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This paper presents and evaluates the Brentanian theory of association of ideas. The topic of association usually brings to mind British Empiricism, which is often thought to have a monopoly on the matter. Brentano, however, adopts an original, alternative account of association. He argues that all cases of association can be placed under a single general law, that of "habit". His explicit account of the topic is rather brief; however, his most faithful pupil, Anton Marty, thoroughly developed his master's views. Marty presents Brentano's account of association in detail, and endeavours to defend it against rival theories, notably those which hold that the laws of "similarity", or of what is called "redintegration", are able to explain all cases of association. First, the paper presents the information found in Brentano himself on association of ideas. Then, it turns to Marty to analyze his developments of the Brentanian view. Finally, the paper evaluates Brentano and Marty's account by tackling some objections that it may face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pressing issues in contemporary semantics is whether propositions are structured entities that should be individuated in terms of their components or, contrarily, they lack structure and should be individuated in terms of their inferential relations. Another one is whether propositions should always contain all the information that is needed to deem them true or false—whether they should always be Fregean propositions. The latter debate might seem to presuppose a certain position in the former. However, it is the first aim of this paper to argue that the two debates are orthogonal. Moreover, we will use Frege's thoughts as an example of what we would contemporarily call 'propositions' that, though trivially Fregean, lack structure. Since it is not uncontroversial that Frege's thoughts are unstructured, it is the second aim of this paper to show that it follows from Frege's writings that they are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victor Verdejo's paper 'On Having the Same First Person Thoughts' introduces an interesting and fruitful framework for applying the type-token distinction to first person thoughts. He draws a three-way distinction between types, instantiable types, and instantiated types, and uses that distinction to open up a conceptual space for the possibility of shareable first person thoughts. This note distinguishes two types of interpersonal shareability and argues that Verdejo's suggestions about instantiable types can only secure shareability of the first kind, but not the second. The author then shows how his own account of what he terms the token-sense of "I" (Bermúdez 2011 and 2017) succeeds in making possible this second type of interpersonal shareability, despite the criticisms in Verdejo's paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytic philosophers need to distinguish between what has been called the conditional fallacy and what might be called the self-thwarting fallacy. The paper explores the difference by illustrating how its neglect has obscured the evolution of Keith Lehrer's theory of knowledge. The paper also considers how attending to the distinction helps to reveal new critical concerns regarding Lehrer's treatment of knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In philosophy – especially in philosophy of technology and philosophy of art –, several specific accounts of artifact functionality have been developed. These accounts usually have a restricted scope: they are clearly limited to either technical artifacts or entities of art. In this paper, a contrasting account will be developed, which aims at covering both functions of technical artifacts and functions of art works as well as their instances. The paper is in two parts: In the first part, the method of specifying desiderata that Houkes and Vermaas have introduced to develop their theory of technical functions is adopted. Drawing on exemplary (failed) function ascriptions referring to items of art and technology, four desiderata are presented, all of which an account has to meet to provide a convincing analysis of both function ascriptions to technical artifacts and function ascriptions to art works and their instances. In the second part, an account that meets these desiderata is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, it is examined to what extent functions, as analysed in the philosophy of technical artefacts, can serve a role in explaining the aesthetic appreciation of these objects. The main conclusion is that, despite first appearances, so-called 'Functional Beauty' accounts cannot derive strength from analyses of artefact functions; on the contrary, these analyses constrain the possibilities for developing a suitable, function-based account of aesthetic appreciation. The paper follows a conceptual-engineering approach. After presenting desiderata for an account of aesthetic appreciation, relevant insights are reviewed that are drawn from philosophical work on artefact functions. Combining the desiderata and insights, three major issues are identified that complicate the relation between function ascriptions to and aesthetic appreciation of technical artefacts. In closing, options are offered for resolving these complications or avoiding them altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new deflationary reading of the metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception, usually understood as an “experiential self-reference” that takes place before reflection and any use of concepts. As such, the paper is