Conflicts between our best philosophical theories (BPTs) and our common beliefs are widespread. For example, if eliminativism is our BPT, then our BPT conflicts with common beliefs about the existence of middle-sized composite artifacts. “Compatibilism” is the name usually given to a theoretical attitude, according to which, in the case of a conflict between BPT and a common belief P, we should try to find a reconciliation. The two major variants of compatibilism are “semantic compatibilism” (SC) and “cognitive compatibilism” (CC). (...) According to SC, to be reconciled with BPT is the “real” version of the content of our ordinary assertions; according to CC, to be reconciled with BPT is the mental state we are “really” in while thinking P. In this paper, we present a new kind of compatibilism, epistemic compatibilism (EC). According to EC, to be reconciled with BPT is the explanation of why we believe that P. After presenting EC, we will argue that it fares better than SC and CC for at least two related reasons: EC does not rely on any form of what we call semantic or cognitive “recarving”; thus, EC avoids some sceptical problems that aect the other two versions of compatibilism. (shrink)

Commonsense ontology often conflicts with the ontology of our best scientific and philosophical theories. However, commonsense ontology, and commonsense belief systems in general, seems to be remarkably efficient and cognitively fundamental. In cases of contrast, it is better to find a way to reconcile commonsense and ”theoretical” ontologies. Given that commonsense ontologies are typically expressed within natural language, a classical procedure of reconciliation is semantical. The strategy is that of individuating the ”ontologically problematic” expressions of natural language and paraphrasing the (...) sentences in which they appear in a (formal) language whose commitments are compatible with those of our best theories. We believe that this strategy of reconciliation, though quite standard, especially in the philosophical literature, is problematic: for a start, it forces us to conclude that the ”real content” of our commonsense expressions and beliefs is different from what it appears. Commonsense ontology becomes just an illusion. We will thus propose an alternative approach: according to our view, a commonsense ontology is reconciled with a theoretical ontology in case it is shown that the explanation of why we believe in the existence of a problematic entity is compatible with our best theories. We will call this kind of reconciliation ”epistemic”. The advantage of an epistemic reconciliation is that commonsense ontology is treated in its own right and could be taken prima facie. Another advantage of the view is that epistemic reconciliation can be analysed through the notion of explaining away: a commonsense ontology is epistemically reconciled with a theoretical ontology if and only if the problematic entities of the commonsense ontology are explained away by ”respectable” entities of the theoretical ontology. In the final part of the paper, we sketch a formal analysis of explaining away. (shrink)

The notion of validity for modal languages could be defined in two slightly different ways. The first is the original definition given by S. Kripke, for which a formula φ of a modal language L is valid if and only if it is true in every actual world of every interpretation of L. The second is the definition that has become standard in most textbook presentations of modal logic, for which a formula φ of L is valid if and only (...) if it is true in every world in every interpretation of L. For simple modal languages, “Kripkean validity” and “Textbook validity” are extensionally equivalent. According to E. Zalta, however, Textbook validity is an “incorrect” definition of validity, because: (i) it is not in full compliance with Tarski’s notion of truth; (ii) in expressively richer languages, enriched by the actuality operator, some obviously true formulas count as valid only if the Kripkean notion is used. The purpose of this paper is to show that (i) and (ii) are not good reasons to favor Kripkean valid- ity over Textbook validity. On the one hand, I will claim that the difference between the two should rather be seen as the result of two different conceptions on how a modal logic should be built from a non-modal basis; on the other, I will show the advantages, for the question at issue, of seeing the actuality operator as belonging to the family of two-dimensional operators. (shrink)

Aaccording to D. K. lewis (1973), would-couterfactuals and might-counterfactuals are duals. from this, it follows that the negation of a would-counterfactual is equiv- alent to the corresponding “might-not”-counterfactual and that the negation of a might-counterfactual is equivalent to the corresponding “would-not”- counterfactual. there are cases, however, where we seem to be entitled to accept the would- counterfactual and we are also equally entitled to accept the corresponding might-not-counterfactual and cases where we seem to be entitled to accept the might-counterfactual without (...) being equally entitled to reject the corresponding would-not-counterfactual. In this paper, I will show that a distinction between two types of rejections for counterfactuals (p-rejection and s-rejection) and the recognition that might-not-counterfactuals may play the role of p-rejections (by an application to counterfactuals of the lewisian approach to conversational scores) could explain why the problematic cases should not be seen as cases where the duality of would- and might-counterfactuals fails. (shrink)

In this paper, I claim that two ways of defining validity for modal languages (“real-world” and “general” validity), corresponding to distinction between a correct and an incorrect way of defining modal valid- ity, correspond instead to two substantive ways of conceiving modal truth. At the same time, I claim that the major logical manifestation of the real- world/general validity distinction in modal propositional languages with the actuality operator should not be taken seriously, but simply as a by-product of the way (...) in which the semantics of such an operator is usually given. (shrink)