictly synonymous iff they are true with resect to the same possible worlds. This criterion’s notion of content is even more course grained than that of (2). Several objections to (3) are considered. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently come to focus on explaining the phenomenon of ​bad beliefs,​ beliefs that are apparently true and well-evidenced but nevertheless objectionable. Despite this recent focus, a consensus is already forming around a particular explanation of these beliefs’ badness called ​moral encroachment​, according to which, roughly, the moral stakes engendered by bad beliefs make them particularly difficult to justify. This paper advances an alternative account not just of bad beliefs but of bad attitudes more generally according to which bad (...) beliefs’ badness originates not in a failure of sufficient evidence but in a failure to respond adequately to reasons. I motivate this alternative account through an analogy to recent discussions of moral worth centered on the well-known grocer case from Kant’s ​Groundwork​, and by showing that this analogy permits the proposed account to generalize to bad attitudes beyond belief. The paper concludes by contrasting the implications of moral encroachment and of the proposed account for bad attitudes’ blameworthiness. (shrink)

According to Westermarck’s widely accepted explanation of the incest taboo, cultural prohibitions on sibling sex are rooted in an evolved biological disposition to feel sexual aversion toward our childhood coresidents. Bernard Williams posed the “representation problem” for Westermarck’s theory: the content of the hypothesized instinct is different from the content of the incest taboo —thus the former cannot be causally responsible for the latter. Arthur Wolf posed the related “moralization problem”: the instinct concerns personal behavior whereas the prohibition concerns everyone. (...) This paper reviews possible ways of defending Westermarck’s theory from the representation and moralization problems, and concludes that the theory is untenable. A recent study purports to support Westermarck’s account by showing that unrelated children raised in the same peer groups on kibbutzim feel sexual aversion toward each other and morally oppose third-party intra-peer-group sex, but this study has been misinterpreted. I argue that the representation and moralization problems are general problems that could potentially undermine many popular evolutionary explanations of social/moral norms. The cultural evolution of morality is not tightly constrained by our biological endowment in the way some philosophers and evolutionary psychologists believe. (shrink)

I’ll raise a problem for Retributivism, the view that legal punishment is justified on the basis of desert. I’ll focus primarily on Mitchell Berman’s recent defense of the view. He gives one of the most sophisticated and careful statements of it. And his argument is representative, so the problem I’ll raise for it will apply to other versions of Retributivism. His insights about justification also help to make the problem particularly obvious. I’ll also show how the problem extends to non-retributive (...) justifications of punishment. I’ll argue that Berman’s argument makes a questionable assumption about the standard of justification that justifications of punishment must meet to be successful. If we think about what it takes to justify punishment and reflect on the intuitions that retributivists appeal to, it turns out that the intuitions aren’t obviously up to the task. (shrink)

Penelope Mackie and Scott Soames argue, contrary to my Reference and Essence (R&E), that Hilary Putnam was correct that the direct-reference theory of natural-kind terms, taken in conjunction with empirical or otherwise uncontroversial premises, yields non-trivial essentialism, such as the conclusion that water is essentially two-parts hydrogen, one-part oxygen. A controversial distinction is drawn between rigid and non-rigid general terms. A new criterion for general-term rigidity is proposed, and Putnam’s ostensive definition of ‘water’ is reformulated accordingly to generate the consequence (...) that ‘water’ rigidly designates. Mackie and Soames propose a reformulation of Putnam’s ostensive definition that putatively yields the desired result. This reformulation, however, does not correctly explain the meaning of ‘water’ as a substance designator. Furthermore, if taken instead as a redefinition of ‘water’, the essentialism thereby generated is trivial. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to explain why Locke thinks religious belief requires evidence and, on his view, what evidence there is for religious belief. I will explain and defend Locke’s view that revelation can provide evidence for religious beliefs so long as there is evidence that God revealed it. Further, I will show how he takes the historical evidence of the miracles of Jesus as justification for belief in Christianity.

Recently, Michael Huemer has defended the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism: If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. This principle has potentially far-reaching implications. Huemer uses it to argue against skepticism and to defend a version of ethical intuitionism. I employ a reductio to show that PC is false. If PC is true, beliefs can yield justification for believing their contents in cases (...) where, intuitively, they should not be able to do so. I argue that there are cases where a belief that p can behave like an appearance that p and thereby make it seem to one that p. (shrink)

This essay provides a close reading of Kierkegaard’s later signed text, For Self-Examination. While many of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous texts often are selected for their philosophically explicit engagements with Hegelian philosophy, I use Hegel’s dialectic of lordship and bondage to draw out how Kierkegaard circumvents it in this one. I first provide historical context, noting how Kierkegaard turned to earnest works after his public humiliation in the Copenhagen newspaper, undermining his ability to deploy irony effectively. Second, I briefly develop Hegel’s lordship (...) and bondage dialectic as a model for how selfhood is constituted through work and labor. Third, I dwell with a close reading of Kierkegaard’s book both in its composition and in its interpretation, bringing out how it donates grace rather than work (à la Hegel) to the reader’s attempt at self-realization. I conclude by noting one challenge to Kierkegaard’s ideal of addressing the “single individual” from the perspective of intersectional analysis. (shrink)

Plato's city-soul analogy underwrites his overarching argument in the Philebus. I sketch the main lines of the analogy, and then defend it against two prominent objections.

This work examines Kant’s remarkable decision to rewrite the core argument of the first Critique, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. I identify a two-part structure common to both versions: first establishing an essential role for the categories in unifying sensible intuitions; and then addressing a worry about how the connection between our faculties asserted in the first part is possible. I employ this structure to show how Kant rewrote the argument, focusing on Kant’s response to the concerns raised in (...) an early review by Johann Schultz. Schultz’s dissatisfaction with the original Deduction lies in its second part, and Kant’s subsequent revisions are focused on providing a better answer to this how-possible question. The new Deduction offers a more direct and convincing account of how our faculties work together to make experience possible. (shrink)

Hume famously argues that the laws of nature provide us with decisive reason to believe that any testimony of a miracle is false. In this paper, I argue that the laws of nature, as such, give us no reason at all to believe that the testimony of a miracle is false. I first argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful if we assume the Humean view of laws, and then I argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful even if we assume the (...) governing view of laws. I conclude that regardless of which kind of view we adopt, the fact that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature does not give us any reason to believe it did not happen. (shrink)

I argue that legal punishment is morally wrong because it’s too morally risky. I first briefly explain how my argument differs from similar ones in the philosophical literature on legal punishment. Then I explain why legal punishment is morally risky, argue that it’s too morally risky, and discuss objections. In a nutshell, my argument goes as follows. Legal punishment is wrong because we can never sufficiently reduce the risk of doing wrong when we legally punish people. We can never sufficiently (...) reduce this risk because wrongful punishment is much worse than wrongful non-punishment and because punishment’s permissibility depends on the answers to a variety of difficult philosophical questions about which we’re fallible. (shrink)