Picture - LanCog

Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia Analítica
Instituto Filosófico de Pedro Hispano, FLUL
Book of Abstracts
ENFA-3
THIRD MEETING OF THE PORTUGUESE SOCIETY FOR
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
2-4 June 2006
Apoios:
Plenary Speakers
• António Branco, Universidade de Lisboa
• Timothy Williamson, University of Oxford
• Wlodek Rabinowicz, University of Lund
Programme Committee (Steering Committee of SPFA)
• Chair: João Branquinho, Universidade de Lisboa
• Sofia Miguéns, Universidade do Porto
• Desidério Murcho, King’s College London and Centro de
Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
• Pedro Santos, Universidade do Algarve and Centro de
Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
• Ricardo Santos, Universidade de Évora and Instituto de
Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Organizing Committee
• João Branquinho, Universidade de Lisboa
• Carla Simões, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
• Luís Dias, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
Special Workshops
• Symposium on Emotions, organized by Dina Mendonça,
Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de
Lisboa
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Table of Contents
Preface…………………………………………………..
4
Plenary Talks ...........................................................
5
Contributed Talks ...................................................
7
Epistemology and Philosophy of
Science.....................................................................
7
Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind……………..
25
Logic and Philosophy of Language……………….
47
Practical Philosophy…………………………...........
66
Symposium on Emotions……………………………
84
Speakers’ List………………………………………….
86
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Preface
The present book contains the abstracts of the invited and contributed
papers that are to be presented at the Third Meeting of the Portuguese
Society for Analytic Philosophy, held at the Faculty of Letters, University
of Lisbon, Portugal, on 2-4 June 2006. The abstracts are listed by the
author’s first name, in alphabetical order.
The list starts with the plenary speakers and continues with the
authors of submitted papers, grouped into four areas: Epistemology and
Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind, Logic and
Philosophy of Language, and Practical Philosophy.
I take this opportunity to thank my colleagues in the Programme
Committee for all their cooperation in setting up the programme of the
meeting.
I also wish to thank our sponsors for having generously supported
the ENFA-3 conference: the Philosophy Centre of the University of
Lisbon and its Director, Professor Manuel do Carmo Ferreira; the Faculty
of Letters of the University of Lisbon and its Dean, Professor Álvaro
Pina; the National Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); and
the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
We hope that the present volume will provide an accurate and
useful picture of the present state of development of analytic philosophy
in Portugal.
Lisboa, 15 May 2006
João Branquinho
Chairman of the Programme Committee of ENFA-3
4
Plenary Talks
António Branco, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Language Complexity and the Distinction Human vs. Non-Human in Cognitive Science
Since the beginning of the present decade, the discussion around the distinction Human vs.
Non-Human/Animal has been the focus of an upsurge of interest in Cognitive Science. This
was so to the point that it has just made its way into the popular press, with exciting
headlines of the sort "‘Uniquely human’ component of language found in gregarious birds",
even in such a conspicuous source as the University of Chicago Chronicle (in its edition
from just a few days ago: 27.Apr.06), among many others. Interestingly, the
methodological touchstone assumed now is in its essence the same as the one used in the
discussion on the related distinction Human vs. Non-Human/Artificial spanning from the
60's to the 80's of the last century, based on considerations related to the computational
complexity of human language. In this talk, I present an overview of the current status of
this discussion, its methodological background, the key results obtained so far, and the
main objections to their relevance. I seek to underline the advances in the clarification of
foundational aspects of Cognitive Science that to a great extent may have been unleashed
with this discussion.
Timothy Williamson, University of Oxford
[email protected]
Imagination and Modality
The epistemology of metaphysical possibility and necessity tends to be treated as sui
generis, with the result that metaphysically modal concepts look highly problematic. In this
talk I will argue that the metaphysical modalities should be understood in terms of
counterfactual conditionals, and that the epistemology of metaphysical modality is a special
case of the epistemology of counterfactuals. I will discuss the comparative roles of reason
and the imagination in the epistemology of counterfactuals and the upshot for modality,
with some remarks on the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge.
Wlodek Rabinowicz, University of Lund
[email protected]
Pragmatic Arguments
My focus is on pragmatic arguments for various rationality constraints on a decision
maker’s state of mind: on his beliefs or preferences. An argument of this kind purports to
show that a violator of a given constraint can be exposed to a decision problem in which
she will act to her guaranteed disadvantage. Dramatically put, she can be exploited by a
clever bookie who doesn’t know more than the agent himself. Examples of pragmatic
arguments of this kind are synchronic Dutch Books, for the standard probability axioms,
diachronic Dutch Books, for the more controversial principles of reflection and
conditionalization, and Money Pumps, for the transitivity requirement on preferences. It is
suggested that the proposed exploitation set-ups share a common feature. If the violator of a
given constraint is logically and mathematically competent, she can be exploited only if she
is disunified in his decision-making, i.e., only if she makes decisions on various issues she
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confronts separately rather than jointly. Unification in decision making is relatively
unproblematic in synchronic contexts, but it may be quite costly and inconvenient
diachronically, especially when the issues under consideration are widely spread over time.
On my view, therefore, pragmatic arguments should be seen as delivering conditional
recommendations: If you want to afford disunification, then you’d better satisfy these
constraints. The arguments of this kind fail to establish the inherent rationality of the
constraints under consideration. Isaac Levis view of the status of pragmatic arguments (cf.
Levi 2002, 2006) is diametrically opposed to mine. According to him, only synchronic
pragmatic arguments are valid (indeed, categorically valid). The diachronic ones, he argues,
lack any validity at all. This line of reasoning is questioned in my talk.
6
Contributed Talks
Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
Célia Teixeira, King´s College London and Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Analyticity and A Priority
My aim in this paper is to discuss the moderate empiricist account according to which a priori
knowledge is merely knowledge of analytic truths. The questions that I will address are, thus,
whether there is analytic knowledge, and if so, how that could help us explain the possibility of a
priori knowledge. I have two aims, a bold one and a modest one. The bold one is to show that we
cannot explain the a priori with the analytic. The modest one is to show that the moderate
empiricists end up appealing to the a priori in order to explain it away.
My argument is roughly the following. By showing that meanings alone do not make sentences
true we are left with an epistemological notion of analyticity according to which a sentence is
analytic if and only if mere grasp of its meaning suffices for us to be justified in holding it true. But
now we need to explain how could the mere grasp of a sentence’s meaning suffice to justify us in
holding it true. For semantic understanding to suffice for epistemic justification we need to show
how is semantic understanding reliably linked to the truth of certain sentences (or to the validity of
certain rules of inference), namely, the analytic ones. According to a common answer semantic
understanding suffices for epistemic justification because it is constitutive of one’s understanding of
the meaning of a certain word that one be disposed to accept its meaning-constitutive sentences
and/or rules of inference. Given that such meaning-constitutive sentences and/or inferences are true
or truth-preserving we have an explanation of how semantic understanding is reliably linked to
truth.
The immediate consequence of such an explanation is that a priori knowledge is blind ⎯ we
are justified in believing that p not because we have some sort of awareness of the truth of p but
because we are disposed to accept p (assuming that p is meaning-constitutive and entitling).
However, to explain our epistemic entitlement via our blind disposition to follow certain rules of
inferences or to hold certain sentences as true leaves rationality out of the picture of knowledge. We
may have a disposition to use a certain rule of inference or to accept a certain sentence as true, but
without some sort of rational reflection we cannot really say that the thinker is epistemically entitled
to use that rule or inference or that she really knows that a certain sentence is true. I will claim that
“irresponsible knowledge” is akin to “lucky knowledge”, cases in which a thinker just happens to
hit the truth. I will also claim that this way of explaining the sufficiency condition of the epistemic
notion of analyticity lacks generality because it cannot explain all cases of a priori knowledge. For
instance, let us assume that modus ponens is a rule of inference that we are blindly entitled to use
because it is written into the possession conditions for the concept of conditional. In this way we
could explain our entitlement to use modus ponens. But then this leaves without explanation our
entitlement to use modus tollens, or the hypothetical syllogism. Unless we claim that all the rules
that are entitling are meaning-constitutive. But without further argument this move should be ruled
out as ad hoc. Such an explanation also lacks uniformity, given that understanding is not uniformly
taken as a source of epistemic justification. After all, it is not because we understand the meaning of
a certain sentence that we are entitled in holding it true, but it is rather because we cannot
coherently doubt certain sentences to be false or a certain inference to be invalid that we are entitled
to hold them. In the end I will argue that the only way to explain how grasp of meanings suffices for
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a priori knowledge is either to assume that meanings make sentences true or to appeal to some sort
of rational capacity. But meanings do not make sentences true, as I take Quine and Boghossian to
have successfully shown. Therefore, we cannot explain the a priori with the analytic given that to
make sense of the analytic we need to presuppose the a priori, that is, the existence of some sort of
rational capacity as a reliable source of knowledge.
In his “Analyticity” paper (Boghossian, P. 1997, A Companion to the Philosophy of Language,
eds. B. Hale and C. Wright, 331-68, Oxford: Blackwell) Boghossian shows that the metaphysical
notion of analyticity is of no explanatory value by arguing that it did not meet the meaning-truth
truism: “How could the mere fact that S means that p make it the case that S is true? Doesn’t it also
have to be the case that p?” (p. 335). I will rephrase his argument to show that the epistemological
notion of analyticity also suffers form lack of explanatory value. The metaphysical notion of
analyticity fails to meet the meaning-truth truism; likewise, the epistemological notion of analyticity
fails to meet the knowledge-truth truism. After all, modifying Boghossian’s argument: How could
the mere fact that we know that S means that p justify our knowledge that p? Doesn’t it also have to
be the case that we know that p? I will finish by claiming that either we forgo our aim of capturing a
wholly semantic phenomenon with the notion of analyticity (the notion is nothing more than the
semantic counterpart of the a priori) or we have to forgo the notion of analyticity altogether as
empty. In either case, we cannot explain the a priori with the analytic.
Christian Piller, University of York
[email protected]
Desiring the Truth and Nothing But the Truth
Most epistemologists see truth as the ultimate goal of all theoretical enquiries. The aim of this paper
is to develop a fundamental problem for the most common views about what the aim of believing
truly really is.
I start with William James’s insight that that the epistemic aim is twofold: it consists (a) in
attaining truth and (b) in avoiding error. The most common view of the epistemic aim, the biconditional view, respects its dual nature. According to it, what we want as enquirers is to believe
that p if and only if p. If the left-to-right conditional is violated, i.e. if we believe that p without p
being the case, we believe falsely and violate the error-avoidance part. If the right-to-left
conditional is violated, i.e. if p is the case, but we fail to believe that p, we miss a truth and, thus,
violate the truth-attainment part.
The fact that there are uninteresting truths, truths not worth believing, is a common criticism
of the truth-attainment part. In contrast to these criticisms, which I will try to answer, I argue that
the error-avoidance part of the twofold epistemic aim has four implausible consequences, three of
which are variations of the following point. Believing that something bad is going to happen seems
to give me no reason at all to want the bad to occur. Accepting the left-to-right conditional,
however, would arguably support the idea that, from a purely epistemic perspective, I am
committed to wanting the bad thing to happen, provided I believe it will happen. The reasoning in
this case is analogous to the following case, which, I take it, is unproblematic. Suppose what I want
is that B get the job if A, my favourite candidate, does not get it. Finding out that the job will not go
to A, commits me to wanting it to go to B. Similarly, if I want the following ‘p be the case, if I
believe that p’, knowing myself to believe that p commits me to wanting p to be the case. I argue
that the expected bad is not made better, in any sense, by having been expected. Similarly, the
unexpected good is not made less good by having not been expected and the truly indifferent
remains so regardless of whether it has been expected or not.
Suppose I have evidence of having a serious illness and, thus, I believe to be seriously ill. A
final test is being carried out. Although I believe it will indicate that I have this illness, I do not fall
short of an epistemic ideal if I want, in all respects, not to be seriously ill (or, if I want, without any
(epistemic) reservations, that the test shows, against the odds, that I am not ill after ill). Although I
prefer for each scenario, being ill and not being ill, to have a belief, which matches whatever is the
8
case, I do not prefer for whatever I believe, be it that I believe that I am ill or that I believe that I am
not ill, that the world matches my belief. Thus, I prefer not be ill, whilst believing to be ill, to being
ill, whilst believing that I am not ill. The reasonableness of these preferences, which I will relate to
so-called ‘direction of fit’ approaches about the nature of belief, can only be captured, if we give up
on the error-avoidance part of the epistemic aim. If I did prefer to be ill, on the basis of believing
that I am ill, I would manifest what I call an interest in being right. Wanting to be right, however, is
an interest that lacks the characteristic openness to the world, which we normally assign to ideal
epistemic subjects. Compare a person who, believing that p and wanting to be right, thereby has a
reason to want p to be the case with a person who has the following interest: whether p will happen
or not p will happen, I always prefer to believe what actually will happen (which is the right-to-left
conditional).
