831 results
Search Results
2. Selection of papers for the special issue of philosophical studies
- Author
-
Richard L. Purtill
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Metaphysics ,Selection (genetic algorithm) ,Epistemology - Published
- 1990
3. The maturation of the Gettier problem
- Author
-
Allan Hazlett
- Subjects
Philosophy of language ,Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy ,Contemporary philosophy ,Short paper ,Gettier problem ,Metaphysics ,Attribution ,Epistemology ,Philosophical progress - Abstract
Edmund Gettier�s paper �Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?� first appeared in an issue of Analysis (Vol. 23, No. 6), dated June of 1963, and although it�s tempting (and common) to wax hyperbolic when discussing the paper�s importance and influence, it is fair to say that its impact on contemporary philosophy has been substantial and wide-ranging. Epistemology has benefited from 50 years of sincere and rigorous discussion of issues arising from the paper, and Gettier�s conclusion that knowledge is not justified true belief is sometimes offered as an example of the reality of philosophical progress. (The idea that one short paper could be so important continues to fascinate philosophy students.) However, what can be called the Gettier problem has little to do with the text of the famous paper itself. The importance of the Gettier problem does not depend on the attribution of the tripartite theory of knowledge to Plato, Chisholm, and Ayer, nor on the psychological plausibility of the par ...
- Published
- 2014
4. A counterexample to the contrastive account of knowledge.
- Author
-
Rourke, Jason
- Subjects
THEORY of knowledge ,CONTRASTIVE linguistics ,PROPOSITION (Logic) ,CONTEXTUALISM (Philosophy) ,TERNARY system - Abstract
Many epistemologists treat knowledge as a binary relation that holds between a subject and a proposition. The contrastive account of knowledge developed by Jonathan Schaffer maintains that knowledge is a ternary, contrastive relation that holds between a subject, a proposition, and a set of contextually salient alternative propositions the subject's evidence must eliminate. For the contrastivist, it is never simply the case that S knows that p; in every case of knowledge S knows that p rather than q. This paper offers a counterexample to the contrastive account of knowledge. Part 1 summarizes the contrastive theory developed by Schaffer in a series of recent papers. Part 2 presents an example from a class of cases characterized by compatibility between the proposition p and each of the alternative propositions that occupy q. In such cases the alternative propositions that partially constitute the ternary contrastive relation play no role in the acquisition of knowledge. Part 3 considers and rejects potential responses to the counterexample. The paper concludes that the contrastive theory is not a general account of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Suspended judgment.
- Author
-
Friedman, Jane
- Subjects
MORAL judgment ,THEORY of knowledge ,ATTITUDE (Psychology) ,BELIEF & doubt ,AGNOSTICISM - Abstract
In this paper I undertake an in-depth examination of an oft mentioned but rarely expounded upon state: suspended judgment. While traditional epistemology is sometimes characterized as presenting a 'yes or no' picture of its central attitudes, in fact many of these epistemologists want to say that there is a third option: subjects can also suspend judgment. Discussions of suspension are mostly brief and have been less than clear on a number of issues, in particular whether this third option should be thought of as an attitude or not. In this paper I argue that suspended judgment is (or at least involves) a genuine attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Naughty beliefs.
- Author
-
Huddleston, Andrew
- Subjects
PROPOSITION (Logic) ,EPISTEMIC logic ,EPISTEMICS ,THEORY of knowledge ,PHILOSOPHY - Abstract
Can a person ever occurrently believe p and yet have the simultaneous, occurrent belief q that this very belief that p is false? Surely not, most would say: that description of a person's epistemic economy seems to misunderstand the very concept of belief. In this paper I question this orthodox assumption. There are, I suggest, cases where we have a first-order mental state m that involves taking the world to be a certain way, yet although we ourselves acknowledge that we are in m, we reflectively disavow m's propositional content. If such an epistemic stance is possible, does this irrationally persistent first-order state m really deserve the title of 'belief,' or should it instead be classified under some other, less doxastic appellation? I argue in this paper that the 'belief' terminology is warranted, and thus, that we can be correctly described as having the second-order belief that a specific first-order belief that we nonetheless continue to hold is false. In such cases, our first-order state is what I refer to as a naughty belief. Like naughty toddlers, naughty beliefs are recalcitrant in the face of epistemic authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Stakes, withholding, and pragmatic encroachment on knowledge.
- Author
-
Schroeder, Mark
- Subjects
EPISTEMIC logic ,THEORY of knowledge ,EPISTEMICS ,REASONING ,REASON - Abstract
Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge-in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality-the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role-even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. A problem for contrastivist accounts of knowledge.
- Author
-
Kelp, Christoph
- Subjects
CONTRAST (Philosophy) ,THEORY of knowledge ,SKEPTICISM ,CLOSURE (Rhetoric) ,PROPOSITION (Logic) ,PARADOX - Abstract
This paper raises a problem for contrastivist accounts of knowledge. It is argued that contrastivism fails to succeed in providing a modest solution to the sceptical paradox-i.e. one according to which we have knowledge of a wide range of ordinary empirical propositions whilst failing to know the various anti-sceptical hypotheses entailed by them-whilst, at the same time, retaining a contrastivist version of the closure principle for knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Rationally self-ascribed anti-expertise.
- Author
-
Bommarito, Nicolas
- Subjects
EXPERTISE ,RATIONALISM ,REASON ,PHILOSOPHY - Abstract
In their paper, 'I Can't Believe I'm Stupid,' Adam Elga and Andy Egan introduce a notion of anti-expertise and argue that it is never rational to believe oneself to be an anti-expert. I wish to deny the claim that it is never rational for agents like us to ascribe anti-expertise to ourselves by describing cases where self-ascribed anti-expertise makes real life agents more rational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Getting it right.
- Author
-
Ahlstrom-Vij, Kristoffer and Grimm, Stephen
- Subjects
MONISM ,MATERIALISM ,DUALISM ,PLURALISM ,PHILOSOPHY - Abstract
Truth monism is the idea that only true beliefs are of fundamental epistemic value. The present paper considers three objections to truth monism, and argues that, while the truth monist has plausible responses to the first two objections, the third objection suggests that truth monism should be reformulated. On this reformulation, which we refer to as accuracy monism, the fundamental epistemic goal is accuracy, where accuracy is a matter of 'getting it right.' The idea then developed is that accuracy is a genus with several species. Believing truly is a prominent species, but it is not the only one. Finally, it is argued that accuracy monism is equally good or better than both traditional truth monism and its main dialectical rival, value pluralism, when it comes to satisfying three important axiological desiderata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. Justification magnets.
- Author
-
Jenkins, C.
