Search

An influential way of distinguishing inferential from non-inferential processes appeals to representational states: an agent infers a conclusion from some premises only if she represents those premises as supporting that conclusion. By contrast, when some premises merely cause an agent to believe the conclusion, there is no relevant representational state. While promising, the appeal to representational states invites a regress problem, first famously articulated by Lewis Carroll. This paper develops a novel account of inference that invokes representational states without succumbing to regress. The key move is to reject the tempting idea that the relevant representational states are causally prior to inferences. I argue, instead, that an inference constitutes the relevant representational state. To infer is thus—in the very drawing of the conclusion—to represent the premises as supporting the conclusion, and thereby to commit to that support relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, I suggest a hitherto relatively unexplored way beyond the opposed Aristotelian realist and Kantian idealist approaches that divide recent interpretations of the categories or “thought determinations” of Hegel’sLogic, by locating his idealism within the terrain of recent debates in modal metaphysics. In particular, I return to the outlook of the first philosopher to attempt to bring Hegel into the analytic conversation, John Niemeyer Findlay, and consider Hegel’s idealism as instantiating the metaphysical position that, following the work of Findlay’s former student, Arthur Prior, has come to be called “modal actualism”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the author's view regarding philosopher Robert Desgabets adoption of the Cartesian philosophy. He says philosopher Emmanuel Faye describes Desgabets' work as original and striking metaphysical thought in which his philosophy is consistent and coherent with that of philosopher Nicolas Malebranche. He discusses some of Desgabets' unusual views about how thought is related to reality and possibility. The author further reveals that Desgabets' acceptance of the orthodox Cartesian view forced him to accept some surprising restrictions on what he could say about God's creative options.