This paper disputes a common definition of token identity theory. It also observes that within the philosophical literature there are two significantly different definitions of token identity theory that are commonly used.

The thesis that mental states are physical states enjoys widespread popularity. After the abandonment of typeidentity theories, however, this thesis has typically been framed in terms of state tokens. I argue that token states are a philosopher’s fiction, and that debates about the identity of mental and physical state tokens thus rest on a mistake.

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)

Jeagwon Kim's exclusion argument is a well-known argument against non-reductive physicalism in the contemporary debate on mental causation. In this essay, we will first discuss two versions of the exclusion argument: the simple version and the sophisticated version. Secondly, we will take a conservative strategy to defend the kind of non-reductive physicalism initiated by Donald Davidson: the Token Identity Theory. Namely, we will explain where Kim failed to appropriately understand Davidson's work and argue that the simple version and (...) the sophisticated version of the exclusion argument won't work against the clarified token identity theory at all. Lastly, Since much of Kim's inappropriate interpretation of Davidson's work is rooted in their difference in metaphysics, there is reason to believe the proper understanding and evaluation on contemplation as such on mental causation, non-reductive physicalism, and other related problems can't be achieved without finding an appropriate metaphysical frame. (shrink)

This paper presents a new cognitivist account for the old puzzle of self-consciousness or knowing self-reference. Knowing self-reference does not rely on reflection on some putative pre-existent pre-reflexive self-consciousness, nor is it the result of a process of identification of oneself as the employer of the relevant token of “I” according to the token-reflexive rule of the first-person pronoun. Rather, it relies on the architecture of the cognitive system. By exploiting the acquaintance relation that every brain has to (...) one’s own body, a “mental file” is opened in a subliminal way to house information about oneself gained through the appropriate proprioceptors. Knowing self-reference based on self-files dispenses with self-identification because the opening of the file in the same brain/body is not a deed of the cognitive system but rather something that takes place sub-personally. (shrink)

This paper concerns Sydney Shoemaker's view, presented in his book, Physical Realization (Oxford University Press, 2007), of how mental properties are realized by physical properties. That view aims to avoid the "too many minds" problem to which he seems to be led by his further view that human persons are not token-identical with their bodies. The paper interprets and criticizes Shoemaker's view.

Nonreductive physicalism faces serious problems regarding causal exclusion, causal heterogeneity, and the nature of realization. In this paper I advance solutions to each of those problems. The proposed solutions all depend crucially on embracing modal counterpart theory. Hence, the paper’s thesis: counterpart theory saves nonreductive physicalism. I take as my inspiration the view that mental tokens are constituted by physical tokens in the same way statues are constituted by lumps of clay. I break from other philosophers who have pursued this (...) line, however, in that I hold that constitution is identity. Much of the value of the comparison to statues and lumps is that it calls to mind the resources used to defend constitution-as-identity, most notably that of counterpart theory. Along the way, I discuss the virtues of a trope ontology, modal objections to token identity theories, the prospects of conditional analyses of causal powers, the subset account of realization, and the grounding problem. I also endorse a novel, empirical argument in favor of counterpart theory. (shrink)

A Lockean metaphysics of belief that understands outright belief as a determinable with degrees of confidence as determinates is supposed to effect a unification of traditional coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected (...) phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge” – knowledge in the absence of rational confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured, even without token identity, given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification. (shrink)

We take it that we can exercise doxastic agency by reasoning and by making judgments. We take it, that is, that we can actively make up our minds by reasoning and judging. On what I call the ‘Standard View’ this is so because judgment can yield belief. It is typical to take it that judgments yield beliefs by causing them. But on the resultant understanding of the Standard View, I argue, it is unclear how judgment could play its role in (...) doxastic agency in the way we take it to. I therefore offer an alternative understanding of how judgment yields belief. Drawing on Ryle I argue that when one comes to believe by judging the event which is one's judging is token identical to the event which is one's coming to believe. This paves the way for version of the Standard View capable of explaining how we can actively make up our minds despite that we cannot believe or come to believe at will. (shrink)

This article provides a critical analysis of Mark Walker’s type-token theory. This theory purports to describe, explain, and justify the mechanism by which moral and legal responsibility can be attributed to exact and complete duplicates of persons. However, Walker’s defence of the view of persons as abstract entities is met with several metaphysical objections. Alternatively, a new approach to moral and legal responsibility is developed based on principles of agency law, in which the conception of a guilty person does (...) not require identity with the person who committed the culpable act. (shrink)

Content externalism is the dominant view in the philosophy of mind. Content essentialism, the thesis that thought tokens have their contents essentially, is also popular. And many externalists are supporters of such essentialism. However, endorsing the conjunction of those views either (i) commits one to a counterintuitive view of the underlying physical nature of thought tokens or (ii) commits one to a slightly different but still counterintuitive view of the relation of thought tokens to physical tokens as well as a (...) rejection of realist physicalism. In this essay I reveal the problem and articulate and adjudicate among the possible solutions. I will end up rejecting content essentialism. (shrink)

