The truth of a statement depends on the world in two ways: what the statement says is true if the world is as the statement says it is; on the other hand, what the expressions in the statement mean depends on what the world is like (for instance, on what conventions are in place). Each of these two kinds of dependence of truth on the world corresponds to one of the dimensions on the two-dimensional semantic framework, developed in the 1970’ (...) in the work of Evans, Kaplan, Kripke and Stalnaker. The introduction provides a systematic overview of the framework, the ideas of its earlier originators, recent developments and criticism. Finally, it gives a brief overview over the contributions to the volume. (shrink)

This is the text of Dr. Sterrett's replies to an interviewer's questions for simplycharly.com, a website with interviews by academics on various authors, philosophers, and scientists.

I defend a Deferred Ostension view of quotation, on which quotation-marks are the linguistic bearers of reference, functioning like a demonstrative; the quoted material merely plays the role of a demonstratum. On this view, the quoted material works like Nunberg’s indexes in his account of deferred ostensión in general. The referent is obtained through some contextually suggested relation; in the default case the relation will be … instantiates the linguistic type __, but there are other possibilities. In this way, the (...) deferred ostension view deals with a problem I pointed out for the identity proposal in my earlier work, that we do not merely refer with quotations to expression-types, but also to other entities related in some way to the relevant token we use: features exhibited by the token distinct from those constituting its linguistic type, features exhibited by other tokens of the same type but not by the one actually used (as when, by using a graphic token, we refer to its phonetic type), or even other related tokens (see the examples on p. 261 of García-Carpintero 1994). (shrink)

I argue racial injustice undermines the reliability of news source reports in the information domain of racial injustice. I argue that this in turn undermines subjects’ doxastic justification in inferences they base on these news sources in the racial injustice information domain. I explain that racial injustice does this undermining through the effect of racial prejudice on news organizations’ members and the effect of society's racially unjust structure on non-dominant racial group-controlled news sources.

The paper defends a version of Direct Reference for indexicals on which reference-fixing material (token-reflexive conditions) plays the role of an ancillary presupposition.

I present a novel position vis-à-vis the views in the Latin American philosophy literature regarding whether subjects more aptly use "Hispanic" or "Latinx" to refer to Hispanic- or-Latinx people. To this end, I will argue (C) the term "Afro-Latinx" is more apt than "Hispanic" or "Latinx" in a significant number of cases. This conclusion is based on three premises. The first premise (P1) is that use of "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US (...) society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The second premise (P2) is that that neither the term "Hispanic" nor the term "Latinx" provide subjects with this understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The third premise (P3) is that the term "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with more understanding of these events than the terms, "Hispanic" and "Latinx.” I present three cases which feature the experiences of Afro-Dominican people. The 1992 murder of Dominican man Kiko García by New York Police officer O’Keefe is first case. The second case is the Washington Heights Uprising that ensued Kiko García’ murder. An instance where a nightclub bouncer in the Dominican Republic denies a Dominican women entry because of her hair texture composes the third case. (shrink)

l argue that, contra Chalmers,a skeptical scenario involving deception is a genuine possibility,even if he is correct that simulations are real. I call this new skeptical position “Illusory World Skepticism.” Illusory World Skepticism draws from the simulation argument,together with work in physics,astrobiology, and AI,to argue that we may indeed be in an illusory world—a universe scale simulation orchestrated by a deceptive AI—the technophilosopher’s ultimate evil demon. In Section One I urge that Illusory World Skepticism is a bone fide skeptical possibility. (...) In Section Two, I explore features of quantum computation. Then, in Sections Three and Four, I draw from the discussion of quantum computation and assume that the simulation argument is correct,applying considerations from the fields of astrobiology and AI safety to illustrate that illusory world skepticism constitutes what I call “a serious epistemic threat”, a scenario that cannot be dismissed as requiring that knowledge is certainty or which seems to just depict a remote, fictional situation. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Colin McGinn’s claim that the mind is not miraculous but merely mysterious, and that this mystery is due to the limits of our cognitive faculties. To adequately present the flow and unity of McGinn’s overall argument, I offer an extended and uninterrupted précis of his case, followed by a critique. I will argue that McGinn’s argument is unsuccessful if it is intended to persuade non-naturalists, but nevertheless may be a plausible position for a naturalist, qua (...) naturalist, to take on the mind. (shrink)