also a new defense of the old orthodox view that self-consciousness is a highly complex mental phenomenon that requires equally complex concepts. The author’s defense is a clear case of inference to the best explanation. He argues that postulating an “experiential self-reference” to explain the “primitive sense of selfhood” (ecological self, proprioception and the first-person perspective) is as explanatory overkill as attributing perceptions to bacteria to explain the remarkably sophisticated ways in which they adapt, attune, and respond to their environments. This is what the author calls trivialization of self-consciousness. The metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception is far less extravagantly explained by what, based on Recanati, the author calls self-involvement without self-consciousness: there is no “experiential self-reference” because there is no self-reference in the first place. Rather than being articulated as a constituent of the contents of her/his perceptions or proprioception, the self/subject is the key element of the circumstance of evaluation of these selfless contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inductive Metaphysics (IM) combines an anti-aprioristic emphasis on an empirical and scientific basis for metaphysics with an insistence on a specifically philosophical abductive theory-building. Since the latter specifically philosophical work is not empirical itself, it may in a liberal sense be called apriori. This paper highlights this apriori dimension within IM by a case study on Structuralism, the view that fundamental reality consists of a network of relations (and properties), which a number of philosophers consider to be suggested by modern physics. Focussing on Dasgupta's algebraic Generalism, the author argues that Structuralism suffers from a severe entailment problem, because the relations-spanning apparatus must stand for metaphysically fundamental forms. Schaffer's contention that there are no entailment problems is rejected. Advocates of IM are well advised to take seriously their own insistence on metaphysical abduction and not to one-sidedly emphasise the empirical input: the elaboration of exact metaphysical theories and the apriori evaluation of their inherent tenability is a constituent of IM no less important than the consideration of scientific input. More traditional ways of metaphysical reasoning inevitably survive as an essential dimension within IM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A naturalistic impulse has taken speculative analytic metaphysics in its critical sights. Importantly, the claim that it is desirable or requisite to give metaphysics scientific moorings rests on underlying epistemological assumptions or principles. If the naturalistic impulse toward metaphysics is to be well-founded and its prescriptions to have normative force, those assumptions or principles should be spelled out and justified. In short, advocates of naturalized or scientific metaphysics require epistemic infrastructure. This paper begins to supply it. The author first sketches her conception of suitably naturalized or scientific metaphysics. She then lays out a number of candidate epistemic principles centring around the notion of theoretical constraint. The author offers several arguments for the principles, based on statistical likeliness, agreement, falsity avoidance, and methodological efficiency and inefficiency. Finally, she shows how scientific metaphysics satisfies the epistemic principles and is therefore preferable to its traditional rivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, the interest in Brentano’s philosophical psychology, especially in his theory of judgment, has been steadily growing. What, however, has remained relatively unexplored are the modifications that have been introduced over the years into this theory by Brentano himself and by his student Anton Marty. These amendments constitute the focus of the present paper. As will be argued, only by making such changes can the weaknesses of the first formulation of the theory be overcome. Moreover, as the final section of the paper attempts to show, these modifications may even trigger further steps towards what we might label a new Brentanian theory of judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holm Tetens attempts to define ‘god’ as part of his rational theology. The term ‘god’ is supposed to be defined as ‘the infinite I-subject’. This should be achieved through the customary definition of a singular term by description. However, definitions of this kind have to meet certain formal requirements, which a Rational Theology should adhere to. This paper aims to show that Tetens’ definition faces problems with these requirements since vital arguments are either missing or incomplete in a substantial way. In the process, possible approaches to remedy the outlined problems are hinted at. Overall, this paper raises the question of an alternative interpretation of his definition of god, which is central to the author’s project. Holm Tetens versucht im Rahmen seiner rationalen Theologie, eine Definition Gottes vorzulegen. Die Konstante ‚Gott‘ soll als ‚das unendliche Ich-Subjekt‘ definiert werden. Dies soll nach dem üblichen Schema der Definition einer Individuenkonstante über eine Beschreibung erfolgen. Für derartige Setzungen gibt es jedoch formale Voraussetzungen, die gerade unter dem Anspruch, eine rationale Theologie vorzulegen, eingehalten werden sollten. Nachfolgend soll gezeigt werden, dass Tetens’ Definition unter diesen Voraussetzungen problematisch ist, da erforderliche Argumentationen entweder fehlen oder in einem kritischen