Your belief that Obama is a Democrat would not be the belief that it is if it did not represent Obama, nor would the pain in your ankle be the state that it is if, say, it felt like an itch. Accordingly, it is tempting to hold that phenomenal and representational properties are essential to the mental states that have them. But, as several theorists have forcefully argued (including Kripke (1980) and Burge (1979, 1982)) this attractive idea is seemingly in (...) tension with another equally attractive thesis, namely, the token-identity thesis; the thesis according to which every mental state token is identical with some or other token physical state. In this paper, we show that these seemingly incontrovertible essentialist intuitions are in fact compatible with “token physicalism” regarding the mental. Given a suitably plentitudinous ontology of objects, we argue that there are physical things with which our token mental states can be identified. This is preferable to existing views that give up the essentiality claims or simply reject the token-identity thesis. (shrink)

Can physicalism (or materialism) be non-reductive? I provide an opinionated survey of the debate on this question. I suggest that attempts to formulate non-reductive physicalism by appeal to claims of event identity, supervenience, or realization have produced doctrines that fail either to be physicalist or to be non-reductive. Then I treat in more detail a recent attempt to formulate non-reductive physicalism by Derk Pereboom, but argue that it fares no better.

In this paper, I seek to challenge some contemporary accounts of collective affective intentionality by arguing for irreducibility of ontological autonomy of individual affective experiences. By elaborating on several requirements for reciprocal affective responses, I propose that instead of endorsing tendency of experiential unification, phenomenal fusion and token identity accounts and conceiving of single body of collectivity in terms of extended self, as the ontological bearer of affective intentionality, one has to maintain at least minimal asymmetry of self (...) and other. Moreover, I discuss the role of embodied interaffectivity and mutual incorporation accounts for collective affective experiences. (shrink)

This paper is about the causal exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism. Many philosophers think that this argument poses a serious problem for non-reductive theories of the mind — some think that it is decisive against them. In the first part I will outline non-reductive physicalism and the exclusion argument. Then I will distinguish between three versions of the argument that address three different versions of non-reductive physicalism. According to the first, the relation between mental and physical events is token- (...) class='Hi'>identity. According to the second, mental events are distinct from physical events, but the latter metaphysically include and determine the former. And on the third version, mental and physical events are entirely distinct. I will argue that the causal exclusion argument is not decisive against non-reductive physicalism in any of the three versions. According to non-reductive physicalism, mental events are dependent on physical events. Causal exclusion and overdetermination, however, requires distinct and independent causes. I will argue that the burden of proof lies with the opponents of non-reductive physicalism, who have to explain how metaphysically dependent events can possibly overdetermine an effect or exclude each other from being causally efficacious. (shrink)

Zero and One is Circumference and Diameter (Literally and Figuratively) (Abstract and Concrete) (Unity and Duality) (Unity and Duplicity).

In current discussions on the problem of the metaphysical nature of the word, four factions – eliminativism, nominalism, originalism, and the type-token theory – take an active part. For eliminativism, words as separate entities do not exist; they are only a useful cognitive illusion. In the process of communication, competent speakers make sounds and inscriptions through which they are able to infer certain intentional contents of each other’s cognitive states. However, these sounds and inscriptions cannot be regarded as instances (...) of words since they do not possess the phonological and orthographic properties constitutive of words. For nominalism, by contrast, the streams of sounds and ink patterns produced by competent speakers serve as relevant instances of a particular word, or its tokens. What we usually call “words” are collections of such tokens, composed on the basis of similarity relations (phono- logical, orthographic or semantic). For originalism, the streams of sounds and ink patterns created by competent speakers are stages of words, understood as continuants, concrete ob- jects preserving identity over time, individualized by the causal history of their origin. Words are created by competent speakers through the practice of naming and spread through chains of interpersonal contact. The phonological, orthographic and semantic properties possessed by different stages of the same word are generally useless for a proper description of objects such as words. At different times of their existence, words can change any of their properties (pronunciation, spelling, and even reference) while preserving their identity in time. For the type-token theory, words are types, or abstract objects encoding a particular phonographic pattern, which in the process of communication must be instantiated by a competent native speaker by uttering or writing the appropriate token. The type-token theory has several ad- vantages over the views of eliminativism, nominalism and originalism. Firstly, it offers a unified ontology of linguistic structures (since the division into tokens and types extends here to the whole range of linguistic units, including sentences and letters). Secondly, unlike most of its competitors, it is able to present a clear operational criterion for word identity, while being consistent with most of our intuitive notions of intra- and cross-linguistic phenomena (homonymy, synonymy, etc.). (shrink)