On a literal reading of `Computing Machinery and Intelligence'', Alan Turing presented not one, but two, practical tests to replace the question `Can machines think?'' He presented them as equivalent. I show here that the first test described in that much-discussed paper is in fact not equivalent to the second one, which has since become known as `the Turing Test''. The two tests can yield different results; it is the first, neglected test that provides the more appropriate indication of intelligence. (...) This is because the features of intelligence upon which it relies are resourcefulness and a critical attitude to one''s habitual responses; thus the test''s applicablity is not restricted to any particular species, nor does it presume any particular capacities. This is more appropriate because the question under consideration is what would count as machine intelligence. The first test realizes a possibility that philosophers have overlooked: a test that uses a human''s linguistic performance in setting an empirical test of intelligence, but does not make behavioral similarity to that performance the criterion of intelligence. Consequently, the first test is immune to many of the philosophical criticisms on the basis of which the (so-called) `Turing Test'' has been dismissed. (shrink)

As touch remains commonly defined by the closeness it physically implies and it rhetorically evokes, the mere notion of distant touch and of distal haptic perception seems peculiar. But Aristotle’s perspective, which I wish to take as a point of departure, is firm: we perceive the objects of touch, the hot and the cold, the hard and the soft, the curved and the sharp, through other things: δι' ἑτέρων. In this article, I would like to explore this ἕτερος by showing (...) how the otherness of perception always implies an intermediary, a middle point (μέσος), i.e. an other not so other, an other that is able to translate the much more distant otherness of the perceived object. To explore these forgotten layers of alterity that fall into what we commonly conceive of as the impalpable emptiness of distance, I propose to study the idea of distant touch from the perspective of phenomenological aesthetics. In order to do so, I will first examine some aspects of the Husserlian account of perception and will then focus on the phenomenology of distant touch in Alejandra Costamagna’s novel El Sistema del Tacto [The System of Touch] (2018). (shrink)

In this article, I explore the role of the body in Indian thought through the lens of Lilian Silburn’s works, focusing on the idea of carving the cosmos, namely of somatic performances that have cosmological relevance. First, I delve into her biography, to study, subsequently, her analysis of ancient Vedic philosophy, the Brāhmaṇa, the Upanişad, and Buddhism. In this manner, I touch upon a series of conceptual developments, trying to understand the constant tensions between the discontinuous and the continuous, the (...) non-arranged and the arranged, the multiple and the One, and finally between eternalism and nihilism. I conclude by examining the way Buddhism has of resolving these tensions in the non-substantial theory of Karman. (shrink)

Trope theory is an increasingly prominent contender in contemporary debates about the existence and nature of properties. But it suffers from ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation reveals two fundamentally different concepts of a trope: modifier tropes and module tropes. These types of tropes are unequally suited for metaphysical work. Modifier tropes have advantages concerning powers, relations, and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes have advantages concerning perception, causation, character-grounding, and the ontology of substance. Thus, the choice between modifier (...) tropes and module tropes is significant and divides the advantages of trope theory simpliciter. In addition, each resulting trope theory is unstable: modifier trope theory threatens to collapse into realism and module trope theory threatens to collapse into austere nominalism. This invites reflection on the stability of trope theory in general. (shrink)

In Charles Mills’ essay, “White Ignorance,” and his trail-blazing monograph, The Racial Contract, he developed a view of how Whiteness or anti-Black-Indigenous-and-Latinx racism causes individuals to hold false beliefs or lack beliefs about racial injustice in particular and the world in general. I will defend a novel exegetical claim that Mills’ view is part of a more general view regarding how racial injustice can affect a subject’s epistemic standing such as whether they are justified in a belief and whether their (...) degree of confidence in the belief is rational given their evidence. Then, in light of this novel exegetical claim, I show how this interpretation of Mills’ view that racial injustice causes ignorance relates to how epistemically justified philosophers and social scientists are in the views that dominate their respective scholarly literature. (shrink)

I discuss an aspect of the relation between accounts of de se thought and the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification. I will argue that a deflationary account of the latter—the Simple Account, due to Evans —will not do; a more robust one based on an account of de se thoughts is required. I will then sketch such an alternative account, based on a more general view on singular thoughts, and show how it can deal with the problems I (...) raise for the Simple Account. (shrink)