I argue that e have to give up on the bi-conditional view of the epistemic aim. Nevertheless,
we still need to accommodate James’s insight, which was to respect the twofold nature of the
epistemic aim. The error-avoidance part was essential for James because someone who believes
everything, including contradictions, would satisfy the truth-attainment part. The bi-conditional
view of the epistemic aim had the following two parts: Part 1: DES (p→Bp), Part 2: DES (Bp→p).
We can try to capture James’s insight by replacing Part 2 with the desire not to have contradictory
beliefs, resulting in the following understanding of the twofold nature of the epistemic aim: Part1
DES(p→Bp), Part2* DES not(Bp&Bnot-p). Unfortunately, it turns out that, given some reasonable
assumption, someone who has the Part2* desire is committed to having the original Part2 desire.
Looking at the work of Chisholm and Sosa, I will find no satisfying solution of this
problem. We can solve the problem, however, by accepting a non-truth functional possible world
semantics for the indicative conditional (proposed by Stalnaker), according to which contraposition
is illegitimate. (Contraposition would allow us to move from a ‘world-to-belief conditional’ to a
‘belief-to-world conditional’.)The interest in truth, as I understand it, is belief-oriented and it should
not entail any interest in what the world is like.
Diogo Fernandes, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Uma Defesa do Realismo Directo na Teoria da Percepção
A discussão epistemológica no âmbito da teoria da percepção é focada em redor de duas questões
fundamentais: 1) Quais são os objectos imediatos da percepção? 2) Qual o fundamento da
justificação das nossas crenças perceptivas?
Três são as principais respostas às questões 1 e 2: a) A Teoria dos sense-data, b) O
Fenomenalismo, e c) O Realismo Directo. Para sermos mais exactos convém, desde logo, notar que
a) e b) concordam na resposta à primeira questão: o conteúdo imediato da experiência perceptiva
consiste não em objectos físicos do mundo material, mas sim em entidades classificadas como
dados dos sentidos (sense-data). Por seu lado, c) mantém que esse conteúdo imediato consiste, de
facto, em objectos do mundo material, objectos esses que são exteriores à mente do percipiente e
cuja existência é igualmente independente desta.
No que respeita à segunda questão, as três teorias apresentam respostas todas elas
diferentes umas das outras: a) e b), enquanto teorias da justificação, são elaboradas a partir da
aceitação das consequências habitualmente retiradas do argumento da alucinação, enquanto c)
caracteriza-se, fundamentalmente, por negar as consequências que os defensores de a) e b) julgam
poder ser extraídas deste argumento. Convém ainda realçar que a) e b) têm sido, ao longo da
história da filosofia (se quisermos, no âmbito da prática e tradição da filosofia analítica), as teorias
mais disputadas e defendidas, sendo c) claramente preterida e qualificada como uma visão do
senso-comum. Contudo, mais recentemente, muitos filósofos contemporâneos têm vindo a tentar
reabilitar c), passando a disputa a envolver, essencialmente, a) e c). A teoria dos sense-data pode,
assim, neste contexto de discussão, vir a ser substituída pela designação de “teoria
representacionista dos sense-data” (dado que o Fenomenalismo não é, propriamente, uma teoria da
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representação), e classificada, enquanto teoria da justificação do conhecimento perceptivo, como
uma teoria inferencial da representação.
O meu objectivo, no texto que me proponho apresentar, consiste numa tentativa de abrir
caminho a uma defesa plausível do realismo directo. Nessa medida, tal defesa será esboçada de
uma forma indirecta, ou seja, tentado derrubar aquele que é o principal obstáculo à plausibilidade
do realismo directo. Falo, pois, do argumento da alucinação. Considerarei, assim, que não é
possível uma defesa desta teoria sem que antes se tenha removido essa obstáculo: o realismo
directo tem que superar as consequências do argumento da alucinação, caso pretenda constituir-se
como uma alternativa séria às teorias representacionistas e suas consequências, consistindo estas
últimas, defenderei, numa metafísica vaga dos sense-data e num cepticismo muitíssimo mitigado
no que respeita à crença na existência de algo como um mundo material.
Para esse efeito, dividirei o texto em duas partes. Na primeira apresento detalhadamente o
argumento da alucinação; na segunda apresentarei, uma por uma, as críticas às conclusões desse
argumento. Passo, então, a apresentar um esquema detalhado:
1. O Argumento da Alucinação
Para ser mais exacto, o argumento em causa consiste antes num triplo-argumento, o qual deveria
ser renomeado como “Argumento da Relatividade Perceptiva, da Ilusão e da Alucinação”. Ou seja,
seremos confrontados com três estados perceptivos específicos, cada um diferente dos outros dois,
correspondendo a cada um deles uma força argumentativa própria. Será, pois, a conjunção destes
três argumentos que contribuirá para o acréscimo da força persuasiva do “argumento” em geral e
das consequências dele retiradas.
1.1. O rationale da conclusão destes três sub-argumentos consiste, fundamentalmente, na
indiscernibilidade do contéudo destes três estados perceptivos em relação àquilo que se
poderá designar como um estado perceptivo “normal” ou “verídico”. Ou seja, na constatação
da não existência de um critério, independente da própria experiência perceptiva, à
disposição do percipiente, que lhe permita fazer uma distinção entre qualquer um destes
estados perceptivos específicos e um estado perceptivo “verídico”. Se quisermos, um critério
que permita indicar qual, ou quais, de entre as propriedades imediatamente percepcionadas
correspodem, de facto, às qualidades “verdadeiras” do objecto percepcionado (se é que
existe, sequer, um objecto físico do mundo material a ser percepcionado).
1.2. De modo a realçar a indiscernibilidade da natureza intrínseca destes estados perceptivos em
relação aos outros tidos como normais, apelarei para as atitudes proposicionaos que os
primeiros tendem a gerar, as quais se assemelham às atitudes proposicionais geradas pelos
segundos. (Um bom exemplo é o do matemático John Nash, prémio Nobel da Economia, que
sofria, e sofre ainda, de esquizofrenia, e que ao longo de grande parte da sua vida alucinou
diversas personagens não existentes com as quais contactava tal como se fossem seres
humanos de carne e osso).
1.3. Conclusão: que nos casos de ilusão e alucinação, e na maior parte, se não em todos, os casos
de relatividade perceptiva, o conteúdo imediato da nossa experiência perceptiva não é um
objecto físico do mundo exterior, mas sim um outro objecto intermédio classificado como um
sense-datum.
2.
Tentativa de Refutação do Argumento da Alucinação
Nesta segunda parte, analisaremos, um por um, os três sub-argumentos:
2.1. Utilização da distinção entre propriedades categóricas e propriedades disposicionais de um
objecto, de modo a contrariar as conclusões do argumento da relatividade perceptiva. Ou
seja, que no caso em que vários indivíduos percepcionam propriedades diferentes e,
aparentemente, incompatíveis do mesmo objecto, estão, de facto, a percepcionar
propriedades disposicionais subjectivas do objecto físico, eliminando-se, assim, a referência a
entidades vagas como sense-data.
2.2. Crítica à perspectiva segundo a qual é necessária uma entidade intermédia no processo
perceptivo, tal como um sense-datum, de modo a explicar o comum erro perceptivo.
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2.3.
2.4.
2.5.
2.6.
Defenderei aqui que a ilusão consiste num caso comum de erro perceptivo, utilizando para tal
a distinção entre crença objectual e crença proposicional, ou seja, entre, respectivamente,
crença de re e crença de dicto.
Finalmente, tentarei apontar uma propriedade do objecto de percepção, em casos de
alucinação, que permita distinguir esse objecto específico dos objectos “normais” ou
verídicos” das experiências perceptivas ditas normais. Tal consistirá numa propriedade
relacional desse objecto, a qual ele sustém aquando da sua relação de depedência
relativamente ao um estado neuronal do cérebro do percipiente.
Recurso a dados das ciências naturais, nomeadamente das ciências neurológicas, de modo a
apoiar as minhas conclusões em 2.3. Aqui, tentarei usar exemplos apresentados por Laurence
Bonjour e virá-los contra o próprio autor, invertendo assim o sentido de certas intuições que
este autor tem vindo a apresentar na sua crítica ao realismo directo.
Conclusão: que é possível escapar às conclusões habitualmente retiradas do argumento da
alucinação, ficando, assim, aberta a possibilidade de propor um princípio de justificação das
crenças perceptivas diferente do das teorias representacionais e inferenciais dos sense-data.
Esboço desse princípio.
Eduardo Castro, Universidade da Beira Interior e Universidade de Lisboa,
[email protected]
Contra a Eficácia Causal
De acordo com Colin Cheyne e Charles Pigden, o argumento da indispensabilidade de
Quine/Putnam implica que as entidades matemáticas indispensáveis nas nossas melhores teorias
científicas são entidades causalmente eficazes. Cheyne e Pigden pretendem sustentar esta ideia em
dois pontos: através de uma análise acerca da função que as entidades indispensáveis nas nossas
melhores teorias científicas desempenham nessas teorias e, principalmente, através de uma versão
do princípio eleático que é estabelecida por Cheyne. Na minha apresentação, vou discutir e objectar
os dois pontos em questão. Será estabelecido um contra-exemplo (entidades fora do cone de luz) à
versão do princípio eleático de Cheyne.
Consideremos a seguinte versão ontológica do argumento da indispensabilidade de
Quine/Putnam:
(1Ω)
Devemo-nos comprometer ontologicamente com todas, e só aquelas, entidades que
são indispensáveis às nossas melhores teorias científicas;
(2Ω)
As entidades matemáticas são indispensáveis às nossas melhores teorias científicas;
(∴)
Devemo-nos comprometer ontologicamente com as entidades matemáticas.
A premissa (2Ω) é uma premissa que é considerada um “facto bruto”. Porém, de acordo com
Cheyne e Pigden, uma explicação para a indispensabilidade das entidades matemáticas nas teorias
científicas é serem entidades causalmente eficazes. No argumento de Cheyne e Pigden a favor da
eficácia causal das entidades matemáticas é essencial a seguinte premissa:
(1A)
As nossas melhores teorias científicas são acerca de como o mundo é (pelo menos,
aquela parte do mundo com que interagimos causalmente).
Esta premissa pretende ser sustentada em dois pontos:
1) Análise da função desempenhada, nas nossas melhores teorias científicas, pelas
entidades que são indispensáveis nessas teorias científicas;
2) A seguinte versão do princípio eleático:
(PE) Não podemos conhecer que F’s existem a não ser que a nossa crença na sua
existência seja causada por, pelo menos, um acontecimento no qual um F participa
ou um acontecimento que proximamente causa um F para existir.
Ponto 1).
De acordo com Cheyne e Pigden, a função desempenhada pelas entidades empíricas nas
nossas melhores teorias científicas é uma função evidente: as entidades empíricas desempenham
uma função causal nas nossas melhores teorias científicas, porque os cientistas referem
11
explicitamente que as entidades empíricas desempenham uma função causal nas nossas melhores
teorias científicas. Porém, segundo Cheyne e Pigden, não é clara qual é a função desempenhada
pelas entidades matemáticas nas nossas melhores teorias científicas, porque, geralmente, os
cientistas não referem coisa alguma acerca da função desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas
nessas teorias científicas. A falta de evidência em questão pretende ser ultrapassada por Cheyne e
Pigden através do seguinte paralelismo: dado que as entidades empíricas desempenham uma função
causal nas nossas melhores teorias científicas, então as entidades matemáticas também
desempenham uma função causal nessas teorias científicas. Objecto este paralelismo com duas
ideias.
Primeira. Obviamente que a explicação avançada por Cheyne e Pigden para a função
desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas nas nossas melhores teorias científicas terá de ser a
única explicação plausível. Pois, se se trata de uma explicação entre várias explicações plausíveis,
então a linha de raciocínio de Cheyne e Pigden é fraca. Pode haver outras explicações plausíveis
para a função desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas nas nossas melhores teorias científicas.
Segunda. A concepção naturalista suposta nas considerações de Cheyne e Pigden acerca da
função desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas e empíricas nas nossas melhores teorias
científicas é uma concepção naturalista ambígua. Por um lado, parece que é a ciência, através dos
cientistas, que determina qual é a função desempenhada pelas entidades empíricas nas nossas
melhores teorias científicas. Por outro lado, parece que é a epistemologia, através dos
epistemólogos, que determina qual é a função desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas nas
nossas melhores teorias científicas, uma vez que, geralmente, os cientistas nada referem acerca da
função desempenhada pelas entidades matemáticas nas nossas melhores teorias científicas.