Maße unvollständig sind. Dabei werden auch Maßnahmen zur Behebung der aufgezeigten Mängel angedeutet, wie etwa die vom Autor stillschweigend vorausgesetzten Aussagen explizit zu machen. Insgesamt wirft die Untersuchung Fragen nach einer alternativen Deutung der für das Gesamtprojekt zentralen Gottesdefinition auf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with an apparent tension in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Wittgenstein holds an expressivist position with regard to avowals, but also claims that the doxastic avowal “I believe that p” is a “hesitant assertion” of p. It is argued that the tension is apparent only and that Wittgenstein’s expressivism in fact justifies and explains his views on “I believe”: avowals typically are explicit expressives and usually implicate (in the Gricean sense) the corresponding illocutionary acts. The hesitant assertion of p is the result of an implicature of the explicit expressive “I believe that p”. The paper also addresses the ambiguity of avowals and the possibility of thereby undermining the Frege-Geach objection to psychological expressivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the apparent nondisplaceability and noncancellability of the derogatory content of slurs, it may appear puzzling that non-derogatory uses of slurs exist. Moreover, these uses seem to be in general available only to in-group speakers, thereby exhibiting a peculiar kind of context-sensitivity. In this paper the author argues that to understand non-derogatory uses we should consider slurs in terms of the kind of social practice their uses instantiate. A suitable theory of social practices has been proposed by McMillan. In typical (derogatory) uses the practice is one of bigotry and discrimination. Non-derogatory uses are only possible to the extent that they consitute acts of an alternative, non-derogatory practice. In the core cases it must be a subversive practice of satire or reappropriation. The social identity of speakers is not an ultimately decisive factor (in-group uses may still be derogatory) but it is an important constitutive condition: most non-derogatory practices of slur-use can only be performed by a member of the target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new style of semantic analysis for (some) slurs : linguistic expressions used to denigrate individuals based on some aspects of their identity. As an illustration, the author will focus on one slur in particular: dyke , which is generally considered to be a derogatory term for lesbians. The author argues that not enough attention in the literature has been paid to the use of dyke by members of the target group, who can often use it in a non-insulting manner; secondly, the author argues not enough attention has been paid to the use of the "neutral" form, lesbian, which is generally treated as having a simple, clear meaning, such as "engage[s] in same-sex sex" (Jeshion, 2013a , 312). Following McConnell-Ginet (2002) , the author argues that taking into account all the uses of both dyke and lesbian requires a new semantics and pragmatics for both terms. More specifically, the author proposes that dyke and lesbian are associated with different sets of personae : abstract identities or stereotypes. Dyke is associated with an anti-mainstream persona, which the vast majority of speakers views negatively; whereas, lesbian is associated with a mainstream persona, which many speakers view favourably. The author proposes that the semantic puzzles associated with dyke and lesbian can be resolved through the combination of a theory of these personae and a theory of how listeners' beliefs about their interlocutors' ideologies affect utterance interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slurs are arguably the most prototypical instance of hate speech: they exemplify very clearly how discourse can hurt, abuse and subordinate human beings. What is contended is whether the derogatory content of a slur occurring in indirect speech is sealed, i.e. entirely ascribed to the reported speaker so that the whole utterance turns out non-derogatory, or whether it gets attributed to the reporting speaker so that the whole utterance sounds derogatory. The paper also contains an analysis of and comparison with Claudia Bianchi's echoic approach to reclamation, which Jeshion argues falls short of accounting for both types of reclamation distinguished. 11 Cepollaro, Bianca, Sulpizio, Simone & Bianchi, Claudia. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of this paper is to show that doxastic compatibilists are making a strong case for genuine doxastic freedom when modelled on compatibilist free will. Unfortunately, their arguments from analogy can be used for the introduction of rather odd forms of freedom that concern our emotions, e.g. "freedom of fear" and "freedom of anger". The author argues that this problem of overgeneralisation also concerns free will compatibilists who originally provided the weak conditions that are used by doxastic compatibilists. She points out the possibilities and costs of avoiding these consequences and concludes that the standard compatibilist picture is not tenable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextualist accounts of aesthetic predicates have difficulties explaining why we feel that speakers are disagreeing when they make true and compatible but superficially contradictory aesthetic judgments. One possible way to account for the disagreement is hybrid expressivism, which holds that the disagreement happens at the level of pragmatically conveyed, clashing contents about the speakers' conative states. Marques (2016) defends