Schiffer has given an argument against supervaluationist accounts of vagueness, based on reports of vague contents. Suppose that Al tells Bob ‘Ben was there’, pointing to a certain place, and later Bob says, ‘Al said that Ben was there’, pointing in the same direction. According to supervaluationist semantics, Schiffer contends, both Al’s and Bob’s utterances of ‘there’ indeterminately refer to myriad precise regions of space; Al’s utterance is true just in case Ben was in any of those precisely bounded regions (...) of space, and Bob’s is true just in case Al said of each of them that it is where Ben was. However, while the supervaluationist truth-conditions for Al’s utterance might be satisfied, those for Bob’s cannot; for Al didn’t say, of any of those precisely delimited regions of space, that it is where Ben was. In an earlier version of the material presented here (García-Carpintero 2000) I replied to Schiffer’s argument that supervaluationism has an independently well-motivated defense. The response is essentially based on the point that the occurrence of ‘there’ in Bob’s utterance (and of ‘tall’ in Wright’s argument) occurs in indirect discourse, and supervaluationists may allow that it shifts its referent there. Schiffer’s reply to this response shows that it was not made sufficiently clearly. In this paper I will try to improve on that score. In his more recent reply, Schiffer (2000b, 325) dismisses a proposal like the one I will make, mainly because it “undermines … a leading virtue of supervaluationism … its implication that vagueness is … not a feature of the world.” I will argue that my reply does not undermine the fundamental contentions of the supervaluationist account. (shrink)

There is a largely unrecognized ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation throws into relief two fundamentally different conceptions of a trope and provides two ways to understand and develop each metaphysical theory that put tropes to use. In this paper I consider the relative merits that result from differences concerning a trope’s ability to ground the character of ordinary objects. I argue that on each conception of a trope, there are unique implications and challenges concerning character-grounding.

There are propositions constituting the content of fictions—sometimes of the utmost importance to understand them—which are not explicitly presented, but must somehow be inferred. This essay deals with what these inferences tell us about the nature of fiction. I will criticize three well-known proposals in the literature: those by David Lewis, Gregory Currie, and Kendall Walton. I advocate a proposal of my own, which I will claim improves on theirs. Most important for my purposes, I will argue on this basis, (...) against Walton’s objections, for an illocutionary-act account of fiction, inspired in part by some of Lewis’s and Currie’s suggestions, but (perhaps paradoxically) above all by Walton’s deservedly influential views. (shrink)

As the English word “scientism” is currently used, it is a trivial verbal truth that scientism—an inappropriately deferential attitude to science—should be avoided. But it is a substantial question when, and why, deference to the sciences is inappropriate or exaggerated. This paper tries to answer that question by articulating “six signs of scientism”: the honorific use of “science” and its cognates; using scientific trappings purely decoratively; preoccupation with demarcation; preoccupation with “scientific method”; looking to the sciences for answers beyond their (...) scope; denying the legitimacy or worth of non-scientific (e.g., legal or literary) inquiry, or of writing poetry or making art. (shrink)

There is a long standing controversy in education as to whether education ought to be teacher- or student- centered. Interestingly, this controversy parallels the parent- vs. child-centered theoretical swings with regard to good parenting. One obvious difference between the two poles is the mode of communication. “Authoritarian” teaching and parenting strategies focus on the need of those who have much to learn to “do as they are told,” i.e. the authority talks, the child listens. “Non-authoritarian” strategies are anchored in the (...) assumption that youngsters ought to be encouraged to develop their natural interests and talents and hence that it is important to allow the children to do the talking and that adults listen. Both strategies seemed flawed due to the absence of the inherent wisdom of its opposing view. This chasm can be overcome. The Community of Inquiry, a pedagogical method used in Philosophy for Children, demands a method of communication which is able to bridge this gap. A Community of Inquiry is neither teacher-centered and controlled nor student-centered and controlled, but centered on and controlled by the demands of truth. Truth is absolutely essential to this method; it is only because of progress toward truth that participants are ultimately convinced of the fruitfulness of the process. Truth, however, is a hard taskmaster; it places severe restrictions on participants and puts exacting demands on the facilitator. These inherent restrictions and demands are too often underplayed, overlooked and sometimes seemingly overtly denied by those who, quite correctly emphasize that ultimately this method depends on maintenance and enhancement of student autonomy. This underrating of the role of the facilitator has led to a severe undervaluing of this otherwise brilliant pedagogical method, but worse, it has left novice teacher/facilitators ill prepared to utilize this method successfully. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Michael Loux’s important distinction between “tropes” and “tropers”. First, I argue that the distinction throws into relief an ambiguity and discrepancy in the literature, revealing two fundamentally different versions of trope theory. Second, I argue that the distinction brings into focus unique challenges facing each of the resulting trope theories, thus calling into question an alleged advantage of trope theory—that by uniquely occupying the middle ground between its rivals, trope theory is able to recover and (...) preserve the insights of these views. Ultimately, the distinction suggests that trope theory is a divided house. (shrink)