Ponto 2).
Confronto o princípio (PE) com o seguinte argumento:
(1B)
De acordo com (PE), se a nossa crença na existência de entidades fora do nosso
cone de luz não é causada por, pelo menos, um acontecimento no qual uma dessas
entidades participa ou um acontecimento que proximamente causa uma dessas
entidades para existir, então não podemos conhecer que existem entidades fora do
nosso cone de luz.
(2B)
A nossa crença na existência de entidades fora do nosso cone de luz não é causada
por, pelo menos, um acontecimento no qual uma dessas entidades participa ou um
acontecimento que proximamente causa uma dessas entidades para existir.
(∴)
Não podemos conhecer que existem entidades fora do nosso cone de luz.
Relativamente a este argumento, Cheyne defende que o princípio (PE) é verdadeiro e que
temos conhecimento da existência de entidades fora do nosso cone de luz. Isto é, Cheyne defende
que a premissa (1B) é verdadeira e que a conclusão do argumento é falsa. Dada a validade do
argumento, Cheyne tem de mostrar que a premissa (2B) é falsa. Cheyne tenta justificar a falsidade
de (2B) da seguinte forma.
A crença na existência de planetas e estrelas fora do nosso cone de luz é causada por um
acontecimento – o “big bang” – que foi a causa próxima de haver planetas e estrelas fora do nosso
cone de luz. Portanto, podemos conhecer que existem entidades fora do nosso cone de luz, como
planetas e estrelas, e esse conhecimento existencial não constitui um contra-exemplo ao princípio
(PE). Porém, esta justificação de Cheyne para a crença na existência de entidades fora do nosso
cone de luz é uma justificação científica completamente errada: o “big bang” – não é a causa
próxima de haver planetas e estrelas fora do nosso cone de luz e, na apresentação em questão, vou
mostrar porquê através de uma discussão acerca da teoria do “big bang” e do significado científico
da noção de cone de luz.
Em suma, no ponto 2) vou defender que a premissa (2B) é verdadeira e, portanto, se a
conclusão do argumento em questão é verdadeira, então o princípio (PE) é falso.
12
Franck Lihoreau, University of Rennes 1
[email protected]
On the aboutness of knowledge-wh
The primary purpose of my paper will be to insist on what I take to be a crucial feature of
knowledge, namely its aboutness, and to show how, by acknowledging this feature, we can gain
insights into how to account for some interesting kinds of knowledge ascriptions.
That there must be a tight link between knowledge and questions is something that has
increasingly been acknowledged, most notably through the works of Dewey, Hintikka, Powers,
Castañeda, White, Craig, and more recently Hookway and Schaffer, who all more or less explicitly
take into account the natural connexion that seems to hold between knowledge and the ability to
correctly answer and to rightly ask questions. But one of the most important aspects with respect to
which questions have come to occupy a central place in contemporary epistemology has to do with
our discourse about knowledge, more precisely with how to account for knowledge ascriptions.
This is the issue I will focus on in my paper.
It seems that epistemology has always been more concerned with propositional knowledge,
typically attributed by means of knowledge-that ascriptions, as opposed to certain kinds of nonpropositional knowledge, typically attributed by means of knowledge-wh ascriptions. These are
constructions in terms of ‘know’ in which the complement clause is an indirect question: ‘know
who’, ‘know what’, ‘know whether’, ‘know why’, etc. And notwithstanding the works of Hintikka,
Lewis, Boër and Lycan, or Stanley and Williamson, it is not clear at all that constructions in terms
of ‘know’ (henceforward, epistemic constructions), including knowledge-wh ascriptions, can all be
reductively accounted for in terms of knowledge-that ascriptions. For as Hookway recently pointed
out, after all if we were to analyse all epistemic constructions by taking knowledge-wh ascriptions
as our starting point, we could naturally be led to the conclusion that in any construction in which it
may occur, ‘know’ denotes a binary relation between an agent and a question, rather than between
an agent and a proposition. We need not go so far, though.
Schaffer for instance suggests that to know is always to know that P, as an answer to Q, and
that in any construction in which it may occur, ‘know’ denotes a ternary relation K(s, p, Q), where s
is an agent, p a proposition, and Q a syntactic variable the value of which is a question, namely, the
question to which p is the correct answer. Now, whereas there are overtly binary knowledge
ascriptions like ‘S knows that P’ or ‘S knows Q’ (where Q is an indirect question), there does not
seem to be easily available epistemic constructions that explicitly articulate the supposed irreducible
reference to a question (except through the relatively unused construction ‘S knows that P, as an
answer to Q’). But if Schaffer is right, we should expect that such overtly ternary knowledge
ascriptions be easily available. I will dedicate an important part of my paper to discussing the main
motivations offered by Schaffer for accepting his question-relativity account of knowledge. My
own conjecture, which I will develop in the most important part of my paper, is that we’d better opt
for a subject-matter-relativity account of knowledge.
I will insist that we can gain better insights into how to analyse constructions in terms of
‘know’ by taking a crucial feature of knowledge into account, namely, its aboutness, that is, the fact
that all knowledge is always knowledge about a subject-matter. I take this feature to derive from the
aboutness of propositions: if a proposition is always about something, viz. its subject-matter, then it
is reasonable to think that propositional knowledge is always knowledge about something too. I will
argue that this apparently trivial observation can nonetheless advantageously be put to use to
account for knowledge attributions in which the complement clause is an indirect question.
In order to do so, I will make use of Lewis’s definition of what it is for a proposition to be
about a subject-matter: proposition P is about subject-matter M, when P has the same truth-value in
any two worlds that are exactly alike with respect to M (henceforth, M-equivalent). Given this
definition, we can then hold that all propositional knowledge is knowledge about the subject-matter
of the proposition purportedly known. My suggestion is this: when P is about M, what S is said to
know through a sentence of the form ‘S knows that P’ corresponds to a cell of a partition, namely
13
the partition of the set of epistemically relevant worlds by the M-equivalence relation (according to
some criterion of epistemic relevance).
Now, if it is right to propose that the subject-matter of a piece of knowledge be understood in
terms of such a partition, and if on the other hand it is right to propose, like Higginbotham, that a
question be understood in terms of a partition of a set of worlds too (where each cell corresponds to
a possible answer to a question,) then we can look at epistemic constructions in a new light. To
exemplify this point, I will show how knowledge-wh attributions can be analyzed as being of the
form ‘S knows M’, that is, as a way to make the subject-matter M of the knowledge attributed to the
agent S explicit. Through a knowledge-wh ascription, we would thus be saying that the agent is able
to identify which cell of the partition of the relevance set by the M-equivalence relation corresponds
to the actual state of the world.
After going further into its details, I will put forth a set of epistemological as well as linguistic
reasons for thinking that my proposed account is justified. Two of the most important of these
reasons shall be evidence from non-epistemic constructions with embedded non-interrogative whclauses and the easiness with which the account can be accommodated to deal with the apparent
context-variability of ordinary knowledge ascriptions. I will then explore the extent to which my
account differs from and fares better than other recent accounts of knowledge ascriptions, like the
one put forward by Schaffer.
Gonçalo Baptista dos Santos, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
O que não nos diz e o que nos diz o Teorema de Gödel acerca do significado de ‘número natural’
Pelo Teorema de Gödel, para qualquer sistema formal para a aritmética elementar, existe uma frase
U, exprimível mas não demonstrável no sistema, que não só é verdadeira, como pode ser
reconhecida por nós como verdadeira, a frase em questão sendo da forma (x) A(x), com A(x) um
predicado decidível. Daqui segue-se que a nossa noção de ‘número natutal’, mesmo quando usada
em frases que apenas envolvem um quantificador, não pode ser completamente expressa por meio
de um sistema formal. Pretende-se argumentar que este resultado não nos permite identificar a
expressão ‘número natural’ como fornecendo um contra exemplo à tese de que o significado de uma
expressão deve ser explicado em termos do seu uso. Com esse propósito, serão analisados os
argumentos apresentados por Dummett em The Philosophical Significance of Gödel’s Theorem
(1963).
A explicação para o significado filosófico do Teorema de Gödel contra a qual se pretende
argumentar é a seguinte: dado que U não é provável nem refutável no sistema formal, devem existir
modelos do sistema em que ela é verdadeira e outros em que ela é falsa. Assim, dado que U não é
verdadeira em todos os modelos do sistema, segue-se que quando dizemos que podemos reconhecer
U como verdadeira, devemos querer dizer ‘verdadeira no modelo pretendido do sistema’. Devemos
pois ter uma ideia muito definida do tipo de estrutura matemática à qual nos pretendemos referir
quando falamos dos números naturais e é por referência a esta concepção intuitiva que
reconhecemos a frase U como verdadeira. Por outro lado, nunca poderemos caracterizar
completamente esta concepção intuitiva por meio de um sistema formal.
O raciocínio que leva desta explicação para a conclusão de que a expressão ‘número
natural’ constitui um contra-exemplo à tese de que o significado de uma expressão deve ser
explicado em termos do seu uso, é o seguinte: um sistema formal para a aritmética, especifica um
conjunto finito de frases que caracterizam o modo como usamos a expressão ‘número natural’ e
nessa medida, pode ser identificado como uma tentativa para explicar o significado de ‘número
natural’ em termos do seu uso. Como o Teorema de Gödel prova a existência de uma frase que
podemos exprimir no sistema e que podemos reconhecer como verdadeira, embora não a possamos
demonstrar no sistema, concluímos que não é possível explicar o significado de ‘número natural’
através de uma descrição dos termos em que essa expressão é usada. Todos os que estão
familiarizados com a expressão, possuem uma compreensão intuitiva e perfeitamente clara do seu
14
significado e é em virtude dessa compreensão, que podem reconhecer U como verdadeira. Contudo,
esse significado é tal, que se o tentarmos descrever em termos do uso da expressão, não o
poderemos explicar exaustivamente.
O argumento contra a explicação acima apresentada, passa por mostrar que a noção de
modelo aí usada não pode ser identificada com a noção de modelo tal como ela é usado em
matemática. Argumenta-se que, na medida em que há um uso ilegítimo da noção de modelo, não
podemos tomar essa explicação como válida, pelo que não podemos concluir com base nela que a
expressão ‘número natural’ constitui um contra exemplo à tese de que o significado de uma
expressão deve ser explicado em termos do seu uso.
A explicação para o significado filosófico do Teorema de Gödel a favor da qual se pretende
argumentar é a seguinte: o significado da expressão ‘número natural’ não pode ser completamente
expresso por meio de um sistema formal, pois essa expressão é inerentemente vaga, sendo que o uso
de uma expressão matemática pode ser caracterizado por meio de um sistema formal, apenas se o
seu significado for completamente definido. Pretende-se daqui concluir, não que o significado da
expressão ‘número natural’ não pode ser explicado em termos do seu uso, mas sim que a
caracterização do seu uso deve conter uma formulação do princípio geral de acordo com o qual,
qualquer tentativa para a caracterizar formalmente, pode sempre ser objecto de uma extensão.
Argumenta-se que o significado da expressão ‘número natural’ não pode ser entendido
apenas como o critério para a aplicação de ‘número natural’ e que parte desse significado é a
validade da indução com respeito a qualquer propriedade bem definida. Argumenta-se que o
conceito de propriedade bem definida é indefinidamente extensível e que por isso a validade da
indução com respeito a qualquer propriedade bem definida, não pode ser aceite no contexto de um
sistema formal para a aritmética. Pretende-se assim justificar a caracterização do significado da
expressão ‘número natural’ como inerente vago e explicar porque é que não é possível uma sua
descrição exaustiva por meio de um sistema formal para a aritmética. Argumenta-se que desta
impossibilidade, não se segue a impossibilidade de explicar o significado de ‘número natural’ em
termos do seu uso, mas antes que a caracterização desse uso deve conter uma formulação do
princípio que permite proceder a uma extensão de qualquer sistema formal para a aritmética.
Jorge Ornelas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
[email protected]
The kantian dismissal of skeptical idealism
The first review of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) appeared in 1782 in the Göttinger Anzeigen
von gelehrten Sachen. It was written by Christian Garve and Heinrich Feder, who described the
Kantian position as an idealist system very similar to that proposed by Berkeley.
Kant strongly rejected this charge in the Prolegomena (1783) and in the second edition of the
Critique (1787), where he introduced some amendments in order to separate his position from every
other idealistic views. The Refutation of Idealism (RI) is one of those new sections dedicated to that
purpose. In this section Kant tries to refute Descartes’ skeptical idealism by means of a proof that
was intended to put a definite end to the “scandal of philosophy” represented by skepticism.