such a strategy, combining dispositionalism about value, contextualism, and hybrid expressivism. This paper critically evaluates the plausibility of the suggested pragmatic mechanisms in conveying the kind of contents Marques takes to explain disagreements. The positive part suggests an alternative account of how aesthetic judgments are sources of information about speakers' conative aesthetic states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New varieties of libertarianism connect not only free will and moral responsibility to indeterminism, but also agency and choice as such. In this paper, the author highlights what seems to be an embarrassment for all libertarian accounts, but especially for the ones just mentioned. The problem is brought out by clear cases of decisions in which there are strong and rather obvious reasons for one of the options and only relatively weak ones in favour of the alternatives. It is hard to insist that there be indeterminism even in such cases. Either it has no significant role to play, which means that libertarianism is in effect largely abandoned, or it has a purely negative role, being linked to some serious and thoroughgoing defect in the agent's rationality. Thus, a dilemma for libertarians arises, which the author spells out in the text. Furthermore, he argues that some versions of compatibilism face essentially the same difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent argument suggests that proper names are persistently rigid designators. Invoking the Kaplanian distinction between a world of the context of utterance and a world of the circumstance of evaluation, the argument maintains that names have to designate something only in the former, but not in the latter, implying thus that the designated objects must exist only in the former world. This paper shows that names designate something in both kinds of world and are thus obstinately rigid. This is achieved in three steps. First, the author argues that the contents of names must be available in possible worlds regardless of whether the named objects exist in them. Second, the author argues that these contents are expressed by English names in both kinds of world. Third, since Millianism suggests that names express contents by way of designating objects, the author argues that they have to designate something in both kinds of world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this paper contrasts the account he favors for how fictions can convey knowledge with Green's views on the topic. On the author's account, fictions can convey knowledge because fictional works make assertions and other acts such as conjectures, suppositions, or acts of putting forward contents for our consideration; and the mechanism through which they do it is that of speech act indirection , of which conversational implicatures are a particular case. There are two potential points of disagreement with Green in this proposal. First, it requires that assertions can be made indirectly. Second, it requires that verbal fiction-making doesn't consist merely in "acts of speech", but in sui generis speech acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is twofold: The general aim is to shed light on the structure of species discoveries new to biology by bringing together a practice-oriented philosophy of science perspective with a philosophy of language perspective. The more specific aim is to argue that and to show how the overall structure of biological species discoveries comprises aspects of both institutional and non-institutional reality. The author proceeds as follows: (1) he shows that placing the focus on the topic of scientific discoveries enables us to circumvent two long-standing problems. (2) He analyzes three fictional cases of discoveries in order to bring about a greater sensitivity for the concept of discovery. (3) He takes a closer look at a real example – the discovery of a deep-sea anglerfish – and identifies the main structural features of species discovery processes in biology. (4) In order to connect these results with Searle's account of institutional reality, he provides an overview of the conceptual apparatus needed here. (5) In bringing Searle's account together with the structural features of species discoveries developed before, he shows to what extent declarative speech acts play a central role in species discovery processes in biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author attempts to reconcile two claims recently defended by Mitchell Green. The first is that illocutionary force is part of speaker meaning (Green 2018). The second is that illocutionary force is a product of cultural evolution (Green 2017). Consistent with the second claim, the author argues that some utterances – particularly those produced by infants and great apes – are produced with communicative intent, but without illocutionary force. These utterances lack the normative properties constitutive of force because their utterers have no grasp of the norms that operate on developed speech. If there can be utterances produced with communicative intent that lack force, we must consider how exactly force is a part of speaker meaning. In response the author argues that force is an inessential and acquired part of speaker meaning. As a result we need a conception of communicative intent more basic than illocutionary intent. He spells this out in terms of a 'perlocutionary' intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Mitchell Green , speech act theory traditionally idealizes away from crucial aspects of conversational contexts, including those in which the speaker's social position affects the