- Subjects
JUSTIFICATION (Ethics) ,JUSTIFICATION (Theory of knowledge) ,PREDICATE (Logic) ,MAGNETISM ,INTERPRETATION (Philosophy) - Abstract
David Lewis is associated with the controversial thesis that some properties are more eligible than others to be the referents of our predicates solely in virtue of those properties' being more natural; independently, that is, of anything to do with our patterns of usage of the relevant predicates. On such a view, the natural properties act as 'reference magnets'. In this paper I explore (though I do not endorse) a related thesis in epistemology: that some propositions are 'justification magnets'. According to the doctrine of justification magnetism, we have better justification for some propositions than for others solely in virtue of certain features of those propositions; independently, that is, of anything to do with evidential support or cognitive accomplishment. In the course of discussing an objection to justification magnetism I describe (though I do not endorse) a novel approach to epistemology akin to interpretationism in the theory of reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Moderate epistemic expressivism.
- Author
-
Ahlstrom-Vij, Kristoffer
- Subjects
EXPRESSIVISM (Ethics) ,EPISTEMIC logic ,VALUES (Ethics) ,THEORY of knowledge ,EVIDENTIALISM - Abstract
The present paper argues that there are at least two equally plausible yet mutually incompatible answers to the question of what is of non-instrumental epistemic value. The hypothesis invoked to explain how this can be so- moderate epistemic expressivism-holds that (a) claims about epistemic value express nothing but commitments to particular goals of inquiry, and (b) there are at least two viable conceptions of those goals. It is shown that such expressivism survives recent arguments against a more radical form of epistemic expressivism, as well as two further arguments, framed in terms of the two most promising attempts to ground claims about epistemic value in something other than commitments to particular conceptions of inquiry. While this does not establish that moderate epistemic expressivism is true, its ability to explain a significant but puzzling axiological datum, as well as withstand strong counterarguments, makes clear that it is a theory to be reckoned with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. Intuitive knowledge.
- Author
-
Chudnoff, Elijah
- Subjects
INTUITION ,PERCEPTION (Philosophy) ,THEORY of knowledge ,BELIEF & doubt ,OBJECT (Philosophy) - Abstract
In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge-i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? A natural idea about perception is that a perception makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you sensorily aware of the concrete objects it is about. The analogous idea about intuition is that an intuition makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you intellectually aware of the abstract objects it is about. I expand both ideas into fuller accounts of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, explain the main challenge to this sort of account of intuitive knowledge (i.e. the challenge of making sense of intellectual awareness), and develop a response to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. Knowledge and epistemic necessity.
- Author
-
Hawthorne, John
- Subjects
THEORY of knowledge ,EPISTEMICS ,PHILOSOPHY - Abstract
Claims of the form 'I know P and it might be that not-P' tend to sound odd. One natural explanation of this oddity is that the conjuncts are semantically incompatible: in its core epistemic use, 'Might P' is true in a speaker's mouth only if the speaker does not know that not-P. In this paper I defend this view against an alternative proposal that has been advocated by Trent Dougherty and Patrick Rysiew and elaborated upon in Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath's recent Knowledge in an Uncertain World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. The nature of intuitive justification.
- Author
-
Chudnoff, Elijah
- Subjects
DOGMATISM ,THEORY of knowledge ,PHENOMENOLOGY ,JUSTIFICATION (Ethics) ,PRIMA facie evidence - Abstract
In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology-and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, and I make a case for thinking that it is present in a wide variety of logical, mathematical, and philosophical intuitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
16. Why the generality problem is everybody's problem.
- Author
-
Bishop, Michael A.
- Subjects
JUSTIFICATION (Theory of knowledge) ,THEORY-practice relationship ,SOCIAL epistemology ,SELF-reliance ,PERMISSIVENESS ,CRITICAL thinking - Abstract
The generality problem is widely considered to be a devastating objection to reliabilist theories of justification. My goal in this paper is to argue that a version of the generality problem applies to all plausible theories of justification. Assume that any plausible theory must allow for the possibility of reflective justification-S's belief, B, is justified on the basis of S's knowledge that she arrived at B as a result of a highly (but not perfectly) reliable way of reasoning, R. The generality problem applies to all cases of reflective justification: Given that B is the product of a process-token that is an instance of indefinitely many belief-forming process-types (or BFPTs), why is the reliability of R, rather than the reliability of one of the indefinitely many other BFPTs, relevant to B's justificatory status? This form of the generality problem is restricted because it applies only to cases of reflective justification. But unless it is solved, the generality problem haunts all plausible theories of justification, not just reliabilist ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
17. Having reasons and the factoring account.
- Author
-
Lord, Errol
- Subjects
RATIONALISM ,RESEARCH ,REASON ,VIEWS - Abstract
It’s natural to say that when it’s rational for me to φ, I have reasons to φ. That is, there are reasons for φ-ing, and moreover, I have some of them. Mark Schroeder calls this view The Factoring Account of the having reasons relation. He thinks The Factoring Account is false. In this paper, I defend The Factoring Account. Not only do I provide intuitive support for the view, but I also defend it against Schroeder’s criticisms. Moreover, I show that it helps us understand the requirements of substantive rationality, or what we are rationally required to do when responding to reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
18. Warrant is unique.
- Author
-
Bailey, Andrew M.
- Subjects
WARRANTS (Law) ,FORENSIC orations ,BELIEF & doubt ,RESEARCH ,PHILOSOPHICAL analysis - Abstract
Warrant is what fills the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. But a problem arises. Is there just one condition that satisfies this description? Suppose there isn’t: can anything interesting be said about warrant after all? Call this the uniqueness problem. In this paper, I solve the problem. I examine one plausible argument that there is no one condition filling the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I then motivate and formulate revisions of the standard analysis of warrant. Given these revisions, I argue that there is, after all, exactly one warrant condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
19. Advice for fallibilists: put knowledge to work.
- Author
-
Fantl, Jeremy and McGrath, Matthew
- Subjects
FALLIBILITY ,PRAGMATISM ,THEORY of knowledge ,BELIEF & doubt ,PHILOSOPHICAL anthropology - Abstract
We begin by asking what fallibilism about knowledge is, distinguishing several conceptions of fallibilism and giving reason to accept what we call strong epistemic fallibilism, the view that one can know that something is the case even if there remains an epistemic chance, for one, that it is not the case. The task of the paper, then, concerns how best to defend this sort of fallibilism from the objection that it is “mad,” that it licenses absurd claims such as “I know that p but there’s a chance that not p” and “ p but it there’s a chance that not p.” We argue that the best defense of fallibilism against this objection—a “pragmatist” defense—makes the following claims. First, while knowledge that p is compatible with an epistemic chance that not- p, it is compatible only with an insignificant such chance. Second, the insignificance of the chance that not- p is plausibly understood in terms of the irrelevance of that chance to p’s serving as a ‘justifier’, for action as well as belief. In other words, if you know that p, then any chance for you that not p doesn’t stand in the way of p’s being properly put to work as a basis for action and belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. The woman in the painting and the image in the penny: an investigation of phenomenological doubleness, seeing-in, and “reversed seeing-in”.