In light of the phenomenon of multiple realizability, many philosophers wanted to preserve the mind-brain identity theory by resorting to a “narrow reductive strategy” whereby one (a) finds mental properties which are (b) sufficiently narrow to avoid the phenomenon of multiple realization, while being (c) explanatorily adequate to the demands of psychological theorizing. That is, one replaces the conception of a mental property as more general feature of cognitive systems with many less general properties, for example, replacing the conception (...) of pain as a general property across different species with a number of species-specific kinds of pain. Many critics focused on (c), arguing that species-specific properties are not explanatorily adequate because they do not capture what is common in pain across species. In this paper I focused on (b). I argued that if one carries the narrow reductive strategy out in such a way to avoid all multiple realizability that occurs within a species, for example, accommodating individual differences by postulating a more narrow pain-relative-to-an-individual-at-a-time, then the result is for all intents and purposes a claim about tokens and not types or properties at all (the position is now about individuals having properties at times, a structured token event). I also added an important point about explanation, viz., that properties-relative-to-individuals-at-times would not serve the explanatory goals of science by failing to generalize to other individuals. (shrink)

A popular solution to the causal exclusion problem in the non-reductive physicalist camp is the trope identity solution. But this solution is haunted by the “quausation problem” which charges that the trope only confers causal powers qua physical, not qua mental. Although proponents of the trope solution have responded to the problem by denying the existence of properties of tropes, I do not find their reply satisfactory. Rather, I believe they have missed the core presupposition behind the quausation problem. (...) I will argue that the presupposition is the generalist notion of causation. Then, for the trope theorists to solve the quausation problem, they need to abandon the generalist notion and adopt the singularist notion of causation. However, making that move will lead them to a new quausation problem, rendering irreducible mental types causally irrelevant and mental causal explanations reducible. Either adopting a generalist notion or a singularist notion of causation, a quausation problem awaits the trope solution. Given this dilemma, my conclusion is that the trope identity solution cannot solve the exclusion problem in a non-reductive way. Moreover, the dilemma can be generalized, showing that token physicalism is a shaky position. (shrink)

In recent analytic literature on the Trinity we have seen a variety of "social" models of the Trinity. By contrast there are few "non-­‐social" models. One prominent "non-­‐social" view is Brian Leftow's "Latin Trinity." I argue that the name of Leftow's model is not sufficiently descriptive in light of diverse models within Latin speaking theology. Next, I develop a new "non-­‐social" model that is inspired by Richard of St. Victor's description of a person in conjunction with my appropriating insights about (...) indexicals from David Kaplan and John Perry. I point out that the copula in tokens of statements like, "I am the Father," is an ambiguous term and when used by a certain divine person a different proposition is affirmed. Central to this model is the claim that the copula bears the "is of identity" and the "is of numerical sameness without identity." Further, I show that Leftow's model employs two concepts of "person," a Lockean one and a Boethian one, and mine employs Richard of St. Victor's. I describe Leftow's model as a "hard non-­‐social" model and mine as a "soft non-­‐social" model that is nearer to some social models. I conclude that Leftow's model is not the lone candidate among "non-­‐social" models and that the variety of "non-­‐social" models has yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

A widely accepted view in the discussion of personal identity is that the notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation. This belief is unfounded. A notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation only if it includes, as a constituent, psychological properties whose relation with their bearers is one--many or many--one; but the relation between an indexical psychological state and its bearer when first tokened is not a one--many or many--one relation. It follows that (...) not all types of psychological continuity may take a one--many or many--one form. This conclusion casts doubt on the Lockean approach to the issue, by showing that the notion of psychological continuity Lockeans rely on may not be available. (shrink)

Under what conditions are two utterances utterances of the same word? What are words? That these questions have not received much attention is rather surprising: after all, philosophers and linguists frequently appeal to considerations about word and sentence identity in connection with a variety of puzzles and problems that are foundational to the very subject matter of philosophy of language and linguistics.1 Kaplan’s attention to words is thus to be applauded. And there is no doubt that his discussion contains (...) many useful insights. Nevertheless, we find his picture deeply flawed for a variety of crosscutting reasons. Our aim in this paper is to further advance an understanding of the nature of words, both by remedying the problems with Kaplan’s account, and also by achieving a suitable perspective on what the metaphysical investigation of word identity can hope to achieve. Our discussion divides into four parts. In Part One, we examine and critique Kaplan’s discussion of a contrast integral to his own account: that between the type-token and the stage-continuant conceptions of words. In Part Two, we present three constraints on any account of words and two further themes in Kaplan’s discussion central to his conception of words – the role of repetition and the constitutive authority of intentions. While these ideas have laudable motivations, we argue they are far from the best way of making good on the insights that drive them. The final two sections take a skeptical turn. In Part Three, we express doubt about Kaplan’s presumption of the importance of what he calls ‘common currency names’, thus raising a suspicion that he may be in pursuit of chimera. Finally, in Part Four, we express pessimism about whether interesting answers to question above will be forthcoming, and suggest that the legitimacy of our word ontology need not depend on the availability of such answers. Along the way, we tease apart a number of metaphysical questions in the vicinity of the topic of word individuation – questions that are often not disentangled – and consider how the discussion of the previous parts bears on them.. (shrink)