possibility of her performing certain speech acts. In recent times, asymmetries in communicative situations have become a lively object of study for linguists, philosophers of language and moral philosophers: several scholars view hate speech itself in terms of speech acts, namely acts of subordination (acts establishing or reinforcing unfair hierarchies). The aim of this paper is to address one of the main objections to accounts of hate speech in terms of illocutionary speech acts, that is the Authority Problem. While the social role of the speaker is the focus of several approaches (Langton 2018a, 2018b ; Maitra 2012 ; Kukla 2014 ; Green 2014, 2017a, 2017b), the social role of the audience has too often been neglected. The author will show that not only must the speaker have a certain kind of standing or social position in order to perform speech acts of subordination, but also the audience must typically have a certain kind of standing or social position in order to either license or object to the speaker's authority, and her acts of subordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the author examines Mitchell Green's (2009) account of the expressive power and score-changing function of speech acts; second, he develops an alternative, though also evolutionist approach to explaining these two hallmarks of verbal interaction. After discussing the central tenets of Green's model, the author draws two distinctions – between externalist and internalist aspects of veracity, and between perlocutionary and illocutionary credibility – and argues that they constitute a natural refinement of Green's original conceptual framework. Finally, the author uses the refined framework to develop an alternative account of expressing thoughts with words. In particular, he argues that in theorising about expressing thoughts with words – as well as about using language to change context – we should adopt a Millikanian view on what can be called, following Green, acts of communication and an Austinian approach to speech or illocutionary acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of papers, Crispin Wright has proposed a number of arguments to show that what makes one’s perceptual experience confer justification on the beliefs it gives rise to includes having independent, non-evidential warrant (entitlement) to believe the kind of presuppositions (or ‘cornerstones’) that the skeptic highlights. It has been objected that such arguments at most show that entitlement has a pragmatic character. While sympathizing with this objection, I will argue in this paper that the kind of considerations that Wright adduces in support of the entitlement thesis can nevertheless bear on the epistemic status of cornerstone beliefs, though not in the way envisaged by Wright himself. To show this, I shall make use of the thesis of pragmatic encroachment arguing that, in addition to its practical stakes, the epistemic stakes of a belief are also relevant to its epistemic status. The consequences of the claim will then be explored for the question of the epistemic status of cornerstone beliefs which seem to show that, pace Wright, such beliefs can, after all, be evidentially warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper poses a new challenge to control-based theories of moral responsibility. Control-based theories – as defended, for instance, by Aristotle and John Martin Fischer – hold that an agent is responsible for an action only if she acted voluntarily and knew what she was doing. However, this paper argues that there is a large class of cases of unreflective behavior of which the following is true: (a) the persons involved did not have the kind of control required by control-based theories, yet (b) we intuitively take the persons involved to be morally responsible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to achieve a better understanding of the relation between context sensitivity and faultless disagreement. After some preliminaries, the case of predicates of personal taste will be discussed and the problem of lost disagreement will be addressed. It will be asked whether there is (non-factual) disagreement that might nonetheless be worth having; two types of normative disagreement will emerge. The remainder of the paper is devoted to evaluative predicates in general and predicates of moral and epistemic evaluation in particular. The upshot of the discussion will be that context sensitivity may give rise to disagreement that is faultless yet worth pursuing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolutionary theory of artefact proper function holds that an artefact's proper function is that effect which explains the reproduction of past instances of the artefact type. This theory has many sources but received its clearest presentation in Beth Preston's essay "Why Is a Wing Like a Spoon?" (1998). More recently, Preston has raised an objection to the theory, based on the phenomenon of 'phantom functions': these are functions that an artefact type is unable to perform, but which nonetheless apparently constitute its proper function. Deflecting qi energy, for example, is the proper function of feng shui mirrors, even though no feng shui mirror is able to do this (since qi does not exist). Preston concludes that the existence of phantom functions refutes the evolutionary theory of artefact proper function. In this paper, the evolutionary theory is defended, by arguing that it can adequately account for phantom function cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I ask: what is the role of function in appreciating artifacts? I will argue that several distinguishable functions are relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts, and sometimes more than one of these must be taken into account to adequately appreciate these objects. Second, I will claim that, while we can identify something we might call functional aesthetic value or functional beauty, the aesthetic properties that contribute to this value neither need to enhance the object's performance of its primary function nor manifest that function. There are broader criteria for what properties are relevant to functional beauty. Finally, I suggest that the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts may contribute to a larger appreciative project: the understanding and evaluation of a way of life, or social or cultural practices in which the artifact plays a role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two main theories of ontological commitment: the quantifier view, and the truthmaker view. Since there are some truths that apparently commit us to certain entities, but actually do not, any ontological commitment theory must also contain an ontological reduction theory. Advocates of the quantifier view propose the paraphrasing method of reduction, while some advocates of the truthmaker view propose the supervenience method. In this paper, after a brief discussion of the quantifier view, the author proposes a modified version of truthmaker-based ontology, and shows that a plausible account of the supervenience method can be deduced from his version. He then shows that the supervenience method could explain why the paraphrasing method is successful. The author also argues that according to the truthmaker view we must accept composite objects as something over and above the particles which constitute them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tugby (2013a) and Yates (2016) have recently argued that immanent realism is incompatible with the existence of intrinsic but (at least partially) relationally constituted genuine dispositional properties. The success of Tugby's and Yates' arguments depends either on a strong or on a weak assumption about the interworld identity of dispositional properties. In this paper, the author evaluates the strength of the arguments in question under those two assumptions. He also offers an alternative metaphysical picture for the fundamental dispositional properties which rejects these assumptions and, consequently, undermines the arguments themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human and non-human animals are social beings, both have social interactions. The ability to anticipate behavior of others is a fundamental requirement of social interactions. However, there are several ways of how agents can succeed in this. Two modes of anticipation, namely mindreading and behavior-reading, shape the animal mindreading debate. As a matter of fact, no position has yet convincingly ruled out the other. This paper suggests a strategy of how to argue for a mentalistic interpretation as opposed to a behavioral interpretation. The first step suggests considering a pluralistic approach in order to allow for shortcomings such as not having a natural language. Second, a critical examination of the principle called Morgan's Canon will show that this principle cannot be used as a final argument to rule out mentalistic approaches. Finally, the author argues that the setting of current experiments is responsible for the indistinguishability of mindreading versus behavior-reading and she suggests alternative experimental designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Husserl’s theory of intentionality as it is developed in Logical Investigations and other early writings. In Section 1, the author attempts to capture the core of Husserl’s concept of intentionality. Section 2 is devoted to a detailed analysis of the account of intentional relation developed in the fifth Investigation. In Section 3, the author tries to flesh out what is meant by the claim in the sixth Investigation that the designation ‘object’ is a relative one. In Section 4, the author discusses Husserl’s conception of intentionality in light of the mereology outlined in the third Investigation. In Section 5, the author explains how Husserl criticizes the so-called theory of immanent objects and how he addresses the problem of non-existents. In Section 6, the author argues that a phenomenological theory of intentionality grounded in Husserl’s insights cannot be a non-relational one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary philosophy of science, the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are regarded as the strongest arguments for and against scientific realism, respectively. In this paper, the author constructs a new argument for scientific realism, which he calls the anti-induction for scientific realism. It holds that, since past theories were false, present theories are true. The author provides an example from the history of science to show that anti-inductions sometimes work in science. The anti-induction for scientific realism has several advantages over the no-miracles argument as a positive argument for scientific realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can there be a pill that makes us more moral? This paper argues, first, that S increases her degree of morality by taking a magic pill only if the pill's influence is compatible with the idea that S satisfies moral requirements. Second, given the complex way in which morality both presupposes and protects agential capacities, it follows that a necessary condition for S to satisfy moral requirements is for S to be an agent. The paper then considers two possible mechanics of the pill and