- Author
-
Schroer, Robert
- Subjects
RESEMBLANCE (Philosophy) ,PHENOMENOLOGICAL psychology ,PAINTING ,COMPARISON (Philosophy) ,PERSONALITY - Abstract
The experience of looking at a tilted penny involves a “phenomenological doubleness” in that it simultaneously seems to be of something circular and of something elliptical. In this paper, I investigate the phenomenological doubleness of this experience by comparing it to another case of phenomenological doubleness––the phenomenological doubleness of seeing an object in a painting. I begin by pointing out some striking similarities between the phenomenological characters of these two experiences. I then argue that these phenomenological characters have a common explanation. More specifically, I argue that the psychological mechanism that explains the phenomenological doubleness of the experience of seeing an object in a painting can be extended to also explain the phenomenological doubleness of the experience of seeing a tilted penny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
21. Having reasons.
- Author
-
Schroeder, Mark
- Subjects
REASONING ,INTELLECT ,THEORY of knowledge ,CRITICAL thinking ,EVIDENCE - Abstract
What is it to have a reason? According to one common idea, the Factoring Account, you have a reason to do A when there is a reason for you to do A which you have—which is somehow in your possession or grasp. In this paper, I argue that this common idea is false. But though my arguments are based on the practical case, the implications of this are likely to be greatest in epistemology: for the pitfalls we fall into when trying to defend the Factoring Account reflect very well the major developments in empiricist epistemology during the 20th century. I conjecture that this is because epistemologists have been—wrongly—wedded to the Factoring Account about evidence, which I conjecture is a certain kind of reason to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
22. The matter of motivating reasons
- Author
-
J. J. Cunningham
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Argument ,Normative ,Metaphysics ,Rationality ,Sociology ,Meaning (existential) ,Psychologism ,Epistemology - Abstract
It is now standard in the literature on reasons and rationality to distinguish normative reasons from motivating reasons. Two issues have dominated philosophical theorising concerning the latter: (i) whether we should think of them as certain (nonfactive) psychological states of the agent—the dispute over Psychologism; and (ii) whether we should say that the agent can ϕ for the reason that p only if p—the dispute over Factivism. This paper first introduces a puzzle: these disputes look very much like merely verbal disputes about the meaning of phrases like ‘S’s reason’ in motivating reasons ascriptions, and yet charity requires us to think that something substantive is afoot. But what? The second aim of the paper is to extract substantive theses from certain natural argument for Psychologism and Anti-Factivism—theses which are versions of a Cartesian view of the nature and normative structure of rationality. The paper ends by arguing against these substantive theses on phenomenological and ethical grounds. The upshot is that proponents of Psychologism and Anti-Factivism are either engaged in the project of defending merely verbal theses or they’re engaged in the project of defending false substantive ones.
- Published
- 2021
23. The epistemic status of the imagination
- Author
-
Joshua Myers
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Structure (mathematical logic) ,Virtue ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Key features ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Power (social and political) ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Sociology ,Relation (history of concept) ,media_common - Abstract
Imagination plays a rich epistemic role in our cognitive lives. For example, if I want to learn whether my luggage will fit into the overhead compartment on a plane, I might imagine trying to fit it into the overhead compartment and form a belief which is justified on the basis of this imagining. But what explains the fact that imagination has the power to justify beliefs, and what is the structure of imaginative justification? In this paper, I answer these questions by arguing that imaginings manifest an epistemic status: they are epistemically evaluable as justified or unjustified. This epistemic status grounds their ability to justify beliefs, and they accrue this status in virtue of being based on evidence. Thus, imaginings are best understood as justified justifiers. I argue for this view by way of showing how it offers a satisfying explanation of certain key features of imaginative justification that would otherwise be puzzling. I also argue that imaginings exhibit a number of markers of the basing relation, which further motivates the view that imaginings can be based on evidence. The arguments in this paper have theoretically fruitful implications not only for the epistemology of imagination, but for accounts of reasoning and epistemic normativity more generally.
- Published
- 2021
24. Function essentialism about artifacts
- Author
-
Tim Juvshik
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Essentialism ,Computer science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,Artifact (software development) ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Function (engineering) ,Common view ,Counterexample ,media_common - Abstract
Much recent discussion has focused on the nature of artifacts, particularly on whether artifacts have essences. While the general consensus is that artifacts are at least intention-dependent, an equally common view is function essentialism about artifacts, the view that artifacts are essentially functional objects and that membership in an artifact kind is determined by a particular, shared function. This paper argues that function essentialism about artifacts is false. First, the two component conditions of function essentialism are given a clear and precise formulation, after which counterexamples are offered to each. Second, ways to handle the counterexamples suggested by Randall Dipert and Simon Evnine are considered and rejected. Third, I then consider the prospects for restricting function essentialism to so-called technical artifacts, as Lynne Baker does, and argue that this, too, fails. This paper thereby consolidates the scattered literature on function essentialism and shows that, despite the seeming plausibility of the thesis, it should be rejected as an account of artifact essences.
- Published
- 2021
25. Sets, lies, and analogy: a new methodological take
- Author
-
Giulia Terzian
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Attractiveness ,Point (typography) ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,Analogy ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Conversation ,media_common - Abstract
The starting point of this paper is a claim defended most famously by Graham Priest: that given certain observed similarities between the set-theoretic and the semantic paradoxes, we should be looking for a ‘uniform solution’ to the members of both families. Despite its indisputable surface attractiveness, I argue that this claim hinges on a problematic reasoning move. This is seen most clearly, I suggest, when the claim and its underlying assumptions are examined by the lights of a novel, quite general and, I contend, promising take on inter-theoretic analogy. The ensuing discussion is intended to serve as both a possible case study and a first step towards the broader aim of the paper: namely, to initiate a wider conversation on the methodology of paradox-solving on the one hand, and the use of inter-theoretic analogies on the other.