JULIAN DODD’S MUSICAL PLATONISM The purpose of the paper is to analyse Julian Dodd’s musical Platonism in the ontology of works of music. Dodd defends two views; first, that musical works are norm-types the tokens of which are dateable, locatable patterns of sounds. Second, that musical works are entities individuated purely in terms of how they sound. The main results of the analysis is the rejection of the following Dodd’s theses: 1. that types exist eternally; 2. that they are unstructured; (...) 3.that their identity is determined by the condition that something must meet to be one of its tokens. Keywords: ONTOLOGY OF WORKS OF MUSIC, MUSICAL PLATONISM, JULIAN DODD. (shrink)

The project of this paper is to deliver a semantics for a broad subset of bare plural generics about racial kinds, a class which I will dub 'Type C generics.' Examples include 'Blacks are criminal' and 'Muslims are terrorists.' Type C generics have two interesting features. First, they link racial kinds with ​ socially perspectival predicates ​ (SPPs). SPPs lead interpreters to treat the relationship between kinds and predicates in generic constructions as nomic or non-accidental. Moreover, in computing their content, (...) interpreters must make implicit reference to socially privileged​ ​ perspectives which are treated as authoritative about whether a given object fits into the extension of the predicate. Such deference grants these authorities influence over both the conventional meaning of these terms and over the nature of the ​ objects ​ in the social ontology that these terms purport to describe, much the way a baseball umpire is authoritative over the meaning and metaphysics of 'strike'/​ strike ​. Second, terms like 'criminal' and 'terrorist' receive default ​ racialized ​ interpretations in which these terms conventionally token racial or ethnic identities. I show that neither of these features can be explained by Sarah-Jane Leslie's influential 'weak semantics' for generics, and show how my own 'socially perspectival semantics' fares better on both counts. Finally, I give an analysis of 'Blacks are criminal' which explores the semantic mechanisms that underlie default racialized interpretations. (shrink)

Aesthetic non-inferentialism is the widely-held thesis that aesthetic judgements either are identical to, or are made on the basis of, sensory states like perceptual experience and emotion. It is sometimes objected to on the basis that testimony is a legitimate source of such judgements. Less often is the view challenged on the grounds that one’s inferences can be a source of aesthetic judgements. This paper aims to do precisely that. According to the theory defended here, aesthetic judgements may be unreasoned, (...) insofar as they are immediate judgements made on the basis of, and acquiring their justification from, causally prior sensory states. Yet they may also be reasoned, insofar as they may be the outputs of certain inferences. Crucially, a token aesthetic judgement may be unreasoned and reasoned, simultaneously. A key reason for allowing inference a serious role in aesthetic judgements emerges from reflection upon the nature of aesthetic expertise. (shrink)

Michael Scriven’s (1959) example of identical twins (who are said to be equal in fitness but unequal in their reproductive success) has been used by many philosophers of biology to discuss how fitness should be defined, how selection should be distinguished from drift, and how the environment in which a selection process occurs should be conceptualized. Here it is argued that evolutionary theory has no commitment, one way or the other, as to whether the twins are equally fit. This is (...) because the theory of natural selection is fundamentally about the fitnesses of traits, not the fitnesses of token individuals. A plausible philosophical thesis about supervenience entails that the twins are equally fit if they live in identical environments, but evolutionary biology is not committed to the thesis that the twins live in identical environments. Evolutionary theory is right to focus on traits, rather than on token individuals, because the fitnesses of token organisms (as opposed to their actual survivorship and degree of reproductive success) are almost always unknowable. This point has ramifications for the question of how Darwin’s theory of evolution and R. A. Fisher’s are conceptually different. (shrink)

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)

Demonstratives (words like ‘this’ and ‘that’) and indexicals (words like ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’) seem intuitively to form a semantic family. Together they form the basic set of directly referring ‘context sensitive’ terms whose reference changes as the environment or identity of the speaker changes. Something that we might expect of a semantics for indexicals is therefore that it would be closely related to a semantics of demonstratives, although recent approaches have generally treated them separately. A promising new theory (...) of indexicals is the ‘token-contextual’ account, which accounts for a wide range of uses of indexicals without encountering the problems faced by competing models. So far this theory has not been considered for demonstratives, however, but only for the indexicals ‘I’, ‘here’ and ‘now’. In this paper I show that the token-contextual account can be elegantly extended to cover demonstratives. Doing so restores unity to our understanding of a natural semantic family, and allows us to identify a single rule governing the most basic context-sensitive terms. (shrink)

Identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for individuating and classifying diseases is a matter of great importance in the fields of law, ethics, epidemiology, and of course, medicine. In this paper, I first propose a means of achieving this goal, ensuring that no two distinct disease-types could correctly be ascribed to the same disease-token. I then posit a metaphysical ontology of diseases—that is, I give an account of what a disease is. This is essential to providing the most effective (...) means of interfering with disease processes. Following existing work in the philosophy of medicine and epidemiology (primarily Christopher Boorse; Caroline Whitbeck; Alexander Broadbent), philosophy of biology (Joseph LaPorte; D.L. Hull), conditional analyses of causation (J.L. Mackie; David Lewis), and recent literature on dispositional essentialism (Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum; Alexander Bird), I endorse a dispositional conception of disease. Following discussion of various conceptions of disease-identity, their relations to the clinical and pathological effects of the diseases in question, and how diseases are treated, I conclude (i) that diseases should be individuated by their causes, and (ii) that diseases are causal processes best seen as simultaneously acting sequences of mutually manifesting dispositions. (shrink)