shows how opposite assessments regarding the possibility of the pill follow, depending on how exactly it affects someone's agential capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper are Dummett's meaning-theoretical arguments against classical logic based on considerations about the meaning of negation. Using Dummettian principles, I shall outline three such arguments, of increasing strength, and show that they are unsuccessful by giving responses to each argument on behalf of the classical logician. What is crucial is that in responding to these arguments a classicist need not challenge any of the basic assumptions of Dummett's outlook on the theory of meaning. In particular, I shall grant Dummett his general bias towards verificationism, encapsulated in the slogan 'meaning is use'. The second general assumption I see no need to question is Dummett's particular breed of molecularism. Some of Dummett's assumptions will have to be given up, if classical logic is to be vindicated in his meaning-theoretical framework. A major result of this paper will be that the meaning of negation cannot be defined by rules of inference in the Dummettian framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Michael Dummett's criticism of the Neo-Fregean conception of the context principle. I will present four arguments by Dummett that purport to show that the context principle is incompatible with platonism. I discuss and ultimately reject each argument. I will close this paper by identifying what I take to be a deep rooted tension in the Neo-Fregean project which might have motivated Dummett's opposition to the Neo-Fregean use of the context principle. I argue that this tension does give rise to a legitimate concern, yet it does not affect the Neo-Fregean conception of the context principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a paper entitled "Computer Composition and Works of Music: Variation on a Th eme of Ingarden" (1988), Peter Simons explores some ontological problems that ensue from the use of certain forms of composition software, where the final outcome (the score) is the product of random processes within the computer. Such a method of composition raises, among others, the following questions: What kind of work (if any) has been created? Is it a work of music in the first place? Who is the composer/author? Is it the software programmer, the user, the one who selects a particular score for public performance, the computer? What is the relationship of distinct products of the same programme? Are they instances of the same work? In this paper, I shall re-examine these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Simons has been rather alone in the modern philosophy of mathematics to argue that the natural numbers should be regarded as properties of multitudes or collections. This paper, however, sides with Simons, but it modifies his property view by adding the notion of imposed collection boundaries and accepting fictional collections. Although partly inspired by the Husserl of Philosophy of Arithmetic, Simons dismisses Husserl's talk of psychological acts of collective combination, but this paper saves them by dressing them in modern cognitive clothes. Hereby, a reasonable partially constructivist notion of the natural numbers emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The “Context Principle”, as the author understands it in this paper, is the claim that sub-sentential linguistic expressions (roughly speaking, words) have meaning only in the context of complete meaningful sentences. The author reconstructs the version of the Context Principle that Wittgenstein holds in the Tractatus, shows that it has intuitive plausibility and can be defended against alleged counterexamples, and develops an argument for its truth that can be found in the Tractatus. In short, the author argues that the “fit” between the meanings of sentences and the meanings of the expressions they contain can only be adequately explained if one acknowledges that for a sub-sentential expression to have meaning is for it to make a contribution to the meaning of a sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article “Opacity” (1986), David Kaplan propounded a counterexample to the thesis, defended by Quine and known as Quine’s Theorem, that establishes the illegitimacy of quantifying from outside into a position not open to substitution. He ingeniously built his counterexample using Quine’s own philosophical material and novel devices, arc quotes and $entences. The present article offers detailed analysis and critical discussion of Kaplan’s counterexample and proposes a reasonable reformulation of Quine’s Theorem that bypasses both this counterexample and another, in the author’s opinion, more persuasive counterexample, also discussed in this paper and somehow implicit in “Opacity”, which involves Russellian propositions instead of the Quinean apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an account of practical decisions. The author argues that decisions do not need to be conscious, nor do they need to be settled by deliberation. Agents can be mistaken about what they decided and agents can decide by doing some intentional action besides deliberating. The author argues that the functional role of a decision is to put an end to practical uncertainty. A mental event is a decision to the extent that it ends practical uncertainty and to the extent that awareness of this causal role tends to reinforce that fact. This role is causal, but has systematic connections to consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to robust virtue epistemology, the difference between knowledge