- Published
- 2020
26. A note on deterministic updating and van Fraassen’s symmetry argument for conditionalization
- Author
-
Richard Pettigrew
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of science ,Philosophy ,Credence ,05 social sciences ,050301 education ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,Probabilism ,Belief revision ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Argument ,060302 philosophy ,0503 education - Abstract
In a recent paper, Pettigrew (Philos Stud, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01377-y) argues that the pragmatic and epistemic arguments for Bayesian updating are based on an unwarranted assumption, which he calls deterministic updating, and which says that your updating plan should be deterministic. In that paper, Pettigrew did not consider whether the symmetry arguments due to Hughes and van Fraassen make the same assumption (Hughes and van Fraassen in: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. pp. 851–869, 1984; van Fraassen in: Rescher N (ed) Scientific inquiry in philosophical perspective. University Press of America, Lanham, pp. 183–223, 1987). In this note, I show that they do. According to Bayesians, when I learn a proposition to which I assign a positive credence, I should plan to update my credences so that my new unconditional credence in a proposition is my old conditional credence in that proposition conditional on the proposition I learned. In other words, if P is my credence function before I learn E, and P⋆ is the credence function I plan to adopt in response to learning E, and P(E)>0, then it ought to be the case that, for all X in F, P⋆(X)=PE(X):=P(X|E):=P(XE)P(E). There are many arguments for this Bayesian norm of updating. Some pay attention to the pragmatic costs of updating any other way (Brown 1976; Lewis 1999); others pay attention to the epistemic costs, which are spelled out in terms of the inaccuracy of the credences that result from the updating plans (Oddie 1997; Greaves and Wallace 2006; Briggs and Pettigrew 2018); some show that updating as the Bayesian requires, and only updating that way, preserves as much as possible about the prior credences while still respecting the new evidence (Diaconis and Zabell 1982; Dietrich et al. 2016). And then there are the symmetry arguments that are our focus here (Hughes and van Fraassen 1984; van Fraassen 1987; Grove and Halpern 1998). In a recent paper, I argued that the pragmatic and epistemic arguments for Bayesian updating are based on an unwarranted assumption, which I called deterministic updating, and which says that your updating plan should be deterministic (Pettigrew 2019). An updating plan specifies how you’ll update in response to a specific piece of evidence. Such a plan is deterministic if there’s a single credence function that it says you’ll adopt in response to that evidence, rather than a range of different credence functions that you might adopt in response. That is, if E is a proposition you might learn, deterministic updating says that your plan for responding to receiving E as evidence should take the form: If I learnE, I’ll adoptP⋆. It should not take the form: If I learnE, I’ll adoptP⋆or I’ll adoptP†or ... or I’ll adoptP∘. In that paper, I did not consider whether the symmetry arguments due to Hughes and van Fraassen make the same assumption. In this note, I show that they do.
- Published
- 2020
27. Dynamic absolutism and qualitative change
- Author
-
Bahadir Eker
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Absolute monarchy ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Argument ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Infinite regress ,Modality (semiotics) ,Realism - Abstract
According to Fine’s (Modality and tense: philosophical papers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 261–320, 2005) famous take on the infamous McTaggartian paradox, realism about tensed facts is incompatible with the joint acceptence of three very general and seemingly plausible theses about reality. However, Correia and Rosenkranz (As time goes by: eternal facts in an ageing universe. Mentis, Paderborn, 2011) have recently objected that Fine’s argument depends on a crucial assumption about the nature of tensed facts; once that assumption is given up, they claim, realists can endorse the theses in question without further ado. They also argue that their novel version of tense realism, called dynamic absolutism, is to be preferred over its rivals. I argue in this paper that dynamic absolutism does not constitute a genuine alternative for realists about tense.
- Published
- 2020
28. No hope for the Irrelevance Claim
- Author
-
Miguel Egler, Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science, and University of St Andrews. Philosophy
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,T-NDAS ,Metaphysics ,B Philosophy (General) ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Philosophical methodology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Philosophy of language ,KNOWLEDGE ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Empirical evidence ,Evidence ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,06 humanities and the arts ,INTUITIONS ,Metaphilosophy ,Epistemology ,060302 philosophy ,Experimental philosophy ,B1 ,Intuition - Abstract
Empirical findings about intuitions putatively cast doubt on the traditional methodology of philosophy. Herman Cappelen and Max Deutsch have argued that these methodological concerns are unmotivated as experimental findings about intuitions are irrelevant for assessments of the methodology of philosophy—I dub this the ‘Irrelevance Claim’. In this paper, I first explain that for Cappelen and Deutsch to vindicate the Irrelevance Claim from a forceful objection, their arguments have to establish that intuitions play no epistemically significant role whatsoever in philosophy—call this the ‘Orthogonality Claim’. I then argue that even under a charitable reading of their views Cappelen and Deutsch fail to establish the Orthogonality Claim. Lastly, I discuss empirical evidence that the Orthogonality Claim is false. The arguments in this paper will demonstrate that Cappelen and Deutsch cannot motivate the Irrelevance Claim and that their replies to recent experimental attacks on traditional methodology of philosophy do not succeed.
- Published
- 2019
29. A debunking explanation for moral progress
- Author
-
Nathan Cofnas
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Moral realism ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,Liberalism ,Argument ,Phenomenon ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Sociology ,Realism ,Skepticism ,media_common - Abstract
According to “debunking arguments,” our moral beliefs are explained by evolutionary and cultural processes that do not track objective, mind-independent moral truth. Therefore (the debunkers say) we ought to be skeptics about moral realism. Huemer counters that “moral progress”—the cross-cultural convergence on liberalism—cannot be explained by debunking arguments. According to him, the best explanation for this phenomenon is that people have come to recognize the objective correctness of liberalism. Although Huemer may be the first philosopher to make this explicit empirical argument for moral realism, the idea that societies will eventually converge on the same moral beliefs is a notable theme in realist thinking. Antirealists, on the other hand, often point to seemingly intractable cross-cultural moral disagreement as evidence against realism (the “argument from disagreement”). This paper argues that the trend toward liberalism is susceptible to a debunking explanation, being driven by two related non-truth-tracking processes. First, large numbers of people gravitate to liberal values for reasons of self-interest. Second, as societies become more prosperous and advanced, they become more effective at suppressing violence, and they create conditions where people are more likely to empathize with others, which encourages liberalism. The latter process is not truth tracking (or so this paper argues) because empathy-based moral beliefs are themselves susceptible to an evolutionary debunking argument. Cross-cultural convergence on liberalism per se does not support either realism or antirealism.