Critical notice of Richard Gaskin's "The Unity of the Proposition" (OUP 2008).

Suicide is a complex act whose meanings, while sometimes tragic, vary widely. This chapter surveys the ethical landscape surrounding algorithmic methods of suicide prevention especially as it pertains to social media activity and to the moderation of online suicide communities. We begin with a typology of suicide, distinguishing between varied goals in which suicide may factor as a means. Suicides should be understood as an act with varied eliciting desires, meanings, consequences, and ethics. Further,while many suicides may be grounded on (...) irrational desire, we argue that a desire to suicide may nonetheless be rational in some cases. We then offer a survey of the attempts by social media corporations to create suicide prediction algorithms and launch interventions aimed at preventing suicide as well as an overview of the current ethical debate. We argue that the values embedded within algorithmic suicide prevention nudges are “thick” in a substantive sense and deserving of scrutiny. Given that debates about the rationality, meaning, and permissibility of suicide are common and subject to intracultural and cross-cultural differences, we maintain that the task of suicide prediction is ill-suited to algorithmic approaches. Despite an algorithm’s ability to quantify a complex phenomenon like suicide risk and its appearance of objectivity, any suicide prediction algorithm is thoroughly subjective and involves moral judgments all the way down. Any such algorithm would necessarily impose a normative stance on suicide onto its user base that is subject to reasonable intra and cross-cultural disagreement. (shrink)

I argue that Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda differed in their conclusions regarding the status of Indigenous persons at least partly because las Casas had significant, yet incomplete, understanding of Indigenous persons, culture and societies and Sepúlveda had mere knowledge of them. To this end, I show that the epistemic state of understanding explains why Las Casas properly concluded that Indigenous persons deserve the same moral status afforded to Europeans. And I show how las Casas’ understanding (...) of Indigenous persons, culture and societies related to what he got wrong about Indigenous persons. (shrink)

Many academic works as well as many works of art are such that if they had never been produced, no one would be worse off. Yet it is hard to resist the judgment that some such works are good nonetheless. We are rightly grateful that these works were created; we rightly admire them, appreciate them, and take pains to preserve them. And the authors and artists who produced them have reason to be proud. This should lead us to question the (...) view that in order for a thing to be good, in a sense which implies that the thing merits our attention and positive concern, it needs to be good for someone or something whose welfare is enhanced by it. (shrink)

In the course of his discussion of perception, Searle criticizes representative theories in general. In this paper I will argue that, even though his criticisms may be adequate regarding a certain form of these theories, perhaps the most frequently defended by philosophers of perception, a version I will outline here scapes to them. A second issue I raise concerns Searle’s claim that his theory of perception is a form of direct realism. I will raise difficulties for Searle’s attempt to maintain (...) at the same time a “token-reflexive” theory of perception and the thesis of direct realism. (shrink)

While artificial womb technology is currently being studied for the purpose of improving neonatal care, I contend that this technology ought to be pursued as a means to address the unprecedented rate of unintended pregnancies. But ectogenesis, alongside other emerging reproductive technologies, is problematic insofar as it threatens to disrupt the natural link between procreation and parenthood that is normally thought to generate rights and responsibilities for biological parents. I argue that there remains only one potentially viable account of parenthood: (...) the voluntarist account, which construes parental rights as robust moral obligations that must be voluntarily undertaken. The problem is that this account mistakenly presumes a patriarchal divide between procreation and parenthood. I propose a reframing of procreation and parenthood from a feminist perspective that recognises gestational motherhood as involving robust moral obligations that ought to be voluntarily undertaken. If this were the case, all gestational mothers would be, by definition, willing mothers. To make this happen I argue that ectogenesis technology must be a widely available reproductive option. (shrink)