and mere true belief is that in cases of knowledge, the subject’s cognitive success is attributable to her cognitive agency. But what does it take for a subject’s cognitive success to be attributable to her cognitive agency? A promising answer is that the subject’s cognitive abilities have to contribute to the safety of her epistemic standing with respect to her inquiry, in order for her cognitive success to be attributable to her cognitive agency. Call this idea the contribution thesis. The author will argue that the contribution thesis follows naturally from virtue epistemological accounts of knowledge, and that it is precisely the contribution thesis that allows the virtue epistemologist to deal with a wide variety of objections. Nevertheless, the principal aim of this paper is to argue that virtue epistemological theories of knowledge that are committed to the contribution thesis are ultimately untenable. There are cases of knowledge where the subject’s cognitive abilities do not improve the safety of the subject’s belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show that introspective beliefs about one’s own current visual experiences are not immediate in the sense that what justifies them does not include other beliefs that the subject in question might possess. The argument will take the following course. First, the author explains the notions of immediacy and truth-sufficiency as they are used here. Second, the author suggests a test to determine whether a given belief lacks immediacy. Third, the author applies this test to a standard case of formation of an introspective belief about one’s own current visual experiences and concludes that the belief in question is neither immediate nor truth-sufficient. Fourth, the author rebuts several objections that might be raised against the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued in this paper that physicalism is best understood as a research programme, rather than a thesis or an attitude, as some philosophers argue. Given that research programmes connect past, present and future philosophical or scientific activities, physicalists need not decide between current and future physical theories, as it has been required by Hempel’s Dilemma. The author contrasts this proposal with other solutions to Hempel’s Dilemma proposed by currentists, futurists, and those philosophers who claim that physicalism should best be understood as an attitude, arguing that understanding physicalism as a research programme avoids problems that are present in the alternative views, and that it matches well with the standard classifications in the history of philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties has turned out to be one of the most difficult and controversial tasks in contemporary metaphysics. It is generally assumed that a definition of intrinsicness should aim to avoid as many counterexamples as possible and reduce the notion to less controversial philosophical notions. In this paper, the author argues for a new methodological approach to defining intrinsicness. Rather than trying to cover as many intuitive examples as possible, a definition of intrinsicness should reflect the crucial features of our intuitive understanding of the notion, and one of these features is that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction has to be characterized in a non-reductive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops four proposals for explicating the notion of an ersatz part. It then evaluates each proposal with respect to a number of jobs for which ersatz parts are posited. We argue that each of the four notions of ersatz parthood do better with respect to some jobs, and worse with respect to others. Thus, we think, it's horses for courses: which notion of ersatz part one chooses will be sensitive to which metaphysical project one is pursuing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The claim that it is always good to be reasonable can be understood to mean either that being reasonable is always better than being unreasonable all things considered or that being reasonable is better than being unreasonable in at least one respect. This paper tries to evaluate both claims and argues for the second, weaker thesis while dismissing the first. To do this, two distinct ideas contained in our every-day understanding of reasonability are distinguished and formulated more precisely. It is then argued that, regardless of which idea we take to be fundamental, being reasonable is always good in at least one respect, though not always good all things considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author discusses and defends a theory of consciousness inspired by Franz Brentano, according to which every conscious experience involves a certain kind of immediate awareness of itself. All conscious experience is in a certain fundamental sense 'self-intimating'--it constitutively involves awareness of that very awareness. The author calls this 'the awareness of awareness thesis', and she calls the phenomenon that it concerns 'awareness of awareness' (aoa for short). The author attempts to give a substantive description of what aoa consists in in two ways, first, by listing some of its positive features, and second, by comparing it and contrasting it with introspection. The idea is that there are many different ways we can be aware of our experiences, introspection being one way, aoa being another, distinct way. By clarifying the distinction between aoa and introspection, we can get a better grasp of both phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl's concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]