- Published
- 2019
30. Epistemic perceptualism, skill and the regress problem
- Author
-
J. Adam Carter
- Subjects
Value (ethics) ,Philosophy of mind ,05 social sciences ,Doxastic logic ,Agency (philosophy) ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy ,Prima facie ,060302 philosophy ,Moral psychology ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Virtue epistemology ,Psychology - Abstract
A novel solution is offered for how emotional experiences can function as sources of immediate prima facie justification for evaluative beliefs, and in such a way that suffices to halt a justificatory regress. Key to this solution is the recognition of two distinct kinds of emotional skill (what I call generative emotional skill and doxastic emotional skill) and how these must be working in tandem when emotional experience plays such a justificatory role. The paper has two main parts, the first negative and the second positive. The negative part criticises the epistemic credentials of Epistemic Perceptualism (e.g., Tappolet, in: Clotilde (ed) Perceptual illusions. Philosophical and psychological essays, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012; Tappolet in Emotions, value, and agency. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016; Doring in The Philos Quart 53(211): 214–230, 2003; Doring in Dialectica 61(3): 363–394, 2007; Elgin, in: Georg, Kunzle (eds) Epistemology and emotions, Ashgate Alderchot, Farnham, 2008; Roberts in Emotions: an essay in aid of moral psychology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003), the view that emotional experience alone suffices to prima facie justify evaluative beliefs in a way that is analogous to how perceptual experience justifies our beliefs about the external world. The second part of the paper develops an account of emotional skill and uses this account to frame a revisionary form of Epistemic Perceptualism that succeeds where the traditional views could not. I conclude by considering some objections and replies.
- Published
- 2019
31. Motivating propositional gratitude
- Author
-
Michael Rush
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,Theoretical underpinning ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Humility ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Trace (semiology) ,Philosophy ,060302 philosophy ,Gratitude ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,media_common - Abstract
The discussion of propositional gratitude stands in need of a secure theoretical underpinning. Its place in the gratitude literature, alongside the more familiar targeted gratitude that we direct towards benefactors, now seems assured, but its adoption has been uncritical in many cases. In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of gratitude fail to give us good reason to incorporate propositional gratitude into our theories. I discuss Sean McAleer’s paper ‘Propositional Gratitude’ (Am Philos Q 49:55–66, 2012) in some detail, and argue that the connection he draws between propositional gratitude and humility is not as close as he supposes, and cannot do all the work required of it. Then I trace the connections between propositional gratitude, targeted gratitude, and gladness, and develop and defend a definition of gratitude that integrates the propositional and the targeted components.
- Published
- 2019
32. What we epistemically owe to each other
- Author
-
Rima Basu
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,Cognition ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Odds ,Philosophy of language ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Ethics of belief - Abstract
This paper is about an overlooked aspect—the cognitive or epistemic aspect—of the moral demand we place on one another to be treated well. We care not only how people act towards us and what they say of us, but also what they believe of us. That we can feel hurt by what others believe of us suggests both that beliefs can wrong and that there is something we epistemically owe to each other. This proposal, however, surprises many theorists who claim it lacks both intuitive and theoretical support. This paper argues that the proposal has intuitive support and is not at odds with much contemporary theorizing about what we owe to each other.
- Published
- 2019
33. Viewing-as explanations and ontic dependence
- Author
-
William D'Alessandro
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Counterfactual thinking ,Philosophy of science ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Mathematical practice ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,060302 philosophy ,Ontic ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Control (linguistics) ,Psychology - Abstract
According to a widespread view in metaphysics and philosophy of science (the “Dependence Thesis”), all explanations involve relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I call “viewing-as explanations”, are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren’t supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the thesis isn’t true in general. The first part of the paper defends this claim and discusses its significance. The second part of the paper considers whether viewing-as explanations occur in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models (such as Bohr’s model of the atom). It’s sometimes suggested that fictional models can be explanatory even though they fail to represent actual worldly dependence relations. Whether or not such models explain, I suggest, depends on whether we think scientific explanations necessarily give information relevant to intervention and control. Finally, I argue that counterfactual approaches to explanation also have trouble accommodating viewing-as cases.
- Published
- 2018
34. Reconsidering the Dispositional Essentialist Canon
- Author
-
Kimpton-Nye, Samuel
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Structure (mathematical logic) ,Property (philosophy) ,Natural law ,Essentialism ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,Centre for Science and Philosophy ,Canon ,06 humanities and the arts ,050905 science studies ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,16. Peace & justice ,Article ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,060302 philosophy ,0509 other social sciences - Abstract
Dispositional Essentialism is a unified anti-Humean account of the metaphysics of low-level physical properties and laws of nature. In this paper, I articulate the view that I label Canonical Dispositional Essentialism (CDE), which comprises a structuralist metaphysics of properties and an account of laws as relations in the property structure. I then present an alternative anti-Humean account of properties and laws (still somewhat in the dispositional essentialist spirit). This account rejects CDE’s structuralist metaphysics of properties in favour of a view of properties as qualitative grounds of dispositions and it rejects CDE’s view of laws as relations in favour of a view of laws as features of an efficient description of possible property distributions. I then defend this view over CDE on the grounds that it can overcome an explanatory shortcoming of CDE and that it achieves a level of continuity with science that CDE fails to achieve. The upshot of this paper is a significant narrowing of the range of possibilities in which the absolutely best unified account of laws and properties resides.
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
35. The fitting attitudes analysis of value: an explanatory challenge
- Author
-
Kent Hurtig
- Subjects
Counterfactual thinking ,Philosophy of mind ,Value (ethics) ,05 social sciences ,Face (sociological concept) ,Proposition ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Argument ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,Counterexample - Abstract
A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1188-2. A few errors were identified in the original publication of the article. The corrections are as follows: 1. The 'Abstract' section should read as below: According to the fitting attitudes (FA) analysis of value, value entails fittingness. In this paper, I shall argue that those committed to this implication face a serious explanatory challenge. This argument is not intended as a knock-down argument against FA but it will, I think, show that those who endorse the theory incur a particular explanatory burden: to explain how counterfactual (dis)favouring of actual (dis)value is possible. After making two important preliminary points (about one of the primary motivations behind the theory and what this implies, respectively), I briefly discuss an objection to FA made by Krister Bykvist a few years ago. The point of discussing this objection is to enable me to more easily present my own, and I believe stronger, version of that objection. The overall argument takes the form of, simply, a counterexample which can be constructed on the back of (an acceptance) of my two preliminary points. Throughout the paper, I try to respond to various objections. 2. On page 6, in the second paragraph, 'g' and 'g*' should be replaced by 'q and 'q*', respectively: Perhaps the FA theorist could respond as follows: In order to contemplate the solitary good of the happy egrets (again calling this q) we don’t need to single out any one particular (non-actual) world at which q obtains; we need only entertain the proposition that there is some world at which q obtains. Now consider some actual solitary good, q*. By hypothesis, no actual person can identify, and so no actual person can contemplate, q*. But why can’t a non-actual person do so? If contemplating g doesn’t require singling out some particular world at which q obtains, why should contemplating q* (or e, or any other actual solitary good or evil) require singling out some particular world?