Is there any interesting sense in which we can speak of an act as 'evil', in contrast to simply "morally bad' or "immoral"? In ordinary language, we typically judge actions as evil that somehow differ significantly, in terms of degree or intensity, from commonplace wrongdoing. If taken to an extreme, however, this view simply reduces the difference between evil and immoral acts to a mere quantitative analysis. At worst, it leads to a wholly trivial account of evil as just those (...) actions we tend to regard as "really bad". In this paper, I outline a distinctively Kantian theory of evil that instead defends a fundamental qualitative difference between evil and more ordinary immoral actions, locating the main distinction in terms of the structure of the agent's will itself Broadly understood, this strategy endorses a Kantian account of "evil as dehumanization" in which a "material" -- as opposed to purely "formal" -- difference exists between the respective maxims of the immoral and the evil agent. In such instances, unlike typical cases of Kantian immoral actions, direct violation of another person's humanity qua human somehow comprises a necessary part of the "material object" of an evil agent's will. (shrink)

In this short paper I will introduce an idea which, I will argue, presents a fundamental additional challenge to the machine consciousness community. The idea takes the questions surrounding phenomenology, qualia and phenomenality one step further into the realm of intersubjectivity but with a twist, and the twist is this: that an agent’s intersubjective experience is deeply felt and necessarily co-affective; it is enkinaesthetic, and only through enkinaesthetic awareness can we establish the affective enfolding which enables first the perturbation, and (...) then the balance and counter-balance, the attunement and co-ordination of whole-body interaction through reciprocal adaptation. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses that are (...) indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. (shrink)

El presente trabajo expone el diálogo entre nietzsche y la escuela darwinista, destacando el contraste entre dos nociones de «vida» opuestas: vida como lucha por la supervivencia o vida como voluntad de poder. En oposición a la selección natural, que según nietzsche no favorece a los fuertes y poderosos sino a lo mediano y al «gran número», el filósofo alemán idea un proyecto de cría (Züchtung), una formación tanto fisiológica como moral que aspira a una auténtica elevación del ser humano, (...) mediante la superación de las interpretaciones nihilistas y la transvaloración de los valores desde una perspectiva vitalista. (shrink)

In this analysis of one of the most difficult and neglected topics in Hegelian studies, Songsuk Susan Hahn tackles the status of contradiction in Hegel's ...

Drawing on Husserl, Ingarden and Levinas’ works, this article explores Ibsen’s Rosmersholm from a phenomenological perspective, aiming to shed light both on this play and on the phenomenology of hunger and theatre, as well as on the larger meaning of alimentary enjoyment.

There is a relationship between touch and language at the heart of which lies the philosophical problem of the secret. As Derrida points out, since Aristotle touch has been qualified as ἄδηλον: secret, nocturnal, barely apparent. After some brief etymological remarks, in this article, I explore the mystery that touch represents for language through Levinas’ concept of the secret, thematizing two levels: first, that of the contemporary critique of ocularcentrism, then the level of the tactile experiences that can hardly be (...) put into words. (shrink)

As the subtitle “A Syncretistic Account of Fictional Entities” makes clear, Alberto Voltolini intends in this book to argue for a syncretic view of the ontology and the semantics of fiction. In the process, he offers sympathetic and clear presentations of the main contenders in the field, discussing first ontological matters (chapters 1–4) and then semantic questions (chapters 5–6), and concluding with an ‘ontological’ argument for the allegedly syncretic brand of realism about fictional entities he has by then endorsed. The (...) book will therefore be very useful for all those who want to have a guided overview of the state of the art in the field, and very helpful if used as a main text for an introductory graduate course. (shrink)

In the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin argued that his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection represented a significant breakthrough in the understanding of instinctive behaviour. However, many aspects in the development of his thinking on behavioural phenomena indicate that the explanation of this particular organic feature was by no means an easy one, but that it posed an authentic challenge – something that Darwin himself always recognized. This paper explores Darwin’s treatment of instincts within his theory of natural (...) selection. Particular attention is given to elucidate how he tackled the difficulties of explaining instincts as evolving mental features. He had to explain and demonstrate its inheritance, variation, and gradual accumulation within populations. The historical and philosophical aspects of his theory are highlighted, as well as his study of the case in which the explanation of instincts represented a ‘special difficulty’; that is, the sterile castes of social insects. (shrink)

Tropes, as distinguished from other possible kinds of entities such as universals, states of affairs, events and bare particulars, are best-suited to play the role of causal relata.