My dissertation puts forward a critique of the phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT). According to standard accounts of PIT, all genuine intentionality is either identical to or partly grounded in phenomenal consciousness. I argue that it is a conceptually significant mistake to construe conscious experiences in terms of token mental states that instantiate phenomenal properties. This mistake is predicated on ignoring an important difference in the temporal character—what I call the “temporal shape”—between states and properties as opposed to conscious experiences. (...) States and properties lack a temporal shape, but conscious experience has a temporal shape. Thus, in order to adequately capture our phenomenology of temporality we need a mental ontology that adequately reflects this distinction. A second aim of this dissertation is to defend a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality, which says that phenomenality and intentionality are related by being proper parts of a first-personal, subjective, mental event. On this approach, the conditions of satisfaction for a subject’s first-personal, subjective, mental event just are the conditions of satisfaction for phenomenal intentionality. I explore the theoretical grounds for a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality and conclude that it does a better job of explaining difficult cases like the problem of unconscious thought (e.g., your belief that “grass is green”). Thus, we have prima facie support for a mereological account of phenomenal intentionality exactly where competing accounts fail. (shrink)

I critically evaluate Bickle’s version of scientific theory reduction. I press three main points. First, a small point, Bickle modifies the new wave account of reduction developed by Paul Churchland and Clifford Hooker by treating theories as set-theoretic structures. But that structuralist gloss seems to lose what was distinctive about the Churchland-Hooker account, namely, that a corrected theory must be specified entirely by terms and concepts drawn from the basic reducing theory. Set-theoretic structures are not terms or concepts but the (...) structures that they describe. Second, and more serious, a familiar problem for classical positivist account of reduction resurfaces within this newest wave of thinking, namely, commitment to property identities and inter-theoretic bridge laws (a problem I discussed at more length in "Collapse of the New Wave"). Indeed, this problem is exacerbated by Bickle’s conciliatory treatment of property plasticity, since he is willing to grant that a large number of special science terms denote multiply realized properties, at least if realistically construed. Still, in the end, Bickle sidesteps the reduction of properties by appealing to Hooker’s "function-to-structure token reduction." This is an interesting move with an intriguing concept of reduction. But problems remain. For, third, Bickle and Hooker's function-to-structure token reduction is actually a guised form of eliminative materialism. But that should be unacceptable since the position extends well beyond any modest revisionism for suspect items from a folk theory, say, in folk psychology or folk biology. Instead, it applies to functional terms and concepts employed throughout well-developed and explanatorily successful sciences. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that the capacity to think of one’s perceptions as cross-modally integrated is incompatible with a reductionist account of the self. In §2 I distinguish three versions of the argument from cross-modality. According to the ‘unification’ version of the argument, what needs to be explained is one’s capacity to identify an object touched as the same as an object simultaneously seen. According to the ‘recognition’ version, what needs to be explained is one’s capacity, having once (...) seen an object, to reidentify that same object by touch alone. According to the ‘objectivity’ version, what needs to be explained is one’s capacity to think of one’s perceptions in different modalities as perceptions of one and the same object. The third version seems to establish that one must conceive of oneself substantially, as the numerically identical owner of one’s experiences, a conclusion in agreement with recent work in developmental psychology claiming to show that an infant’s cross-modal capacities are essentially implicated in their development of a sense of self. There is further work to be done if this is to be tumed into an argument against reductionism: there is no swift route from the epistemology of self-consciousness to the metaphysics of the self. In the §3, I will claim that there is, nevertheless, an argument linking the two. What I propose is an argument derived, not from the token-reflexive rule for the first-person, but resting on its anaphoric behaviour spanning intensional operators. (shrink)

Artworks have at least some necessary content properties, as do abstract entities such as propositions. But no concrete item, whether an object, event, process etc., could have any necessary content property. So no artwork could be identical with a concrete item. Hence artworks must be abstract. I also argue that artworks are only contingently connected with concrete items, just as propositions are only contingently linked to their linguistic tokens.