- Published
- 2018
36. Deference and Uniqueness
- Author
-
Christopher J. G. Meacham
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,05 social sciences ,Deference ,Doxastic logic ,Spell ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Rational belief ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Sociology ,Uniqueness - Abstract
Deference principles are principles that describe when, and to what extent, it’s rational to defer to others. Recently, some authors have used such principles to argue for Evidential Uniqueness, the claim that for every batch of evidence, there’s a unique doxastic state that it’s permissible for subjects with that total evidence to have. This paper has two aims. The first aim is to assess these deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness. I’ll show that these arguments only work given a particular kind of deference principle, and I’ll argue that there are reasons to reject these kinds of principles. The second aim of this paper is to spell out what a plausible generalized deference principle looks like. I’ll start by offering a principled rationale for taking deference to constrain rational belief. Then I’ll flesh out the kind of deference principle suggested by this rationale. Finally, I’ll show that this principle is both more plausible and more general than the principles used in the deference-based arguments for Evidential Uniqueness.
- Published
- 2018
37. Higher-order theories of consciousness and what-it-is-like-ness
- Author
-
Farrell, Jonathan
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Consciousness ,Electromagnetic theories of consciousness ,media_common.quotation_subject ,‘Something it is like’ ,Subject (philosophy) ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Article ,Conscious experience ,050105 experimental psychology ,Misrepresentation ,Higher-order theories of consciousness ,Argument ,What-it-is-like-ness ,Contradiction ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Rosenthal ,media_common ,‘What it is like’ ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,Subjectivity ,06 humanities and the arts ,Awareness ,Epistemology ,Phenomenal consciousness ,060302 philosophy - Abstract
Ambitious higher-order theories of consciousness aim to account for conscious states when these are understood in terms of what-it-is-like-ness. This paper considers two arguments concerning this aim, and concludes that ambitious theories fail. The misrepresentation argument against HO theories aims to show that the possibility of radical misrepresentation—there being a HO state about a state the subject is not in—leads to a contradiction. In contrast, the awareness argument aims to bolster HO theories by showing that subjects are aware of all their conscious states. Both arguments hinge on how we understand two related notions which are ubiquitous in discussions of consciousness: those of what-it-is-like-ness and there being something it is like for a subject to be in a mental state. This paper examines how HO theorists must understand the two crucial notions if they are to reject the misrepresentation argument but assert the awareness argument. It shows that HO theorists can and do adopt an understanding—the HO reading—which seems to give them what they want. But adopting the HO reading changes the two arguments. On this reading, the awareness argument tells us nothing about those states there is something it is like to be in, and so offers no support to ambitious HO theories. And to respond to the misrepresentation understood according to the HO reading is to simply ignore the argument presented, and so to give no response at all. As things stand, we should deny that HO theories can account for what-it-is-like-ness.
- Published
- 2017
38. Affect, perceptual experience, and disclosure
- Author
-
Daniel Vanello
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Value (ethics) ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Qualia ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Affect (psychology) ,Object (philosophy) ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Perception ,060302 philosophy ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,Naïve realism ,media_common - Abstract
A prominent number of contemporary theories of emotional experience—understood as occurrent, phenomenally conscious episodes of emotions with an affective character that are evaluatively directed towards particular objects or states of affairs—are motivated by the claim that phenomenally conscious affective experience, when appropriate, grants us epistemic access not merely to features of the experience but also to features of the object of experience, namely its value. I call this the claim of affect as a disclosure of value. The aim of this paper is to clarify the sort of assumptions about experience that we ought to avoid if we want to be able to argue that for the claim of affect as a disclosure of value. There are two core arguments in this paper. First, I argue that Mark Johnston’s account of affect as a disclosure of value, due to its naive realist commitments, relapses into a position that is vulnerable to the same objection put forward by some naive realists against intentionalist accounts of perceptual experience. Second, I argue that Michelle Montague’s account, due to its phenomenal intentionalist commitments, relapses into a position that is vulnerable to the same objections put forward against qualia theories of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. The upshot of the paper is that the core assumptions embedded in the three dominant models of experience—namely naive realism, different versions of intentionalism, and qualia theory—are problematic as found in contemporary accounts of affect as a disclosure of value.
- Published
- 2017
39. What is temporal ontology?
- Author
-
Natalja Deng
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Eternalism ,B-theory of time ,Presentism ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Metaphysics ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,060302 philosophy ,Ontology ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Causation ,Skepticism ,media_common - Abstract
Temporal ontology is the part of ontology involving the rival positions of presentism, eternalism, and the growing block theory. While this much is clear, it’s surprisingly difficult to elucidate the substance of the disagreement between presentists and eternalists (to focus on the most widespread positions). Certain events happened that are not happening now; what is it to disagree about whether these events exist (simpliciter, or else tenselessly)? In spite of widespread suspicion concerning the status and methods of analytic metaphysics, skeptics’ doubts about this debate have not generally been heeded, neither by metaphysicians, nor by philosophers of physics. This paper revisits the question in the light of prominent elucidation attempts from both camps (by Ted Sider, Christian Wuthrich, and Tom Stoneham). The upshot is that skeptics were right to be puzzled. The paper then explores a possible re-interpretation of positions in temporal ontology that links it to normative views about how we should live as temporal beings.
- Published
- 2017
40. Rescuing the Zygote Argument
- Author
-
Gabriel De Marco
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,05 social sciences ,Inference ,06 humanities and the arts ,0603 philosophy, ethics and religion ,Determinism ,050105 experimental psychology ,Epistemology ,Incompatibilism ,Action (philosophy) ,Argument ,060302 philosophy ,Free will ,Compatibilism ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Moral responsibility ,media_common - Abstract
In a recent paper, Kristin Mickelson argues that Alfred Mele’s Zygote Argument, a popular argument for the claim that the truth of determinism would preclude free action or moral responsibility, is not valid. This sort of objection is meant to generalize to various manipulation arguments. According to Mickelson, the only way to make such arguments valid is to supplement them with an argument that is an inference to the best explanation. In this paper, I argue that there are two other ways in which the proponent of such manipulation arguments can modify their argument, neither of which requires an inference to the best explanation. I then briefly consider and respond to a worry with one of these proposed solutions.