From the second edition of the CPR on, a philosophical commonplace has located the Kantian
antiskeptical strategy exclusively in RI, underestimating the importance and originality of the
antiskeptical strategy already developed by Kant in the Fourth Paralogism (FP). The majority of
the commentators agree in at least two points (Cf. K. Ameriks, H. Allison, B. Stroud, P. Guyer and
J. Bennett):
1) RI contains the stronger argument against skepticism.
2) FP is an earlier attempt to refute skepticism which failed because of its idealistic
compromises.
In this paper I will defend two claims against this philosophical commonplace:
1) RI and FP are two different and independent antiskeptical strategies.
2) FP is successful precisely where RI fails, namely, in the transcendental level.
15
In the first place I will introduce a distinction between two kinds of antiskeptical strategies:
refutations and dismissals. In the second place I will argue that RI is not a conclusive refutation of
the skeptical challenge. Finally, I will offer an interpretation of FP as a dismissive strategy and I
will argue that FP is more promising than RI.
To sum up, the aim of this paper is to eliminate what I consider one of the most common
errors in the interpretation of Kantian antiskepticism, and to show what I consider the most
advisable way to face the skeptical challenge.
Julien Murzi, University of St Andrews, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
[email protected]
Possible Knowledge of Actual Truths
A well known argument by Fitch proves that a plausible claim, namely that all truths can be known,
collapses into a much less plausible claim: all truths will be known. Since truth entails possibility,
Fitch’s proof licenses the following equivalence:
(F) ∀ϕ (ϕ → šKϕ) ↔ ∀ϕ (ϕ → Kϕ),
where the diamond expresses possibility and the epistemic operator ‘K’ reads ‘it is known by
someone at some time that’. This is the knowability paradox. As Jonathan Kvanvig points out, the
two notions of truth universally knowable and truth universally known are semantically different, at
least according to Frege’s criterion of identity for senses. Therefore, if we rely on our semantic
intuitions, Fitch’s proof must be fallacious.
Different solutions of the paradox have been proposed so far. Among the most discussed
are the so-called restriction strategies. Eminent anti-realists, such as Neil Tennant and Michael
Dummett, have recently proposed to restrict the left hand-side of (F) to some class of nonproblematic truths. Once knowability is restricted, those authors argue, Fitch’s paradox is blocked.
Such proposals, however, look desperately ad hoc. Moreover, new Fitch-like paradoxes
undermining Tennant’s and Dummett’s restrictions have been recently proposed in the literature.
How to solve Fitch’s puzzle?
The thesis I defend is that source of the paradox lies in the standard formalization of the
knowability principle “All truths are knowable” (henceforth KP). The principle carries an
equivocation between two notions of knowability: “in w, knowledge that ϕ” and “knowledge that,
in w, ϕ”. That is, with respect to actual truths: possible knowledge of a possible truth and possible
knowledge of an actual truth. The distinction is subtle and standard modal quantified logics do not
have the resources to accommodate it. That’s why, as Dorothy Edgington pointed out, we need a
richer logic for a better formalization of (KP). Edgington suggests to add the actuality operator A to
S5 to get a new knowability principle:
(KPA) ∀ϕ(Aϕ → šKAϕ),
which does not entail Fitch’s conclusion. Her proposal, however, faces serious objections. Helge
Rückert has recently suggested to frame KPA into Kai Wehmeier’s new modal logic S5*. The
upshot is a new knowability principle KP*, semantically equivalent to Edgington’s, but
syntactically different:
(KP*) ϕ → šK*ϕ.
As modal contexts are concerned, in S5*, expressions followed by stars must be evaluated with
respect to the possible worlds at stake; otherwise, they must be evaluated with respect to the actual
world.
The paper supplies an independent argument from our everyday uses of the expression ‘it
possible to know that’ to the effect that our common notion of knowability is factive, and defends it
from criticisms. As a result, it is argued, Fitch’s paradox does not undermine our concept of
knowability. Rückert’s non-factive interpretation of (KP*) is criticized and an alternative reading is
offered. A new formalization of (KP) is provided within an extension of Wehmeier’s framework:
16
(KP*+) ∀ϕ…*(ϕ* ↔ š**K**ϕ*)
The principle has it that knowability is a necessary and sufficient condition for both actual and
possible truths. Among its virtues, the proposed formalization does not entail the unwelcome right
hand side of (F) and blocks other knowability paradoxes recently discovered in the literature: once
knowability is given an explicit logical interpretation, the new arguments can be seen to be all
provably invalid.
Edgington-type conceptions of knowability face at least two powerful objections. First, they
appear to restrict knowability to necessary truths. Second, they require transworld knowability, i. e.,
in our case, possible knowledge of actual truths. The objection from necessary truths, I claim, can
be easily addressed. For one thing is to be true at every world, and another thing is to be evaluated
as true from every world: the first notion, but not the latter, is the one of being a necessary truth.
The paper also provides an answer to the second problem: how can possible knowers know any
actual truth? How can they even refer to the actual world? Counterfactual knowledge, Edgington
has argued, can do the trick. I then address Williamson’s well-known charge of trivialization against
Edgington’s conception of transworld knowledge. Williamson’s argument, I argue, is harmless,
provided that counterfactuals can be informative. Since Williamson’s charge of trivialization was
the main obstacle faced by Edgington-like treatments of Fitch’s paradox, I conclude that the
knowability paradox is either S5*-invalid or metaphysically uninteresting.
REFERENCES:
Brogaard, B. and Salerno, J., 2002. “Clues to the paradox of knowability: reply to Dummett and
Tennant”, Analysis 62, pp. 143-50.
-----, 2006. “Knowability, Possibility and Paradox”, forthcoming in D. Pritchard and V. Hendricks
(eds.) New Waves in Epistemology, Ashgate.
Edgington, D., 1985. “The Paradox of Knowability” Mind 94, 557-568.
Fitch, F., 1963. “A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts” The Journal of Symbolic Logic 28,
135-142.
Kvanvig, J. 2006. The Knowability Paradox, Oxford University Press.
Rückert, H., 2003. “A Solution to Fitch's Paradox of Knowability” in Gabbay, Rahman, Symons,
Van Bendegem (eds.) Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Tennant, N., 1997. The Taming of the
True. Oxford, Chapter
Wehmeier, K. F., 2004. “In the Mood”, Journal of Philosophical Logic 33, pp. 607-630.
Williamson, T., 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford, Chapter 12.
Luís Rodrigues, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Será plausível a hipótese céptica de que somos cérebros numa cuba?
A exposição visa questionar a solidez da hipótese céptica (HC), abundantemente referenciada na
literatura filosófica, segundo a qual é impossível saber que não somos cérebros em cubas
precisamente porque o somos. Irei fazê-lo em duas etapas. Na primeira tentarei mostrar que o
argumento que sustenta esta hipótese é epistemicamente circular e vicioso, ou seja, que é uma
petição de princípio epistémica. Argumentarei, na segunda, que a HC não consegue bloquear a forte
intuição de que é possível um agente inteligente e racional possuir crenças verdadeiras e justificadas
sobre estados de coisas no mundo (mesmo sendo o caso de se encontrar “encerrado” no interior do
cenário céptico habitualmente aventado pelos defensores da HC). Espero com estes dois passos
apresentar uma posição sustentada, mas não dogmática, que milite satisfatoriamente contra a
plausibilidade da HC e do cepticismo radical.
1ªetapa
A HC apoia-se no seguinte argumento:
17
Premissa 1: Se formos cérebros em cubas é-nos impossível saber o que quer que seja sobre estados
de coisas no mundo.
Premissa 2: Somos cérebros em cubas.
Por Modus Ponens, obtemos:
Premissa 3: É-nos impossível saber o que quer que seja sobre estados de coisas no mundo.
Segue-se de 3 que,
Conclusão: É impossível sabermos que não somos cérebros em cubas.
Irei defender que este argumento, apesar de válido, não é epistemicamente sólido. Defenderei que é
uma petição de princípio epistémica. Uma petição deste género ocorre quando a solidez epistémica
de uma ou mais premissas depende do que é afirmado na conclusão que delas se deseja derivar.
Aplicando a definição ao argumento céptico acima exposto, obtemos: a solidez (epistémica) da
premissa 2 depende da solidez (epistémica) da conclusão.
Isto é exactamente o que sugere o defensor da HC: somos cérebros em cubas porque não
conseguimos saber que não o somos. Assim, não conseguir saber que não somos cérebros em cubas
é, na proposta do céptico, condição suficiente (embora não necessária) para o sermos. Como se o
formos nada podemos saber, inclusive que não o somos, estamos condenados a sê-lo – isto nada
mais é que o argumento que sustenta a HC, e é epistemicamente vicioso.
O defensor da HC pode tentar retorquir a esta objecção de dois modos, ambos expedientes
habitualmente usados pelo céptico. O primeiro é simplesmente reafirmar o argumento, valendo-se
para tal do Principio do Fecho. O segundo passa por sugerir que não podemos saber se somos
cérebros numa cuba porque não conseguiríamos distinguir uma situação em que o fossemos de uma
em que não o fossemos (uma espécie de lei de indiscirnibilidade de idênticos aplicável a situações
de avaliação cognitiva de cenários cépticos e não cépticos).Vamos por partes.
2ª etapa
O Principio do Fecho diz-nos que o conhecimento é fechado sob implicação lógica. Quer dizer:
(PF) Se o agente S sabe que P, e se sabe que P implica Q, então S sabe que Q.
Por exemplo, se eu sei que estou em casa, e se sei que estar em casa implica que não esteja na
Universidade de Lisboa, saberei então que não estou na Universidade de Lisboa. Pegando neste
princípio, o céptico afirma que se eu soubesse que i) estou em casa, saberia também que ii) não sou
um cérebro dentro de uma cuba (localizada, por exemplo, no laboratório de um cientista malvado).
Conversamente, argumenta, visto que eu não sei que ii, não poderei saber, por PF, que i. Isto vale,
segundo ele, não apenas para i mas para todas as minhas crenças que poderiam mostrar que não
sou um cérebro incubado.
O céptico pode reforçar o seu ponto adaptando o PF à justificação:
(PFj) Se S está justificado em acreditar que P, e se estar justificado em acreditar em P implique
estar justificado em acreditar em Q, então S estará justificado em acreditar que Q.
Convertendo: Se eu acredito justificadamente que estou em casa, e se isso implica que possa
acreditar justificadamente que não sou um cérebro numa cuba, então acredito justificadamente que
não o sou. Conversamente, se não tenho forma de acreditar justificadamente que não o sou, não
poderei acreditar justificadamente em qualquer coisa que implique que não o sou.
A isto o céptico acrescenta que se fosse o caso de eu ser agora um cérebro numa cuba não me
seria possível distinguir entre a realidade tal como é por mim experienciada neste momento e uma
simulação dessa mesma realidade, por assim dizer, fornecida ao meu cérebro incubado. Portanto,
diz ele, nessa situação em que sou um cérebro numa cuba, tudo milita em favor da tese de que as
minhas crenças sobre a realidade são falsas.
Tentarei bloquear estas respostas do céptico seguindo duas vias de argumentação:
18
a)
Mostrando que se a HC fosse verdadeira, o seu defensor também não poderia ter qualquer
crença verdadeira e justificada sobre estados de coisas no mundo, incluindo a crença de que a
própria HC é verdadeira – que teria como consequências que ou a HC não poderia ser
demonstrada ou que o cepticismo que a sustenta é inconsistente (pois sugere que se pode
saber algo sobre o mundo que implica que não possamos saber nada sobre o mundo). O
ponto é que a indeterminação ou a inconsistência que acompanham a HC contribuem
decisivamente para baixar a probabilidade de ser verdadeira. E se essa probabilidade é baixa,
a HC não pode ser plausível.
b)
Mostrando que, contrariamente ao sugerido pelo céptico, podemos usar um princípio de
parcimónia explicativa para refutar a ideia de que há mais probabilidades de estarmos num
cenário céptico do probabilidades de não estarmos. Irei para esse efeito valer-me das ideias
que G.E. Moore usa contra o cepticismo, considerado na sua generalidade, e contra a
hipótese céptica russelliana específica segundo a qual não há qualquer impossibilidade
(lógica, física ou metafísica) agregada à hipótese de que a realidade, tal como a
experienciamos, começou há cinco minutos atrás.
Marcus Romberg, Lund University
[email protected]
Causation and randomness as second-order characteristics
Causal and probabilistic reasoning provide man with tools, which practically save, and take, lives
every day. With no doubt our laymens concepts of causation and probability do handle
generalizations and possibilities in a way that has proved to be relevant for everyone having these
concepts. When one considers the practical concept of causation it is crucial to understand its
intimate connection with personal understanding and action. This suggests that a proper account of
causation must avoid an excessively intellectualised picture of the capacities it requires. But it does
not suggest that it is an empty or vague concept. It is practically understood and applied by us, even
before we have our language.