The vertiginous rise of right-wing populism, especially in its “nationalist, xenophobic and conservative form”, and some “racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist” drifts associated with this phenomenon – whether real or perceived as such – make the mainstream media play a double role. On the one hand, the mainstream media reflect the struggle for political hegemony between different vested interests; on the other hand, they engage in the fight against right-wing populism blasting both right-wing populist candidates and their voters or supporters. (...) Many mainstream journalists ask citizens to realize a “sanitary cordon”, a “wall” or a “republican front” to block far-right populism and preserve liberal democracy. Moreover, they urge people to be wary of all attempts to “dediabolize” or “normalize” some tokens of right-wing populism. The main idea of this article is that right-wing populism is more harmless than is generally believed and, if excessive, negative media coverage doesn’t baffle but feed it. Populism is essentially a latent side effect of liberal democracy. Populism rises and becomes obtrusive only if a significant part of society perceives a regime of illiberal majoritarianism instead of one of liberal democracy. Right-wing populists are chiefly frustrated “ci-devants” who feel dispossessed of their past, identity, properties, qualities, privileges or titles. Inasmuch as the causes of collective frustration are many and varied (e.g. the real or just perceived corruption of the elites, the “system”, the deep state, the relocation of jobs, immigration, national sovereignty, national identity, communitarianism, radical Islamism, the status of some traditional institutions, some chapters of official history, etc.), there will always be right-wing populists, whether they are self-declared or covert. By adopting David G. Hackett’s thesis that the media are “agents of hegemony”, we applied the critical analysis of discourse to a set of 346 media articles in order to reveal the discursive sources of power, domination, inequality and partiality. The articles appeared in The New York Times and Le Monde during the period 2016-2017, at the time when the presidential elections took place in the United States and France. The articles were selected according to the occurrence of the keywords “Donald Trump” – “populism” and “Marine Le Pen” – “populisme” within the titles. The analysis of these articles reveals a divisive discursive structure that correspond to a real political cleavage in society. It is true that populism presents a “Manichean outlook”, in which there are only friends and foes” and no compromise is possible. It is also true that mainstream media reinforce this Manichean perspective on society and make populists feel marginalized and politically disempowered. The mainstream media may appease right-wing populism if they treat its followers as legitimate and equal political actors. For this, they have to give up the narrative structures that underscore insurmountable divergences and irreconcilable interests. In a liberal democracy, mass media should chiefly play the role of mediator. They may not aim to defeat or re-educate certain categories of citizens just because they advocate “wrong” political solutions. (shrink)

Important conceptual and metaphysical issues arise when we try to understand the mental lives of “split-brain” subjects. How many distinct streams of consciousness do they have? According to Elizabeth Schechter’s partial unity model, the answer is one. A related question is whether co-consciouness, in general, is transitive. That is, if α and β are co-conscious experiences, and β and γ are co-conscious experiences, must α and γ be co-conscious? According to Schechter, the answer is no. The partial unity model faces (...) some serious objections. Its underpinnings are suspect, and ways of working out the model fall into trouble of various sorts: incoherence, emptiness, or unacceptable indeterminacy about the identity of (token) conscious states. One apparent lesson is that a subject can host two distinct conscious experiences of the same sort. Another is that the co-consciousness relation is transitive after all. (shrink)

Issues concerning the spatial orientation of pictures play an important, though previously neglected, role in an adequate understanding of the nature and identity of visual artworks and other pictures. Using a previous contrast ('Artworks Versus Designs', BJA Vol. 41, No. 4, October 2001), I show that differing orientations of a design naturally give rise to distinct pictures, which may be appropriated as distinct artworks by a discerning artist--which also shows that such artworks cannot be types, since they share a (...) common token. The investigation also raises some significant issues concerning artistic printmaking, and strongly suggests in addition that two new concepts of interpretation--of identifying and constitutive interpretation--are required to adequately explain the artistic phenomena that are uncovered. (shrink)

We examine how Frege’s contrast between identity judgments of the forms “a=a” vs. “a=b” would fare in the special case where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are complex mental representations, and ‘a’ stands for an introspected ‘I’-thought. We first argue that the Fregean treatment of I-thoughts entails that they are what we call “one-shot thoughts”: they can only be thought once. This has the surprising consequence that no instance of the “a=a” form of judgment in this specific case comes out true, (...) let alone a priori true. This further reinforces Glezakos’s objections against the set-up of Frege’s puzzle, while also raising what we think is an acute problem for Fregeans, insofar as I-thought (and indexical thinking more generally), understood in their way, turns out to be incompatible with some basic features of rationality. (shrink)

Imagine that you and a duplicate of yourself are lying unconscious, next to each other, about to undergo a complete step-by-step exchange of bits of your bodies. It certainly seems that at no stage in this exchange of bits will you have thereby switched places with your duplicate. Yet it also seems that the end-result, with all the bits exchanged, will be essentially that of the two of you having switched places. Where will you awaken? I claim that one and (...) the same person possesses both bodies, occupies both places and will experience both awakenings, just as a person whose brain has been bisected must at once experience both of the unconnected fields of awareness, even though each of these will falsely appear to him as the entirety of his experience. I also claim that the more usual apparent boundaries of persons are as illusory as those in brain bisection; personal identity remains unchanged through any variation or multiplication of body or mind. In all conscious life there is only one person - I - whose existence depends merely on the presence of a quality that is inherent in all experience - its quality of being mine, the simple immediacy of it for whatever is having experience. One powerful argument for this is statistical: on the ordinary view of personhood it is an incredible coincidence for you (though not for others) that out of 200,000,000 sperm cells the very one required on each occasion for your future existence was first to the egg in each of the begettings of yourself and all your ancestors. The only view that does not make your existence incredible, and that is not therefore (from your perspective) an incredible view, is that any conscious being would necessarily have been you anyway. It is a consequence that self-interest should extend to all conscious organisms. (shrink)