I aim to synthesize two issues within theistic metaphysics. The first concerns the metaphysics of creaturely properties and, more specifically, the nature of unshareable properties, or tropes. The second concerns the metaphysics of providence and, more specifically, the way in which God sustains creatures, or sustenance. I propose that creaturely properties, understood as what I call modifier tropes, are identical with divine acts of sustenance, understood as acts of property-conferral. I argue that this *theistic conferralism* is attractive because it integrates (...) trope theory and the doctrine of sustenance in a mutually enhancing way. Taking modifier tropes to be divine acts mitigates certain weaknesses of trope theory and safeguards divine sustenance from the threat of both deism and occasionalism. (shrink)

La complejidad del mundo actual demanda de nuevas formas de pensar, diferentes a las convencionales. La educación exige cambios acelerados en la formación de los seres humanos. Cambios impredecibles que toman por sorpresa, quizá se está frente a una transformación en contextos geográficos, comunicación, convivencia con los ‘otros’; todo ello afectado por las transformaciones constantes. A la par de estas transformaciones, las grandes problemáticas sociales, ambientales, políticas, económicas continúan creciendo, no se logra alcanzar una sostenibilidad en el estilo de vida (...) de las sociedades. Es cierto que estamos en un mundo globalizado gracias a la Internet y a las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC), por consecuente la información está al alcance de la mayoría de los seres humanos. Si el planeta está al frente de una globalización tecnológica, la educación también debe globalizarse, sin perder la identidad local. De ahí nace el desafío de reinventar los procesos de formación, direccionarlos hacia la transformación social, y al desarrollo de competencias profesionales básicas como el ‘aprender a vivir juntos’ bajo los cánones éticos que como civilización históricamente se practica. (shrink)

Cultural evolution is normally framed in informational terms. However, it is not clear whether this is an adequate way to model cultural evolutionary phenomena and what, precisely, “information” is supposed to mean in this context. Would cultural evolutionary theory benefit from a well-developed theory of cultural information? The prevailing sentiment is that, in contradistinction to biology, informational language should be used nontechnically in this context for descriptive, but not explanatory, purposes. Against this view, this article makes the case for the (...) need to take a proper biology-based “informational turn” in the cultural evolutionary sciences. I argue that the current vague use of informational language misses out on the potential benefits for advancing understanding of phenomena that information-theoretic reasoning has provided in other sciences, especially genetics. In particular, by emphasizing the informational aspects of cultural evolutionary processes, this approach can clarify some conceptual and methodological problems that have plagued cultural evolutionary theory since its inception, including (1) how to determine the channel conditions of cultural information flow, (2) the nature and scope of cultural information, and (3) how to quantify trends of cultural cumulation. More generally, theories of cultural evolution will be incomplete until the mechanisms underlying cultural processes are better understood and integrated into the explanations. This article explores the adequacy of an information-theoretic framework to accomplish these purposes. (shrink)

The method of metaphysics: Metaphysics is empirical but depends not, like the sciences, on recondite experience but on close attention to aspects of everyday experience we ordinarily scarcely notice. "Real" is a broader concept than "exists" (which applies only to particulars) and also applies to phenomena, kinds, and laws, which are real, but not, of course, existent entities. But "there are real kinds, laws, etc." doesn't imply that all the kinds and laws we believe are real, are. I call my (...) approach "Innocent Realism" because--though it's certainly not naive--it requires attending to experience, so far as possible, without substantial preconceptions. There is one real world, enormously varied but also integrated. It includes physical stuff, kinds, laws, etc. and, here on earth, a vast array of human artifacts, physical, social, intellectual, and imaginative, all intimately interconnected. All this requires human mindedness (a better word than "mind" because it doesn't suggest that human mentality is an organ like the heart or the liver). Rather, it's a complex congeries of dispositions and abilities: to understand even such a relatively simple thing as what's involved in someone's believing something, we need to take account of the person's dispositions to behavior, verbal and otherwise; to the neurophysiological realizations of these dispositions; and to their connections to the world and to words in the person's linguistic community--this last requiring other people's words-world connection. "Virtual" reality is just one more computer artifact, clever, no doubt, but not metaphysically startling. It's oversold, but this is advertising hype, not serious metaphysics. (shrink)