- Published
- 2015
41. Ontological dependence in a spacetime-world
- Author
-
Jonathan Tallant
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Schaffer ,Philosophy ,Priority Monism ,Anomalous monism ,Metaphysics ,Neutral monism ,spacetime ,Lowe ,Object (philosophy) ,Epistemology ,Argument ,Monism ,Relation (history of concept) ,Ontological dependence - Abstract
Priority Monism (hereafter, ‘Monism’), as defined by Jonathan Schaffer (Philos Rev 119:131–176, 2010), has a number of components. It is the view that: the cosmos exists; the cosmos is a maximal actual concrete object, of which all actual concrete objects are parts; the cosmos is basic—there is no object upon which the cosmos depends, ontologically; ontological dependence is a primitive and unanalysable relation. In a recent attack, Lowe (Spinoza on monism. Palgave Macmillan, London, pp 92–122, 2012) has offered a series of arguments to show that Monism fails. He offers up four tranches of argument, with different focuses. These focal points are: (1) being a concrete object; (2) aggregation and dependence; (3) analyses of ontological dependence; (4) Schaffer’s no-overlap principle. These are all technical notions, but each figures at the heart of a cluster of arguments that Lowe puts forward. To respond, I work through each tranche of argument in turn. Before that, in the first section, I offer a cursory statement of Monism, as Schaffer presents it in his 2010 paper, Monism: The Priority of the Whole. I then respond to each of Lowe’s criticisms in turn, deploying material from Schaffer’s 2009 paper Spacetime: the One Substance, as well as various pieces of conceptual machinery from Lowe’s own works (The possibility of metaphysics. Clarendon, Oxford, 1998, 2010) to deflect Lowe’s (Spinoza on monism. Palgave Macmillan, London, pp 92–122, 2012) attacks. In the process of defending Monism from Lowe (Spinoza on monism. Palgave Macmillan, London, pp 92–122, 2012), I end up offering some subtle refinements to Schaffer’s (Philos Rev 119:131–176, 2010) view and explain how the resulting ‘hybrid’ view fares in the wider dialectic.
- Published
- 2015
42. The heroism paradox: another paradox of supererogation
- Author
-
Michael Ridge, Alfred Archer, and Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science
- Subjects
Virtue ,AGENCY ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Philosophy ,Depth ,Agency (philosophy) ,Moral hero ,Common sense ,Mistake ,COMMUNION ,SELF ,Epistemology ,Moral psychology ,Supererogation ,Commitment ,Saint ,INTEGRATION ,Duty ,Moral disengagement ,media_common - Abstract
Philosophers are by now familiar with "the" paradox of supererogation. This paradox arises out of the idea that it can never be permissible to do something morally inferior to another available option, yet acts of supererogation seem to presuppose this. This paradox is not our topic in this paper. We mention it only to set it to one side and explain our subtitle. In this paper we introduce and explore another paradox of supererogation, one which also deserves serious philosophical attention. People who perform paradigmatic acts of supererogation very often claim and believe that their acts were obligatory. Plausibly, this is simply a mistake insofar as the actions really are "above and beyond the call of duty," as common sense would have it. The fact that moral heroes tend to view their actions in this apparently mistaken way is puzzling in itself, and we might learn something interesting about the moral psychology of such individuals if we could explain this tendency. However, this puzzling aspect of the moral psychology of moral heroes is also the chief ingredient in a deeper puzzle, one perhaps more worthy of the title "paradox." In this paper we present and try to resolve this paradox. The paradox arises when we combine our initial observation about the moral psychology of moral heroes with three plausible claims about how these cases compare with one in which the agent realizes her act is "above and beyond." The first of these three additional claims is that the agent who mistakenly claims that the act is obligatory is no less virtuous than someone who performs such an act whilst correctly judging it to be obligatory. The second is that the agent who makes such a mistake would display more moral wisdom if she judged the act to be supererogatory. The third is that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. These three claims, together with a plausible principle about the way in which the virtues work, give rise to a paradox. We consider several ways in which this paradox might be resolved. We argue that the most plausible resolution is to reject the claim that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. More specifically, we argue that a relevant difference is that the agent who makes this mistake does so because of the depth of their commitment to certain moral values, and that this is itself an important moral virtue: moral depth.
- Published
- 2014
43. Jazz Redux: a reply to Möller
- Author
-
François Schroeter and Laura Schroeter
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,medicine ,Criticism ,Metaphysics ,Meaning (non-linguistic) ,medicine.symptom ,Jazz ,Confusion ,Epistemology - Abstract
This paper is a response to Niklas Moller’s (Philosophical Studies, 2013) recent criticism of our relational (Jazz) model of meaning of thin evaluative terms. Moller’s criticism rests on a confusion about the role of coordinating intentions in Jazz. This paper clarifies what’s distinctive and controversial about the Jazz proposal and explains why Jazz, unlike traditional accounts of meaning, is not committed to analycities.
- Published
- 2013
44. Cutting it (too) fine
- Author
-
John Collins
- Subjects
Structure (mathematical logic) ,Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Metaphysics ,Syntactic structure ,Content (Freudian dream analysis) ,Individuation ,Syntax (logic) ,Epistemology - Abstract
It is widely held that propositions are structured entities. In The Nature and Structure of Content (2007), Jeff King argues that the structure of propositions is none other than the syntactic structure deployed by the speaker/hearers who linguistically produce and consume the sentences that express the propositions. The present paper generalises from King’s position and claims that syntax provides the best in-principle account of propositional structure. It further seeks to show, however, that the account faces serve problems pertaining to the fine individuation of propositions that the account entails. The ‘fineness of cut’ problem has been raised by Collins (The unity of linguistic meaning, 2007) and others. King (Philos Stud 163(3):763–781, 2013) responds to these complaints in ways this paper rebuts. Thus, the very idea of structured propositions is brought into doubt, for the best in-principle account of such structure appears to fail.
- Published
- 2013
45. A hesitant defense of introspection
- Author
-
Uriah Kriegel
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Phenomenon ,Metaphysics ,Introspection ,Psychology ,media_common ,Epistemology - Abstract
Consider the following argument: when a phenomenon P is observable, any legitimate understanding of P must take account of observations of P; some mental phenomena—certain conscious experiences—are introspectively observable; so, any legitimate understanding of the mind must take account of introspective observations of conscious experiences. This paper offers a (preliminary and partial) defense of this line of thought. Much of the paper focuses on a specific challenge to it, which I call Schwitzgebel's Challenge: the claim that introspection is so untrustworthy that its indispensability for a genuine understanding of the mind only shows that no genuine understanding of the mind is possible.