The phenomena of terrorism and other politically motivated violence have been assessed across different disciplines from political science and economics to theology and psychology. Whereas the definitions of the concepts of “terrorism” and “terrorist” are disputed and they rather reflect the perspectives of the defining entity, there is a common consensus that terrorism can be classified in terms of its type (such as state-sponsored, dissent, religious, pathological, narco-, cyber-, and bioterrorism), the scale (i.e. domestic vs. international), motives, and objectives. By (...) the same token, the roots and causes of terrorism can be enumerated as internal sources (such as social, economic, political, and cultural indicators) and external sources (such as colonialism and neocolonialism, regional conflicts and historical enmities, failed/failing states and lawless areas, and the penetration of foreign cultures and lifestyles). Although such grounds can be considered as the collective causes, they can merely address how one becomes a potential appropriate recruit for terrorist organizations. Hence, identifying the causes of terrorism is of paramount significance in order to both combat and most importantly prevent terrorism. Given that the first generation of psychological approaches to terrorist violence, chiefly drawing from psychoanalytic theory, has basically run its course, this study takes a systematic approach to evaluate the root causes of terrorism, particularly from social and behavioral perspectives, and attempts to address some key questions such as the progress of and reasons for individuals supporting, joining and leaving terrorist organizations, the relevance of psychopathology to comprehending and preventing terrorism, and the roles of ideology, identity, and belonging in terrorist behavior. (shrink)

The classical rule of Repetition says that if you take any sentence as a premise, and repeat it as a conclusion, you have a valid argument. It's a very basic rule of logic, and many other rules depend on the guarantee that repeating a sentence, or really, any expression, guarantees sameness of referent, or semantic value. However, Repetition fails for token-reflexive expressions. In this paper, I offer three ways that one might replace Repetition, and still keep an interesting notion (...) of validity. Each is a fine way to go for certain purposes, but I argue that one in particular is to be preferred by the semanticist who thinks that there are token-reflexive expressions in natural languages. (shrink)

Reichenbachian approaches to indexicality contend that indexicals are "token-reflexives": semantic rules associated with any given indexical-type determine the truth-conditional import of properly produced tokens of that type relative to certain relational properties of those tokens. Such a view may be understood as sharing the main tenets of Kaplan's well-known theory regarding content, or truth-conditions, but differs from it regarding the nature of the linguistic meaning of indexicals and also regarding the bearers of truth-conditional import and truth-conditions. Kaplan has criticized (...) these approaches on different counts, the most damaging of which is that they make impossible a "logic of demonstratives". The reason for this is that the token-reflexive approach entails that not two tokens of the same sentential type including indexicals are guaranteed to have the same truth-conditions. In this paper I rebut this and other criticisms of the Reichenbachian approach. Additionally, I point out that Kaplan's original theory of "true demonstratives" is empirically inadequate, and claim that any modification capable of accurately handling the linguistic data would have similar problems to those attributed to the Reichenbachian approach. This is intended to show that the difficulties, no matter how real, are not caused by idiosincracies of the "token-reflexive" view, but by deep facts about indexicality. (shrink)

The economic crisis in Europe exposes the European Union’s political fragility. How a polity made of very different states can live up to the motto “Europe united in diversity” is difficult to envisage in practice. In this paper I attempt an “exegesis”—a critical explanation or interpretation of a series of published pieces (“the Series”) which explores, first, if European unity is desirable at all. Second, it presents a new methodology—analogical hermeneutics—used throughout the Series to approach the problem of unity. Third, (...) it conceptualises the source of unity as political identity. Fourth, it advances that the vehicle to share such identity is an analogical language: the political culture of human rights. Fifth, it submits the conditions under which such political culture could ground political identity through an open public sphere. Finally, it presents a way in which solidarity can grow as the increasingly diverse citizens of the European Union interact with each other. Even though the economic crisis can be solved by means of sound economic strategy (which is not the main object of my work), any successful economic strategy requires—as a precondition—a certain degree of political unity (the central concern of my research). (shrink)

In this paper we prove the completeness of three logical systems I LI, IL2 and IL3. IL1 deals solely with identities {a = b), and its deductions are the direct deductions constructed with the three traditional rules: (T) from a = b and b = c infer a = c, (S) from a = b infer b = a and (A) infer a = a(from anything). IL2 deals solely with identities and inidentities {a ± b) and its deductions include both (...) the direct and the indirect deductions constructed with the three traditional rules. IL3 is a hybrid of IL1 and IL2: its deductions are all direct as in IL1 but it deals with identities and inidentities as in IL2. IL1 and IL2 have a high degree of naturalness. Although the hybrid system IL3 was constructed as an artifact useful in the mathematical study of IL1 and IL2, it nevertheless has some intrinsically interesting aspects. The main motivation for describing and studying such simple systems is pedagogical. In teaching beginning logic one would like to present a system of logic which has the following properties. First, it exemplifies the main ideas of logic: implication, deduction, non-implication, counterargument(or countermodel), logical truth, self-contradiction, consistency,satisfiability, etc. Second, it exemplifies the usual general metaprinciples of logic: contraposition and transitivity of implication, cut laws, completeness,soundness, etc. Third, it is simple enough to be thoroughly grasped by beginners. Fourth, it is obvious enough so that its rules do not appear to be arbitrary or purely conventional. Fifth, it does not invite confusions which must be unlearned later. Sixth, it involves a minimum of presuppositions which are no longer accepted in mainstream contemporary logic. (shrink)