In recent work, Williamson has defended a suggestive account of assertion. Williamson claims that the following norm or rule (the knowledge rule) is constitutive of assertion, and individuates it: (KR) One must ((assert p) only if one knows p) Williamson is not directly concerned with the semantics of assertion-markers, although he assumes that his view has implications for such an undertaking; he says: “in natural languages, the default use of declarative sentences is to make assertions” (op. cit., 258). In this (...) paper I will explore Williamson’s view from this perspective, i.e., in the light of issues regarding the semantics of assertion-markers. I will end up propounding a slightly different account, on which, rather than KR, what is constitutive and individuating of assertion is an audience-involving transmission of knowledge rule: (TKR) One must ((assert p) only if one’s audience comes thereby to be in a position to know p) I will argue that TKR, of which KR is an illocutionary consequence (but not the other way around), has all the virtues that Williamson claims for his account and no new defect. (shrink)

The claim that knowledge is grounded on a basic, non-inferentially grasped set of principles, which seems to be Aristotle’s view, in contemporary epistemology can be seen as part of a wider foundationalist account. Foundationalists assume that there must be some premise-beliefs at the basis of every felicitous reasoning which cannot be themselves in need of justification and may not be challenged. They provide justification for truths based on these premises, which Aristotle unusually call principles (archái). Can Aristotle be considered a (...) foundationalist? Are his first principles necessary premises to right inferences? We will look at the issue here. (shrink)

Summary Analogue models are actual physical setups used to model something else. They are especially useful when what we wish to investigate is difficult to observe or experiment upon due to size or distance in space or time: for example, if the thing we wish to investigate is too large, too far away, takes place on a time scale that is too long, does not yet exist or has ceased to exist. The range and variety of analogue models is too (...) extensive to attempt a survey. In this article, I describe and discuss several different analogue model experiments, the results of those model experiments, and the basis for constructing them and interpreting their results. Examples of analogue models for surface waves in lakes, for earthquakes and volcanoes in geophysics, and for black holes in general relativity, are described, with a focus on examining the bases for claims that these analogues are appropriate analogues of what they are used to investigate. A table showing three different kinds of bases for reasoning using analogue models is provided. Finally, it is shown how the examples in this article counter three common misconceptions about the use of analogue models in physics. (shrink)

This paper defends a version of Davidson’s demonstrative theory of quotation and against against the Fregean identity theory (IT henceforth) as articulated and defended by Corey Washington (1992). On the Fregean view, when an expression is referred to by means of quotation the quoted material itself is a linguistic referring expression. Quotation-marks are not needed; when they are used, they serve to make clearer the shift in syntactic and semantic properties effected on the quoted material by its occupying that linguistic (...) context: whatever its usual syntactic function, the quoted material functions as a singular term; whatever its usual semantic function, in that linguistic environment the quoted material refers to itself. On DT, in contrast, quotation-marks themselves are the linguistic bearers of reference, functioning like a demonstrative; the quoted material merely plays the role of a demonstratum. In the version I argue for the referent is obtained through some contextually suggested relation; in the default case the relation will be: … instantiates the linguistic type __, but there are other possibilities. In this way, the view can deal with the fact that we do not merely refer with quotations to expression-types, but also to other entities related in some way to the relevant token we use: features exhibited by the token distinct from those constituting its linguistic type, features exhibited by other tokens of the same type but not by the one actually used (as when, by using a graphic token, we refer to its phonetic type), or even other related tokens. (shrink)

n this paper I take up these proposals, giving reasons to incorporate semantic features associated with proper names over and above their referent in any (genuine) semantic account of natural language. I also argue that my proposal is compatible with the main points made in Naming and Necessity, by contending that not Millianism but externalism was the claim most forcefully argued for in that impressive piece of work.

Transference theorists propose to explain causation in terms of the transference of a physical element. I argue, in two steps, that this is not possible. First, I show that available accounts of ‘transference’ ultimately convey that transference -and, consequently, causation- is the (non-relational) identity over time of the transferred element (a universal, a trope, or even an absolute substance). But, second, I try to defend, it is conceptually impossible that causation is (non-relational) identity.