Despite the unquestionable, everyday-value of the concept, some philosophers do propagate
for an anti-realist view on causation. But if causation is nothing but a psychological attitude or an
epistemic perspective, how can it be objective? How come that the world actually does appear to us
as if it is a causal construction? Could the principal of causal order be non-fundamental, or nonprimitive in nature, and still be proven such a successful strategy? Don’t we have enough evidence
for the view that the world is a causal construction? Or do we, strictly, just have evidence for the
relevance of a causal attitude towards the construction we refer to as “nature”? I believe the latter.
That causation is a second order characteristic of the world rather than a fundamental or primitive
property. To argue for such a statement, one has to be prepared to present some intelligible
arguments for it. This paper is a defence for such a view.
Firstly I will address the question of the ontological status of causation and randomness,
and discuss how these concepts, respectively, correspond to our notion of probability. I share my
view on relations with R.Carnap, and so, argue that it is needed to separate the questions about
causation into two.
“With each relation, there are connected two problems of a different kind. [---]. We call the
correlation problem the question: between which pair of objects does the relation hold? More
precisely, what is the general law of correlation of the relation in question? From the correlation
problem, we distinguish the essence problem. [---] (W)hat it is between the correlated objects,
by virtue of which they are connected. The question does not ask for the constitution of the
related object, but ask for the essence of the relation itself.” Carnap. Der Logische Aufbau der
Welt (1928).
1. What is the correlation between the connected objects (cause and effect), and can it be
expressed in terms of logic or statistics?
19
And
2. What are the essence, or nature, and the ontological status of supposed causal connectedness?
The first question has received considerable attention during the last decades. All too often one has
tried to explain the essence in correlative terms. None of the proposed solutions have been very
satisfactory. I have elsewhere presented preliminary results of my (strongly Humean influenced)
perspective on the correlation problem. The theory suggest that empirical observations and causal
statements forms a specific methodological structure, wherein it is true that causal statements are
relevant rather than true, and that causal relations can be expressed in first order propositional logic
in a way that gives support for an treatment in accordance with a Bayesian framework.
In this paper I will extend my concerns, and so discuss the essence question. After
presenting reasons for applying a dualistic account, (correlation and essence) I will present my
solution for the essence problem. One that does not imply any conflicts between causally and
randomly dependent processes. This is of great scientific importance. Considering e.g. quantum
mechanics, where it normally is considered an unsolvable enigma that what is described as just a
collection of non-dependent probable distribution of quanta constantly can, and in fact does,
manifest in our world as the very same marble, brown table or hydrogen atom. This view results in
a twofold perspective on probability: as distribution dependency and as theory deviation.
To reach my point, I will as an illustrative aid use mathematical functions and their graphs.
One “well-behaved” sine function and one “pathological” modified Weierstrass, function.
What makes this pathological function significant is that, similar to a fractal, it has uniform and
infinite complexity no matter how closely one "zooms in" to view the image. For this reason, curves
do not appear to become smoother as one "zooms in", thus no tangent can be equated to the graph at
any one point, thus the function is nowhere differentiable. One can imagine circumstances under
which it is not unreasonable to assume that a physical manifestation of a pathological function
might give raise to observations that gives evidence for assuming a well-behaved function as being
the law-like approximation. E.g. the function f(x) = b sin x gives a fairly good approximation to a
physical manifestation of the pathological function above. It is clear that the well-behaved
approximation has got different second-order characteristics than has the pathological function.
From this one can show that our concept of causation might be closely related to a second-order
characteristic of the well-behaved function that approximately describes the process in question.
Hence, causation is a relevant feature of our scientific approximation, but not reflecting the absolute
functional dependency. Random will be equivalent to non-causal, or non- differentiable. The view
presented make it intelligible how, even in fundamental physics, random processes still might
manifest in a causal way. Or to put it another way: It explains how randomized distribution on a
lower level can express as causal distribution on a higher level. And, furthermore, it explains how
randomness not necessarily leads to an unpredictable nature. It will be shown that this is due to a
functional property (differentiability) more primitive than either causation or randomness.
Paul Egré and Denis Bonnay, Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris, IHPST, Université Paris 1
[email protected]
Modular Knowledge
Anti-luminosity. In Knowledge and its Limits, T. Williamson states an argument against the
luminosity of mental states, which we may summarize in the following way. A mental state e is
called luminous if and only if, by definition, the occurrence of e entails the knowledge that one is in
e. Mental states of pain, for instance, will be luminous if their occurrence systematically entails the
knowledge that one is in pain. According to Williamson, however, no non-trivial mental state is
20
luminous, a non-trivial mental state being defined as a state that lasts for some time, but not all the
time. Williamson’s argument rests on the idea that mental states gradually appear and disappear,
and that our knowledge about them must obey a margin for error in order to be reliable. Williamson
(2000, chap. 4) shows that if an occurring mental state is assumed to be luminous, and if knowledge
obeys a margin for error, then that state has to be permanent, and therefore trivial. In the appendix
to Williamson (1994), Williamson states a margin for error semantics for the notion of inexact
knowledge, which gives formal support to this claim. Relative to a monomodal propositional
language with operator K (for knowledge), a fixed-margin model is defined as a quadruple
<W, d, α, V>, where W is a set of possible worlds, d is a metric over W, α is a positive real valued
margin for error parameter, and V is a valuation function for the atoms of the language. An
epistemic sentence Kp is satisfied at a world w iff p holds at all worlds w’ that are within distance α
from w. In other words, p is known at a world if and only if it holds throughout the margin for error.
Williamson’s fixed margin semantics is sound and complete for the logic KTB, and Williamson
shows that a sentence of the form φ →Kφ is valid in margin models if and only if either φ is valid,
or not φ is valid. Taking φ to express a mental condition (such as “I am cold”, or “I am in pain”),
this result rigorously expresses the idea that φ is luminous if and only if φ is trivial. As a
consequence, Williamson’s semantics invalidates principles 4 and 5 of modal logic, that is positive
as well as negative introspection. Thus, according to Williamson, even states of knowledge are not
luminous: I can very well know that I am cold, without knowing that I am cold.
Anti-anti-luminosity. In this paper, we argue that one can very well agree with Williamson that not
every non-trivial mental state is luminous, or even that most of our mental states are not luminous,
without endorsing the stronger conclusion that no non-trivial mental state is luminous. More
precisely, we show that it is possible to state truth-conditions for knowledge which allow to
conceive of states of knowledge themselves as being luminous without being trivial. Let us
consider, for instance, a linear model consisting of worlds indexed by degrees of temperature,
describing a situation such that I feel cold up to 11°C, and do not feel cold above 12°C. Idealizing
somewhat on the psychophysical conditions, we may assume that I don’t perceptually discriminate
between temperatures that differ by less than 1°C. In the corresponding margin for error model, this
entails that at world 10, I know that I feel cold, but don’t know that I know it, since 12 is an
alternative in which I no longer feel cold. Likewise, if the temperature is 9°C, I know I am cold and
know that I know it, but the semantics predicts that I don’t know that I know that I know it. Such
predictions do not seem plausible from a psychological point of view. Moreover, as argued by
Dokic & Égré (2004), they hang on the controversial assumption that tactile knowledge and higherorder knowledge about my tactile knowledge obey the same kinds of margin for error. Intuitively,
however, it seems that my knowing that I know I’m cold when the temperature is 10°C supervenes
only on whether I know I am cold there, and not on a situation in which the temperature is 12°C. To
formalize this idea, we define a centered semantics (CS), in which satisfaction of sentences is
relative to couples of worlds. Given a standard Kripke model M=(W,R,V), we let:
M,(w,w’)|=CS p iff w’∈V(p).
M,(w,w’)|=CS ¬φ iff not M,(w,w’)|=CS φ
M,(w,w’)|=CS (φ & ψ) iff M,(w,w’)|=CS φ and M,(w,w’)|=CS ψ
M,(w,w’)|=CS Kφ iff for every w’’ such that wRw’’, M,(w,w’’)|=CS φ
Let M,w|=CS φ iff M,(w,w)|=CS φ
Letting p stand for “I feel cold”, one can check that in a model like the one described above,
10|=CSKp, but this time 10|=CSKKp, despite the fact that 11|=CS¬Kp. Validity is defined as usual,
and we prove that the normal logic K45 is sound and complete for CS. From a model-theoretic
point of view, we get a generalization of Kripke semantics, since K45 now captures the full class of
models, and not only the transitive euclidian models. Likewise, we can give a centered version of
Williamson’s fixed margin semantics, CMS, for which S5 is proved to be sound and complete.
Unlike in standard margin semantics, finally, |=CS Kp → KKp holds without entailing |=CSKp or |=CS
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¬Kp, showing that knowledge may well be luminous without being trivial. This does not commit us
to luminosity in general, however, since in the model described above, 11|=CS p while 11|=CS¬Kp,
and thus we agree that I may feel cold without being aware of it yet.
Modular knowledge. CS corresponds to a modular semantics for knowledge, in which iterated
knowledge modalities and non-iterated modalities are not on a par. Formally, one may fear it does
too much, since it validates negative, as well as positive introspection. This prediction is not
unwelcome, however, relative to the scenario considered by Williamson, since he asks to consider a
process in which one “thoroughly considers how hot or cold one feels” (2000: 97). More generally,
the present semantics can be parameterized in such a way that iterations of knowledge are sensitive
up to n, just as in the standard semantics, and insensitive beyond n, thus involving at most n moves
in the model to check for satisfaction. To do this, we define satisfaction relative to a world and a
parameter n, standing for the degrees of iterations needed to reach insensitivity in the modalities
(CS corresponds to n = 1, and the standard Kripke semantics to n = ω). This parameter may thus be
seen as representing the cognitive cost of metarepresentations. The semantics has applications in
other areas of knowledge representation, in particular in the multi-agent case in situations of
bounded rationality, which we shall discuss if time permits.
References
Dokic J. and Égré P. (2004), Margin for error and the transparency of knowledge (ms), Archives of
Institut Jean-Nicod, presented at the ESAP Conference, Lisbon, 2005.
Williamson T. (1992a), An alternative rule of disjunction in modal logic, Notre Dame Journal of
Formal Logic, vol 33, pp. 89-100.
Williamson T. (1992b), Inexact knowledge, Mind, 101, pp. 217-42.
Williamson T. (1994), Vagueness, Routledge.
Williamson T. (2000), Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford.
Treasa Campbell, University of Limerick, Ireland
[email protected]
Causal Instinct: A normative descriptive epistemology
Emerging from Hume’s account of belief formation is an understanding of causation in which the
move made by the human mind from cause to effect is instinctual rather then rational. This move
from cause to effect is an unavoidable, indispensable and universal feature of how we as humans
operate in the world. As a universal, constant feature of human nature the causal instinct is part of
the cognitive abilities of the species. Individual, content-specific beliefs emerge as this instinct is
exposed to the stimuli provided by the senses. We have, for example, the individual, contentspecific belief that the sun will rise tomorrow. But the expectation which I possess and that gives
rise to this belief is an unavoidable instinct which I have as part of the very nature of the species to
which I belong. As this conception of causal inference is based on Hume’s descriptive account of
how humans form beliefs it has long been held to carry little normative value. Having provided a
descriptive account of belief-formation many claim that Hume must relinquish any attempt to
address the critical-normative aspect of epistemology. Howson describes Hume’s account as
explaining where it could not justify and Howson is by no means alone in this assessment.
Passmore held that in attempting to reconcile his skeptical conclusions with his positive description
Hume had provided at best a psychological resolution. Popkin maintained that Hume's account
could not provide our beliefs with any normative standing for the causal instinct. This instinct may
be hard to resist psychologically but may well be fallacious and deceitful. On such a reading it
would seem that there is no prescriptive role available to Hume's account of belief-formation. This
paper sets out to give Hume’s descriptive account a degree of normative weight which it has long
been denied.
The paper has three sections in the first section I demonstrate that as causal inference is an
unavoidable, instinctual feature of how we operate in the world, it determines how we pursue the
epistemologist’s tasks. It will be argued that if we disregard such a universal and unavoidable aspect
22
of how we engage in the world, the norms we establish will have no legitimate force for human
beings. Drawing upon Harold I. Brown’s discussion of the interconnected relationship between
epistemic norms and our cognitive abilities, I defend the normative significance of treating the
causal move as instinctive.
The causal instinct, on which Hume must draw in order to arrive at his account of human
cognition, is established empirically. But this requires that we already have a set of methodological
rules that will allow us to evaluate empirical claims. It would seem then that we are trapped in a
vicious circle. In the second section, with reference to Carnap’s account of inductive intuition, I
argue for the removal of any viciousness associated with this circularity. I contend that we need not
regard induction as unjust or unfounded because its operation engages an innate, indispensable
instinct of the human species.