Synonymy, at its most basic, is sameness of meaning. A token-reflexive expression is an expression whose meaning assigns a referent to its tokens by relating each particular token of that particular expression to its referent. In doing so, the formulation of its meaning mentions the particular expression whose meaning it is. This seems to entail that no two token-reflexive expressions are synonymous, which would constitute a strong objection against token-reflexive semantics. In this paper, I propose and (...) defend a notion of synonymy for token-reflexive expressions that allows such expressions to be synonymous, while being a fairly conservative extension of the customary notion of synonymy. (shrink)

Slurs are derogatory, and theories of slurs aim at explaining their “derogatory force”. This paper draws a distinction between the type derogatory force and the token derogatory force of slurs. To explain the type derogatory force is to explain why a slur is a derogatory word. By contrast, to explain the token derogatory force is to explain why an utterance of a slur is derogatory. This distinction will be defended by examples in which the type and the (...) class='Hi'>token derogatory force come apart. Because of the distinction, an adequate theory of slurs must be plausible for both the type and the token derogatory force. However, I will argue that many theories fail to be plausible for both. In particular, Hom’s combinatorial externalism and the conventional implicature theory offer implausible accounts of the token derogatory force, whereas the prohibitionist theory is insufficient to explain the type derogatory force. (shrink)

In this paper I outline and defend a new approach to personal-identity—personal-identity non-cognitivism—and argue that it has several advantages over its cognitivist rivals. On this view utterances of personal-identity sentences express a non-cognitive attitude towards relevant person-stages. The resulting view offers a pleasingly nuanced picture of what we are doing when we utter such sentences.

Clearing algorithms are at the core of modern payment systems, facilitating the settling of multilateral credit messages with (near) minimum transfers of currency. Traditional clearing procedures use batch processing based on MILP - mixed-integer linear programming algorithms. The MILP approach demands intensive computational resources; moreover, it is also vulnerable to operational risks generated by possible defaults during the inter-batch period. This paper presents TORC3 - the Token-Ring Clearing Algorithm for Currency Circulation. In contrast to the MILP approach, TORC3 is (...) a real time heuristic procedure, demanding modest computational resources, and able to completely shield the clearing operation against the participating agents’ risk of default. (shrink)

Identity-Relative Paternalism, as defended by Wilkinson, holds that paternalistic intervention is justified to prevent an individual from doing to their future selves (where there are weakened prudential unity relations between the current and future self) what it would be justified to prevent them from doing to others.1 Wilkinson, drawing on the work of Parfit and others, defends the notion of Identity-Relative Paternalism from a series of objections. I argue here, however, that Wilkinson overlooks a significant problem for (...) class='Hi'>Identity-Relative Paternalism—namely, that it yields unactionable and self-contradictory results when applied to choices where both options present potential harms to future selves. (shrink)

There are many grounds to object to tokenism, but that doesn’t mean we should always avoid being the token woman, argues Anca Gheaus.

The two-fold ontological character of linguistic objects revealed due to the distinction between “type” and “token” introduced by Ch. S. Peirce can be a base of the two-fold, both theoretical and axiomatic, approach to the language. Referring to some ideas included in A. A. Markov’s work [1954] (in Russian) on Theory of Algorithms and in some earlier papers of the author, the problem of formalization of the concrete and abstract words theories raised by J. Słupecki was solved. The construction (...) of the theories presented here has two levels. The axiomatic theory of label-tokens: material, physical linguistic objects, constitutes the first one. Label-types, according to the literature of the subject, are defined on the other level as equivalence classes of equiform label-tokens. Assuming the opposite point of view, one can accept that theory of label-types: abstract labels, formalized on the first level, in which it is possible to define the notion of label-token as well as the derivative notions on the second level, should become the basis of formalization of the theory of linguistic expressions and the theory of language in general. The axioms and definitions of both theories of labels: T k and T p representing the other approach to the ontology of language are included in the sequel of the abstract. The foundations of the theory of labels T k in which the primary assumption as to the label-types existence is superfluous have been referred on the basis of the author's monography "Teorie Języków Syntaktycznie Kategorialnych" ( "The Theories of Syntactically Categorial Languages"), PWN, Warszawa-Wrocław 1985. The basis of the theory of labels T p which takes into account the other position has to be presented here for the first time. Some extended ideas of the paper will also be presented in author's paper "Logiczne podstawy ontologii składni Języka" ("Logical foundations of language syntax ontology), Studia Filozoficzne 6-7 (271-272), (1988), pp. 263-284. (shrink)