- Published
- 2013
46. Truth promoting non-evidential reasons for belief
- Author
-
Brian Talbot
- Subjects
Philosophy of language ,Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy ,Normative ,Metaphysics ,Epistemology - Abstract
Sometimes a belief that p promotes having true beliefs, whether or not p is true. This gives reasons to believe that p, but most epistemologists would deny that it gives epistemic reasons, or that these reasons can epistemically justify the belief that p. Call these reasons to believe “truth promoting non-evidential reasons for belief.” This paper argues that three common views in epistemology, taken together, entail that reasons of this sort can epistemically justify beliefs. These three claims are: epistemic oughts are normative, epistemic oughts have a source, and the source of epistemic oughts is an end that has true belief as a necessary component. These claims would be hard for many epistemologists to deny, but accepting them, and thus accepting that truth promoting non-evidential reasons can justify beliefs, has significant consequences for epistemology. The paper considers accounts of epistemic oughts that endorse these claims but might seem to avoid the consequence that truth promoting non-evidential reasons generate real epistemic oughts, and shows that none do.
- Published
- 2013
47. Propositional or non-propositional attitudes?
- Author
-
Sean Crawford
- Subjects
Propositions ,Philosophy of mind ,Event type ,Philosophy ,Appeal ,Metaphysics ,propositions ,propositional attitudes ,quantifiers ,belief ,plural quantification ,multigrade relation ,multiple relation theory of judgement ,predication ,Michael Jubien ,Stephen Schiffer ,Bertrand Russell ,Tyler Burge ,Wayne Davis ,Epistemology ,Philosophy of language ,Range (mathematics) ,Predication ,TheoryofComputation_MATHEMATICALLOGICANDFORMALLANGUAGES ,Quantification ,Act-type ,Multiple relation ,Propositional attitudes ,Plural quantification - Abstract
Propositionalism is the view that intentional attitudes, such as belief, are relations to propositions. Propositionalists argue that propositionalism follows from the intuitive validity of certain kinds of inferences involving attitude reports. Jubien (Philos Stud 104(1):47-62, 2001) argues powerfully against propositions and sketches some interesting positive proposals, based on Russell's multiple relation theory of judgment, about how to accommodate "propositional phenomena" without appeal to propositions. This paper argues that none of Jubien's proposals succeeds in accommodating an important range of propositional phenomena, such as the aforementioned validity of attitude-report inferences. It then shows that the notion of a predication act-type, which remains importantly Russellian in spirit, is sufficient to explain the range of propositional phenomena in question, in particular the validity of attitude-report inferences. The paper concludes by discussing whether predication act-types are really just propositions by another name. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
- Published
- 2013
48. How to do things with (recorded) words
- Author
-
Claudia Bianchi and Bianchi, CLAUDIA GIOVANNA DANIELA
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Speech act ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Order (business) ,Perspective (graphical) ,Metaphysics ,Context (language use) ,Psychology ,Epistemology - Abstract
The aim of this paper is to evaluate which context determines the illocutionary force of written or recorded utterances—those involved in written texts, films and images, conceived as recordings that can be seen or heard in different occasions. More precisely, my paper deals with the “metaphysical” or constitutive role of context—as opposed to its epistemic or evidential role: my goal is to determine which context is semantically relevant in order to fix the illocutionary force of a speech act, as distinct from the information the addressee uses to ascertain the semantically relevant context. In particular I will try to assess two different perspectives on this problem, a Conventionalist Perspective and an Intentionalist Perspective. Drawing on the literature on indexicals in written texts and recorded messages, I will argue in favor of the Intentionalist Perspective: the relevant context is the one intended by the speaker. Bringing intentions into the picture, however, requires qualification; in particular, I will distinguish my Weak Intentionalist proposal from a Strong Intentionalist one. I will show that the Weak Intentionalist Perspective is flexible enough to deal with cases of delayed communication, but not so unrestricted as to yield counter-intuitive consequences.
- Published
- 2013
49. Grounding practical normativity: going hybrid
- Author
-
Ruth Chang
- Subjects
Philosophy of mind ,Practical reason ,Philosophy ,Virtue ,Action (philosophy) ,Prima facie ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Metaphysics ,Normative ,Voluntarism (action) ,Epistemology ,media_common - Abstract
In virtue of what is something a reason for an agent to perform some action? In other words, what makes a consideration a reason for an agent to act? This is a prima facie metaphysical or meta-normative question about the grounding of reasons for action and not a normative question about the circumstances or conditions under which, normatively speaking, one has a reason to do something. The normative question is answered by normative theory, as when one says that such-and-such feature of an action is a reason to perform that action because bringing about that feature would maximize happiness. The metaphysical question asks instead for the metaphysical determinant of something’s being a reason. When we ask for the ground of a reason’s normativity, we ask what metaphysically makes something have the action-guidingness of a reason: where does the normativity of a practical reason come from? As Christine Korsgaard puts it somewhat more poetically what is the ‘source’ of a reason’s normativity? This paper takes a synoptic approach to the question of source, and from this broad perspective explores the idea that the source of practical normativity might best be understood as a hybrid of more traditional views of source. The paper begins with a survey of three leading non-hybrid answers to the question of a practical reason’s normative ground or source (Sect. 1). It then recapitulates one or two of the supposedly most difficult problems for each, suggesting along the way a new objection to one of the leading views (Sect. 2). It ends with a sketch of an alternative, hybrid view about source—what I call ‘hybrid voluntarism’—(Sect. 3) which, as it turns out, avoids each of the main problems faced by the three leading ‘pure’ views (Sect. 4). Hybrid voluntarism grounds practical normativity in a structured relation of two sources, one of which is willing. The view that willing is a ground of normativity has not had many defenders because it is widely thought to suffer from two fatal
- Published
- 2013
50. Is logical knowledge dispositional?
- Author
-
Florian Steinberger and Julien Murzi
- Subjects
Antecedent (grammar) ,Philosophy of mind ,Philosophy of language ,Philosophy ,Descriptive knowledge ,Phrase ,Lines of response ,Metaphysics ,Sketch ,Epistemology - Abstract
In a series of recent papers, Corine Besson argues that dispositionalist accounts of logical knowledge conflict with ordinary reasoning. She cites cases in which, rather than applying a logical principle to deduce certain implications of our antecedent beliefs, we revise some of those beliefs in the light of their unpalatable consequences. She argues that such instances of, in Gilbert Harman’s phrase, ‘reasoned change in view’ cannot be accommodated by the dispositionalist approach, and that we would do well to conceive of logical knowledge as a species of propositional knowledge instead. In this paper, we propose a dispositional account that is more general than the one Besson considers, viz. one that does not merely apply to beliefs, and claim that dispositionalists have the resources to account for reasoned change in view. We then raise what we take to be more serious challenges for the dispositionalist view, and sketch some lines of response dispositionalists might offer.
- Published
- 2012
Discovery Service for Jio Institute Digital Library
For full access to our library's resources, please sign in.