In the third and final section the question of justification in relation to that which belongs to
us by virtue of our nature will be addressed. The case will be made that traditional forms of
justification which we apply to propositions are neither possible nor necessary in the context of a
universal instinct. It will be argued that if only reasonable doubt precludes justified belief then, in
the case of the causal instinct and the beliefs that flow from it, we act in a just and reasonable
manner when operating in accordance with them.
These three sections − firstly, an account of how a descriptive account forms the framework
within which normative accounts can arise; secondly, accounting for the benign nature of the
circularity to which this process gives rise; thirdly, arguing that we should not hold instincts and
propositions to the same criterion of justification − combine to form a powerful case for attributing
normative value to Hume’s descriptive account of belief formation according to which the casual
move is instinctual.
Vijay J. Mascarenhas, Metropolitan State College of Denver
[email protected]
A Prevailing Misinterpretation of Kant’s Second Analogy Corrected
There is a prevailing and almost universal agreement among Kant Scholar’s that reversibility and
irreversibility play some crucial role in the Second Analogy of the First Critique. The
predominance of this interpretation is natural enough, given the priority of the issue in Kant’s own
exposition. It is, however, a misinterpretation; and it is a pernicious one at that. I argue that undo
focus on the issue of the reversibility prevents a true understanding of what I take to be the real
argument of the Second Analogy. Admittedly, this argument is one that I would call “uncovered” or
“reconstructed.” The one thing that is clear about the text of the Second Analogy is that there is no
clear argument given; rather, Kant starts his argument several times only to abandon it and
seemingly begin it again, this time on a different footing. Any coherent, let alone successful,
argument must then be cobbled together from the various argument “fragments.” My contention is
that such a coherent and successful argument can indeed be unearthed from the text, but that this
argument is fundamentally different from the one with which Kant starts the Second Analogy, most
specifically in the fact that it does not rely in any manner on reversibility or irreversibility in the
series of representations. I also show that this new argument is the only argument which has hopes
of succeeding and that by Kant’s own admission—though perhaps this admission lies
underdeveloped—reversibility cannot play a crucial role. After all, he readily concedes that there it
is impossible to tell which representations have objectively successive time determinations distinct
from their merely subjective succession in experience. Schopenhauer’s criticism of the Second
Analogy further exposes the irrelevance of reversibility. He points out the very simple fact that all
succession of representations is irreversible: strictly, no token representation that follows another
representation could have any time determination relative to its neighboring representations in the
time series other that the one which in which it was experienced. Given that my eye looks up and
then down, I must see the roof of the house followed by the ground floor of the house. Moreover, it
should be obvious that if one is aboard a ship going down a river—rather than observing it from the
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shoreline—the succession of representations of houses on the shoreline is no more reversible than
the succession of representations of the ship at different location on the river. Despite the
irreversibility of the series, however, the subjective sequence of representations is not taken to
“exist in the object,” i.e. the houses themselves are not taken to exist at separate times. All
succession in the series of representations is then irreversible. The category of causality would then
appear to be universal. And indeed it is so. For the distinction that Kant needs is not between
genuinely causal events and non-causal successions of mere representations, but rather one between
those causally determined successions that are attributable to the changes within the spatio-temporal
network of objects experience and those that are attributable to changes (no less genuine and
causally determined) in the manner in which subject is integrated into the spatio-temporal network
of objects. I then show how only this interpretation of the Second Analogy accords with the role
Kant thinks the concept of causality must play as being one of the necessary conditions of the
transcendental unity of apperception with respect to time. Unless the concept of causality “glues”
all representations to the preceding and succeeding representations the unity of apperception would
be broken up into different, unconnected, segments. Lastly, I defend both the success of this
“reconstructed” argument and its fruitfulness by showing both how it is the only coherent and
philosophically successful interpretation available and how it also helps lead the way to new and
better understanding of the First and Third Analogies.
24
Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind
Andrea Borghini, Columbia University
[email protected]
One More Reason Not to Tense the Copula
The paper puts forward a problem for one well-known version of Endurantism. Endurantism is the
view that individuals persist in time by being wholly present at more than one temporal cut. Several
versions of Endurantism exist, differing in their account of "whole presence." The version discussed
in the paper explains "whole presence" in terms of a certain reading of the exemplification relation,
according to which,
R: where needed, the exemplification relation is relativized to a certain time.
For instance, an expression within the ordinary language of the form "is happy in the afternoon" is
interpreted by the version of Endurantism at hand as "is-in-the-afternoon happy."
The problem I will put forward depends crucially on the fact that Endurantists are Aristotelian
with respect to properties, namely they maintain that a property exists only insofar as it is
instantiated by one individual. Platonists with respect to properties, on the other hand, deny this.
Here is the problem. There are two ways of interpreting R:
(i)
The exemplification relation should be relativised only for some, but not all
properties. (Which is to say that only troublesome properties should be
relativized.)
(ii)
The exemplification relation should be relativized for all properties.
Consider the following sentence:
(1) Maria is sad in the afternoon but happy in the evening.
(i) and (ii) will offer two different interpretations of (1), but I believe that both of them are
problematic. Let us consider them in order.
Suppose to endorse (i). You will hence give the following analysis of (1):
(2) There is an x which is-in-the-afternoon happy and there is a y which is-in-the-evening
sad, and x is identical to y (it is Maria.)
In (2) we have an absolute or unqualified occurrence of the exemplification relation – "is
identical to" – and two relative occurrences of the exemplification relation – "is-in-the-afternoon"
and "is-in-the-evening." The Endurantist endorsing (i), hence, claims that the individual in the
afternoon is (without qualification) identical with the individual in the evening; in both cases it is
Maria. At the same time, the Endurantist claims that when she says that Maria is happy in the
afternoon and sad in the evening, she is using the other sense of existence, the relativized one.
This twofold use of existence, however, is Platonist, not Aristotelian. There are two Marias.
One is this abstract thing which exists without qualification in virtue of having some unqualified
properties. The other is the abstract Maria made concrete by the addition of some qualified
properties. To be concrete, Maria has to have some unqualified properties. Now, Endurantism is
theoretically interesting only when combined with Aristotelianism. If you are a Platonist, you do not
need to resort to Endurantism to explain persistence, since for you persistence is not constitutive of
individuals.
Suppose instead to endorse (ii). How to represent (1) within this interpretation of Endurantism?
The trouble is to express the "is identical" in a way that is not too weak. One could in fact interpret
(1) thusly:
25
(3) There is an x, which is-in-the-afternoon happy and there is a y which is-in-the-evening
sad, and x is-in-the-afternoon identical to y and x is-in-the-evening identical to y.
But (3) does not seem to convey Endurantism. The Endurantist, in fact, does not want to claim
simply that x and y is identical to Maria on some occasions. The identity is necessary. In order to
accommodate this point, the supporter of (ii) could hence interpret (1) thusly:
(4) There is an x, which is-in-the-afternoon happy and there is a y which is-in-the-evening
sad, and, for any time ti and any world wj at which x and y exist, x is-at-ti-in-wj identical
with y.
This rendering of (1) is compatible with an Aristotelian theory of properties, it does not presuppose
two senses of existence, and is not weak as (3) in asserting the identity between x and y. Yet
something is still missing. The Endurantist, in fact, does not only want to say that x is identical to y
at any time and world at which they do exist. x has to be identical with y also when they exist at
different times, places, and worlds. But how to represent such request in (ii)? The trans-world and
cross-temporal identity in question cannot be stated unqualifiedly, on pain of reintroducing the two
senses of existence countenanced by (i). Nor can it be stated by talking of different temporal or
word-bound stages of Maria.
Perhaps there is a way. The identity of Maria across time and worlds is established not in the
language of the theory (the object language), but in the meta-language. And, if the object language
is tensed, the meta-language has no tenses. In other words, the meta-language has it that:
(5) The referent of the "x" that, in the object language, "is-in-the-afternoon happy" is
identical to the referent of the "y" that "is-in-the-evening sad."
One could even claim that is-in-the-afternoon is a predicate also in the meta-language, but it is not a
tensed predicate, i.e. it does not express a relation between a time and a property. On the contrary, it
is a simple property referring to the tensed property "is-in-the-afternoon" of the object language.
Now, the question is what role to the tensed object language and the tense-less meta-language
play in the formulation of Endurantism – which of the two languages expresses Endurantism? As
we have seen, the object language is inadequate, per se, to establish the identity of Maria across
time and worlds. On the other hand, the meta-language alone, being tense-less, cannot express the
fact that Maria changes over time. We thus need both. If (ii) is true, hence, we would need to
express our ontology with both the object language and the meta-language. Perhaps this is not
impossible, but it is arguably bizarre. I take this to indicate that (ii) cannot adequately express
Endurantism. And since also (i) failed to do so, I conclude that tensing the copula is not an option
for the Endurantist.
Christopher Bartel, King´s College London
[email protected]
Nonconceptual Content and the Mind-Independence Constraint
A claim that is common among theorists who defend some notion of nonconceptual content is that
experience represents objects and properties of the mind-independent world. A minimum
interpretation of this claim would be that the mind does not figure in any substantive way in
individuating the objects and properties that are represented in perceptual experience. In this paper,
I argue that perceptual contents can be nonconceptual only if the properties that these states
represent are sufficiently mind-independent. A definition of perceptual mind-independence is
developed and defended.
The basic idea of mind-independence that I wish to defend is that the content of some perceptual
state represents a mind-independent feature of the external world if the property that is represented
in experience can be individuated without needing to refer to any cognitive capacity of the
perceiving subject. I first consider cases where mind independence clearly holds, as in the
perception of shape. Perceiving that some object is, say, square only requires that the world is a
26
certain way (that some object actually is square) and that the perceiver has a visual system that is
built in the right way.
More subtle cases, such as the perception of colour, are then considered. In colour perception,
again the only two things that would be required are that the world is a certain way and that the
perceiver is physiologically constituted in such a way that they are sensitive to certain physical
properties of light. The case of colour perception is made difficult partly by the acknowledgement
that colour perception suffers from subjectivity and partly by the great disagreement in the
metaphysics of colour. Thinking of the second problem, my claims about mind-independence would
be satisfied by any metaphysical notion of colour that acknowledges that the physical properties of
an object will have something to do with colour perception. This would just be to acknowledge that
part of what individuates colours can be some physical facts about the world. The concern about
subjectivity is also dealt with by pointing out that my claims about mind-independence are meant to
say something about what is required for a subject to be capable of perceptual discrimination. My
claims have nothing to say about the differences in perceptual ability between any two subjects,
either inter-species or intra-species.
I then move on to consider cases where I claim that mind-independence fails. One such case
would be the difference between representing some object as a square and representing that object
as being a regular-diamond. In such cases I claim it would be wrong to think that an explanation of
these perceptual differences ought to be sought after in the physical properties of the external world.
There is no physical difference between squares and regular-diamonds, so any perceptual difference
is not something provided by the external world. Thus, such cases fail to satisfy mindindependence.
In the final section of this paper, I will argue that the content of some perceptual state can only
be nonconceptual if the mind-independence constraint can be satisfied. Indeed, mind-independence,
I argue, is a necessary condition for some representational content to be nonconceptual. This is a
somewhat weak notion of nonconceptual content, but one that is motivated by the thought that there
is some substantial difference between perceptual contents that necessarily require that the subject
possess some cognitive ability or some psychological capacity and those contents that do not make
such requirements.
With these arguments in place, difficult cases would then need to be considered. I will illustrate
how this discussion would handle a case such as the representation of the spatial location of sounds.
Auditory experience often represents sounds as ‘coming from the right’, for instance. The question
is whether the contents of auditory experience that account for these spatial judgments satisfy the
mind-independence constraint or not. I will argue that they cannot on account of the acoustical fact
that there simply is no physical differences in sound waves that sound to be located in one place
rather than another. Strawson once argued that sound is an inherently non-spatial sense modality.
Accounting for the representation of the spatial location of sounds would then require some account
that links auditory experience to either sight or touch—two sense modalities that are inherently
spatial. As this would require a psychological ability (albeit a subpersonal one) the contents of
these representational states do not satisfy mind-independence, and so cannot be weakly
nonconceptual.
Fabrice Correia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona and LOGOS Group, Barcelona
[email protected]
Necessary Existence, the Brouwerian Principle, and the Proper Interpretation of ‘the actual F is
G’
Stephanou (2000) presents an argument to the effect that Aristotle necessarily exists if he does. This
latter claim is highly implausible, and Stephanou concludes that the Brouwerian principle B, which
says that what is possibly necessarily true is true, and which he uses in the derivation, is the culprit
and therefore has to be given up. I wish to argue that Stephanou is wrong, and that it is rather one of
the premisses he uses which has to be rejected. Gregory (2001) reaches the same conclusion, but on
27
the basis of a flawed argument. Gregory’s error lies in a misintepretation of Stephanou’s faulty
premiss. The mistinterpretation is harmless as far as the vocabulary involved in the premiss is
concerned, but it leads to erroneous attributions of truth-values when the vocabulary is changed.
Stephanou’s argument is the following:
(1) It is necessarily the case that if someone is Aristotle, he is the actual Aristotle [premiss]
(2) If Aristotle did not exist then it is impossible that someone should be the actual Aristotle
[premiss]
(3) If Aristotle did not exist, it is impossible that someone should be Aristotle [by (1) and (2)]
(4) Necessarily, if Aristotle did not exist, it is impossible that someone should be Aristotle [because
both (1) and (2) are necessary, and (3) logically follows from (1) and (2)]
(5) If it is possible that Aristotle should not exist, it is possible that, necessarily, no one should be
Aristotle [by (4)]
(6) If it is possible that Aristotle should not exist, Aristotle does not exist [by (5)]
(7) If Aristotle exists, he necessarily exists [by (6)]
Stephanou accepts both premisses but rejects the conclusion. His diagnosis is that the step from (5)
to (6) should be resisted. The step involves the Brouwerian principle, which, therefore, he rejects.
My view is that it is the step from (1)-(3) to (4) which is unwarranted, for the following
reason: (1) is not necessary. In fact, (1) is necessary just in case for every circumstances c and d
such that c is accessible from the actual circumstance and d is accessible from c, the following holds
in d: everything is such that if Aristotle is identical to it, then the Aristotle of c is identical to it.
Now take two circumstances c and d such that c is accessible from the actual circumstance and d is
accessible from c, and such that Aristotle exists in d but not in c. (There surely are such
circumstances.) Then in d, there is something which is identical to Aristotle, but which does not
satisfy the predicate ‘is not identical to the Aristotle of c’, for the following reason: an object
satisfies the predicate in a circumstance only if Aristotle exists in c, and by hypothesis this is not the
case.
Gregory proposes the same diagnosis, but on the basis of a wrong view on the truthconditions of sentences of type ‘it is true in circumstance d that the Aristotle of circumstance c is F’.
In a nutshell, the truth-conditions he gives are such that the truth of ‘it is true in circumstance d that
the Aristotle of circumstance c is F’ entails the truth of ‘it is true in circumstance c that Aristotle is
F’, while there is no such entailment: for instance, even though it is possible that the actual Aristotle
never did any philosophical work, it is not true in the actual situation that Aristotle never did any
philosophical work. Gregory’s diagnosis is correct, but only by luck. For although he is wrong on
the truth-conditions of sentences of the type in question, his views on the matter are such that ‘it is
true in circumstance d that the Aristotle of circumstance c is F’ entails the truth of ‘it is true in
circumstance c that Aristotle exists’, and that is enough to criticize the step from (1)-(3) to (4) in
Stephanou’s argument the way I did.
So, Gregory’s error is harmless in the context of Stephanou’s argument. But as I will show
in my presentation, it leads to problems in other contexts. I will conclude with general
considerations on the logical form of sentences containing modal operators and definite descriptions
of type ‘the actual F is G’.
References
Stephanou, Y. 2000. Necessary Beings. Analysis 60: 188-93.
Gregory, D. 2001. B is innocent. Analysis 61: 225-29.
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Gustavo Ortiz Millan, Instituto de Investigaciones, Filosoficas Universidad Nacional
Autonoma de Mexico
[email protected]
Is Direction of Fit Fit?
In contemporary philosophical discussions it is claimed that the difference between beliefs and
desires can be formulated in terms of the different way they fit the world: Beliefs have a mind-toworld direction of fit, they try to represent the world; desires, a world-to-mind direction, they try to
change the world (or stop it from changing, we might add) in order to make it fit their content. This
is what has been called the thesis of the direction of fit of mental states with the world. In this paper,
I examine some obscure aspects of the idea of direction of fit, and I want to propose that this notion
be abandoned in favor of a different way of distinguishing beliefs and desires.
First, I argue that, as we find it in some of its classic presentations, like those of Platts or
Pettit, the idea of direction of fit commits us to specific epistemological and metaphysical positions:
beliefs are characterized “vertically”, more in terms of their relation with the world, than
“horizontally”, i.e., in terms of their relation with other beliefs or other mental states; also, the idea
of “fit” tends to favor a correspondence theory of truth and some sort of representationalism. I argue
that there is no reason of why a distinction between beliefs and desires should not commit us to any
substantive theory of truth. Then, I examine Michael Smith’s characterization, and I argue that it is
good only for factual or empirical beliefs, and that it does not help us to distinguish other forms of
beliefs (such as a priori beliefs) from desires. Also, Smith’s characterization is given in terms of
dispositions; here I rely on the work of critics of dispositional theories of intentional states (like
Kripke’s and Bilgrami’s), and argue that a distinction between beliefs and desires should be given
in normative terms, not captured in dispositional theories. Beliefs should be seen as governed by
truth and by some correlative norms that the notion of truth imposes on them, and desires as some
form of commitment to values. But then the distinction in normative terms makes useless any
appeal to the notion of direction of fit.
João Fonseca, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
[email protected]
Ruthless Reductionism vs. New Mechanicism
Recently, two distinct views have been debating the general procedures adopted by neuroscientific
practice. ‘Ruthless reductionism’ (RR), as held by Bickle (Bickle, 2003, forthcoming) stresses that
contemporary neuroscience adopts an ‘intervene molecularly, track behaviorally’ stance providing a
reductive explanations of cognitive behaviors that supercedes interlevel explanations (including
typical cognitive/psychological ones). On the other hand, ‘new mechanists’ (Bechtel & Richardson,
1993; Craver, 2002; Bechtel & Wright, forthcoming) argue that neuroscientific practice should be
viewed as discovering mechanisms comprising several levels of organization of neuronal
components and activities. To the mechanists reduction plays a part on a mechanistic endeavor but,
contrary to RR, it doesn’t precludes higher levels of explanation (eg. psychological) in favor of
lower ones (eg. molecular). So, the point here is that we have two perspectives, both rooted in
contemporary neuroscientific practice, but with distinct outcomes. Which one (if any at all) is right?
To address this quandary I propose to confront both views with the discovery/(reductive)
explanation distinction.
It is suggested that RR focus more directly on (reductive) explanation whereas mechanicism
puts its emphasis on discovery. But the main important difference is that RR establishes a clear
distinction between discovery in one side and (reductive) explanation in the other while, it is
suggested, mechanicism ‘warp’ discovery and explanation under the same framework. While RR
conceives discovery as a means to achieve established reductive explanations, mechanists provides
a more dynamical picture to (reductive) explanation since it relates directly to the discovery
process. Instead of considering reductive explanations as a final result of discovery, mechanicists
stress that it plays a constitutive and transitory role on the discovery process itself (this relates
29
directly to Explanatory Pluralism’s Heuristic Identity Theory akin to mechanicism (Bechtel &
McCauly, 2001)).
Given this background, a case for mechanicism is advocated. The main reason is the ease this
model exhibits on accommodating new data arising from any level of explanation. RR, on the other
hand, cannot handle easily with this phenomenon since it favors a static conception of reductive
explanation as opposed to the more dynamical one proposed by mechanicism. This point will be
illustrated by a study suggesting an active role for astrocytes (glia cells) on Long-Term Potentiation
in the hippocampus’ pyramidal cells (Yang et al, 2003). The analysis of this case reveals several
aspects covered by the mechanist approach such as the implications over and above the cellular
level, the ability to revise reductive explanations and the relative autonomy of the different levels of
explanation.
References
Bechtel & Richardson (1993); Discovering Complexity; Decomposition and Localization as
Strategies in Scientific Research. Princeton University Press.
Bechtel & McCauley (2001); “Explanatory pluralism and the heuristic identity theory”, Theory and
Psychology, 11: 736-760
Bechtel & Wright (forthcoming); “Mechanisms and psychological explanation”, in P. Thagard (ed.)
Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science, New York.
Bickle, J. (2003) Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account, Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishing.
Bickle, J. (forthcoming) “Reducing Mind to Molecular Pathways: Explicating the Reducionism
Implicit in Current Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience”, Synthese
Craver, C. (2002) “Interlevel experiments and multilevel mechanisms in the neuroscience of
memory”, Philosophy of Science 69: 83-97
Y. Yang, W. Ge, Y. Chen, Z. Zhang, W. Shen, C. Wu, M. Poo and S. Duan (2003) “Contribution of
astrocytes to hippocampal long-term potentiation through release of D-serine”, Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 25, 15194-15199
Karol Polcyn, Szczecin University, Poland
[email protected]
Chalmers’ Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism
Let P be the statement that reports the complete microphysical truth about the universe and Q an
arbitrary truth about phenomenal consciousness, for example that there is something it is like to see
blue. And let (P) stand for premise and (C) for conclusion. Then Chalmers’ argument against
materialism goes as follows:
(P1) P&~Q is primarily ideally positively conceivable.
(P2) Whatever is primarily ideally conceivable is primarily possible.
(C1) P&~Q is primarily possible.
(P3) The primary and secondary intensions of P and Q, respectively, are identical.
(C2) P&~Q is secondarily possible.
(P4) Materialism is true only if P>Q is secondarily necessary.
(C3) Materialism is false.
Chalmers assumes that the truth of materialism does not require that consciousness be
identical with a physical state, only that consciousness supervene on physical states. So the point of
his argument is that materialism must be false because consciousness does not supervene on the
physical, which is shown by the possibility of P&~Q.
My objection to Chalmers’ argument can be put directly as follows. Chalmers is right to
point out that the truth of materialism does not require that conscious states be identical with
physical states, only that facts about consciousness supervene on physical facts. But Chalmers gives
30
us no reason to think that conscious and physical states are not identical. And if we can consistently
assume that those states are identical, Chalmers’ argument against psychophysical supervenience
does not work. For if psychophysical identity is true, P&~Q will be neither primarily nor
secondarily possible.
Consider the question of the identity of conscious states and physical states. It can be
argued that it simply does not follow from the primary conceivability of zombies (the primary
conceivability of P&~Q) that conscious states and physical states are not identical. While the
primary conceivability of zombies implies that the statement “~(p=q)” is primarily conceivable,
where p and q stand for a physical and a phenomenal state, respectively, the fact that “~(p=q)” is
primarily conceivable does not imply that “p=q” is false. Consider in this context the case of our
conceivability intuitions regarding standard theoretical identities, for example the intuition to the
effect that water is not H2O. “Water is not H2O” is primarily conceivable but that does not imply
that “Water=H2O” is false. Now, in the case of standard a posteriori identities, the primary
conceivability of their falsity goes together with the distinctness of the reference-fixers of the two
concepts flanking the identity sign. This raises a difficulty. If we assume that in general the
conceivable falsity of an identity statement implies the distinctness of the reference-fixers of the
two concepts flanking the identity sign, “p=q” cannot be true if we assume in addition that p and q
refer essentially (pick out the very properties that fix their references). By the first assumption, from
the conceivable falsity of “p=q” it will follow that the reference-fixers of p and q are distinct. But
then, assuming that the concepts p and q refer essentially, p and q cannot be identical. For assuming
that p and q refer essentially, p and q can be identical only if the reference-fixers of p and q are
identical.
This may seem to be a serious difficulty. Indeed, this is the difficulty that led Kripke to
think that “p=q” cannot be true. For Kripke assumed that if S is an a posteriori identity statement, S
is primarily contingent, which means that Kripke assumed that if S is an identity statement that is
conceivably false, the properties fixing the reference of the concepts flanking the identity sign must
be distinct.
If Kripke’s assumption is right, “p=q” cannot be true. But the assumption does not seem to
be right. As Loar points out, we can account for the conceivable falsity of an identity statement (or,
in other words, for its aposterioricity) in purely psychological terms, without invoking any
difference at the level of reference-fixing properties. This then leaves room for assuming that “p=q”
can be true despite the fact that both p and q refer essentially.
But further, if we can assume that “p=q” can be true, this will have fatal consequences for
Chalmers’ argument against materialism. Our assumption will lead to the conclusion that P>Q is
both secondarily and primarily necessary:
(P1*) “p=q” is true a posteriori.
(P2*) The phenomenal and microphysical concepts p and q are rigid (have the same referents,
respectively, in all possible (counterfactual) worlds).
(C1*) “p=q” is secondarily necessary.
(C2*) P>Q is secondarily necessary.
(P3*) The primary and secondary intensions of P and Q, respectively, are identical.
(C3*) P>Q is primarily necessary.
Now, one possible line of resistance to this line of reasoning would be that (P3*) is
inconsistent with (P1*). If the primary and secondary intensions of P and Q are identical, the
primary and secondary intensions of the physical and phenomenal concepts p and q, respectively,
involved in P and Q are identical and this means that the properties fixing the reference of p and q
are identical with the referents of those concepts. So if we now assume in addition that p and q are
identical, it will turn out that the properties fixing the reference of p and q will have to be identical
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as well. But intuitively “p=q” cannot be true a posteriori if the reference-fixers of p and q are
identical.
In response, however, we should say what we have already said above. The intuition that an
identity statement can be true a posteriori only if the concepts flanking the identity sign have
different reference-fixers has to be rejected. The a posteriori status of a true identity statement can
be accounted for purely psychologically, in terms of the conceptual differences between the relevant
concepts rather than in terms of the difference between reference-fixers.
Thus, it is fair to say that nothing prevents us from concluding that (C3*) is true if (P1*),
(P2*) and (P3*) are true. But if (C3*) is true, P>Q will be primarily necessary despite being
primarily conceivably false. So if (C3*) is true, (C1) does not follow from (P1) and (P2) is false. So
consequently Chalmers’ argument collapses.
References
Chalmers David, 1996 The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers David, 1999 Materialism and the Metaphysics of Modality. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 59: 473-96.
Chalmers David, 2002 Does Conceivability Entail Possibility? In (T. Gendler & J. Hawthorne, eds)
Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers David, 2003a Consciousness and Its Place in Nature. In (S. Stich & F. Warfield, eds) The
Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.
Chalmers David, 2003b The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief. In (Q. Smith & A.
Jokic, eds) Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers David, 2006a Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap. In (T. Alter & S. Walter,
eds) Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and
Physicalism. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers David, 2006b The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism. In (B. McLaughlin,
ed) The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Mind.
Hill Christopher S., 1997 Imaginability, conceivability, possibility and the mind-body problem.
Philosophical Studies 87: 61-85.
Hill Christopher S. & McLaughlin Brian, 1999 There are fewer things in reality than are dreamt of
in Chalmers’ philosophy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59: 445-54.
Levine Joseph, 2006 Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint. In (T. Alter and S.
Walter, eds) Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: Essays on Consciousness and
Physicalism. Oxford University Press.
Loar Brian, 1997 Phenomenal States. In (N. Block, O. Flanagan, G. Güzeldere, eds) The Nature of
Consciousness. MIT Press.
Loar Brian, 1999 David Chalmers’ The Conscious Mind. Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 59: 465-72.
Papineau David, 1999 Mind the Gap. Philosophical Perspectives 12.
Papineau David, 2006 Phenomenal and Perceptual Concepts. In (T. Alter and S. Walter, eds)
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism.
Oxford University Press.
Stoljar Daniel, 2005 Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts. Mind and Language 20: 469-94.
Van Gulick Robert, 1999 Conceiving beyond our means: The limits of thoughts experiments. In (S.
Hameroff, A. Kaszniak, & D. Chalmers, eds) Toward a Science of Consciousness III. MIT Press.
Worley Sara, 2003 Conceivability, possibility and physicalism. Analysis 63: 15-23.
Patrick Greenough, University of St Andrews
[email protected]
The Open Future
The broad goal of this paper is to offer and defend a novel model of the open future. This model has
the following features: (1) It’s a truth-maker gap (not a truth-value gap) model whereby one posits
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that sentences which are indeterminate in truth-value are such that they, and their negations, lack
truthmakers. In contrast to the linguistic truthmaker gap model of indeterminacy given by Sorensen
(2001)—a model that suffers from a number of pressing difficulties—the truthmaker gap theory of
indeterminacy developed here is only concerned with worldly indeterminacy. (2) It poses no threat
to classical logic or classical semantics. (3) It does justice to our competing definitions concerning
future contingents—the future is indeterminate and yet future contingents have truth-values. (4) It
can ground the elusive distinction between truth and determinate truth, a distinction which both
Wright (1987, 1995) and Williamson (1995, 1997) have both attacked. (5) It undercuts the main
motivation behind McFarlane’s recent programme for relativism concerning truth (see e.g.
McFarlane 2003). (6) It opposes the standard conception of worldly indeterminacy in that rather
than say a (contingent) sentence is (worldly) indeterminate in truth-value iff it is indeterminate
whether the sentence is made true and indeterminate whether the sentence is made false (see
Parsons 1999, Williamson 2005 for presentations of something like the standard view), we simply
say that a (contingent) sentence is (worldly) indeterminate in truth-value iff it is neither made true
nor made false, (7) It undermines Lewis’s ‘the future argument’ for ‘divergence’ over ‘branching’
in that, unlike the extant views of branching which Lewis rejects, (such as the standard
indeterminist view whereby ‘the future’ neither succeeds nor fails to pick out one and only one
future), a truthmaker gap model respects ‘the common-sense idea that we have one single future’
(Lewis 1986, ch.4). It’s just that it is indeterminate which of the many objectively possible futures
is the future. Hence, accepting that future is open, still allows us to speak of the future.
1. Preamble.
• Goal: To offer and defend a novel model of the open future.
• This model has the following features:
(1) It’s a truth-maker gap model (cf. Sorensen 2001)
(2) And yet it poses no threat to classical logic or classical semantics.
(3) It does justice to our competing definitions concerning future contingents.
(4) It can ground the elusive distinction between truth and determinate truth.
(5) It undercuts the main motivation behind McFarlane’s (2003) relativism concerning
truth.
(6) It opposes the standard conception of worldly indeterminacy.
(7) It undermines Lewis’s ‘the future argument’ for ‘divergence’ over ‘branching’.
(8) It can serve to unpack Aristotle’s own solution to the puzzle.
2. The puzzle of the open future.
• Here’s McFarlane on the puzzle:
If it is not now determined whether there will be a sea-battle tomorrow, can an assertion
that there will be one be true? The problem has persisted because there are compelling
arguments on both sides. If there are objectively possible futures which would make the
prediction true and others which would make it false, symmetry considerations seem to
forbid counting it either true or false. Yet if we think how we would assess the prediction
tomorrow, when a sea-battle is raging (or not), it seems we must assign the utterance a
definite truth-value (2003, p. 321).
• Why is the puzzle important and interesting? Three reasons:
(1) It can help us decide between realism, anti-realism, and deflationism.
(2) It can help us decide between eternalism and non-eternalism.
(3) It’s important for the Fatalism debate.
3. Is this puzzle a paradox?
• Consider the assertion (made now, at m0): ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’.
• The following four (plausible) claims ensure that the puzzle of the open future is a paradox:
The Indeterminacy Intuition: ‘the assertion is neither true nor false’.
The Determinacy Intuition: ‘the assertion does have a definite truth-value’.
33
McFarlane’s Constraint: A good solution must ‘give both intuitions their due’.
The Absoluteness of Utterance-Truth: true at one time, true at all times (at least if we keep
the context of utterance fixed).
• Immediate puzzle: what is the difference between a definite truth-value and a truth-value? That
is, what is the difference between definite truth and truth? McFarlane fails to recognise this
question, but his implicit answer is: no difference. (Here lies his greatest oversight.)
4. Motivating the indeterminacy intuition.
• McFarlane motivates the indeterminacy intuition on the basis of:
(1) There being many equi-possible objective possible futures (branching time).
(2) A symmetry argument.
• Let branching time for two possible future histories h1 and h2, be represented as follows:
m2
h2
Sea-Battle
m1
Peace
h1
m0
•
Consider again the assertion (made now, at m0): ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’. He says:
There are possible future histories witnessing its truth and others witnessing its falsity, with
nothing to break the symmetry (p.321).
• That’s rather quick. The best formulation of the symmetry argument seems to be:
(1) The grounds (now) to take the utterance to be true/false cancel each other out.
(2) Hence, there is (now) no sufficient determinant of truth-value either way.
(3) Therefore, the utterance (now) lacks a truth-maker and a false-maker.
(4) Hence, the utterance is (now) neither true nor false.
• The step from (3) to (4) invokes the following temporally indexed truth-making principle:
For all times t, S is true (at t) iff something makes true the sentence S (at t).
5. Modelling the indeterminacy intuition.
• McFarlane’s uses Thomason’s (1970) clauses for truth (simpliciter):
(ST) An utterance is true (simpliciter) iff it is true on all possible future histories
(SF) An utterance is false (simpliciter) iff it is false on all possible future histories
Since our utterance is true on some possible histories and false on others, it follows that it is neither
true nor false (simpliciter). The logical theory is based on van Fraassen’s supervaluations. While the
law of excluded middle is preserved, bivalence fails, and indeed certain inference rules fail (if we
allow a truth-predicate in the object-language).
6. Motivating the determinacy intuition.
• Consider the following type of reasoning:
(1) It was asserted yesterday that there would/will be a sea-battle today
(2) There is a sea-battle today
(3) So, the assertion made then should be evaluated as true (now).
• If we add the absoluteness of truth (once true, always true) then (3) becomes:
(3) The assertion was true
[Hence the paradox!]
7. McFarlane’s solution.
34
•
His solution to the paradox is simply to give up on the absoluteness of utterance truth: From one
temporal perspective (a context of assessment) the utterance is not true (simpliciter), while from
another temporal perspective (another context of assessment) it is true (simpliciter).
• Consequently, we must recognise (in addition to truth at a context of utterance) a further
relativisation: truth at a context of assessment.
• This is a *very* uninteresting form of relativisation since the facts are different at different acontexts……
• Virtues:
(1) It does justice to both intuitions (unlike all other extant approaches).
(2) It offers a diagnosis as to why the puzzle has proved so persistent.
(3) Excluded middle is preserved (and all other logical truths).
• Vices:
(1) Classical semantics and classical proof-theory are both compromised.
(2) There two species of truth: truth with respect to a history and truth simpliciter.
(3) We also lose the absoluteness of utterance truth.
(4) We thus lose: ‘I will die in 24hrs’ is true at t iff I die at t+24hrs.
8. The distinction between truth and determinate truth.
• If we can make good the distinction between truth and determinate truth, then this opens up a
much better model of the open future.
• However, from within a classical framework, whereby truth in natural language is bivalent and
disquotational, the distinction between truth and determinate truth has proved to be at best
elusive (Williamson 1994, 1995), at worst, unintelligible (Wright 1987, 1995):
It does not seem intelligible that there shou/ld be any way for an utterance to be true save by
being definitely true—at any rate, there is no species of indefinite truth (Wright 1995, p.143).
• But there is a species of indeterminate truth if we recognise that an utterance can possess a
truth-value groundlessly.
• Very roughly, utterances which are indeterminate in truth-value are utterances which are either
true or false it’s just that nothing grounds the truth-value that they have. (Sorensen 2001 applies
such a model to vagueness, incomplete definitions, and the truth-teller.)
• In other words, we keep classical semantics and reject the following truth-making principle:
(TM1) If S is true then something makes the sentence S true.
• To define determinate truth, we then accept the following biconditional:
(D) S is determinately true iff something makes the sentence S true.
• And also the following ‘factivity’ principle:
(TM2) If something makes the sentence S true then S is true.
• In other words, if truth-makers are facts, then a sentence is determinately true iff what it says is
a fact, and sentence can be true even though what it says is not a fact.
9. Back to the intuitions.
• We can now draw a distinction between:
Weak indeterminacy intuition: the utterance is indeterminate in truth-value
[Good intuition]
Strong indeterminacy intuition: the utterance lacks a truth-value
[Bad intuition]
Weak determinacy intuition: the utterance has a truth-value
[Good intuition]
Strong determinacy intuition: the utterance has a determinate truth-value
[Good intuition]
• In other words, to derive the paradox you need the Absoluteness of Determinate Utterance
Truth: determinately true at a time, determinately true at all times.
10. The bare-bones of the solution.
(1) Posit truth-maker gaps.
(2) But keep classical semantics (T-schema and bivalence).
(3) And so, deny the truth-making principle and thus accept groundless truths/ falsities.
(4) On that basis, distinguish truth from determinate truth.
(5) On that basis, distinguish a strong from a weak indeterminacy intuition.
(6) Retain the weak indeterminacy intuition but reject the strong indeterminacy intuition.
35
(7) Thus: deny the absoluteness of determinate truth, but do not deny the absoluteness of truth.
(8) Rewrite the Thomason truth-clauses as follows:
(DT) An utterance is determinately true iff it is true on all possible future histories
(DF) An utterance is determinately false iff it is false on all possible future histories
(9) Let the open future = the indeterminate future (in the sense defined here).
Virtues:
(1) You get to keep both the determinacy and intuitions (when construed correctly).
(2) There is only one species of truth, but two modes or ways of being true.
(3) You get to keep all of classical logic and classical semantics.
(4) We can offer a diagnosis as to why the puzzle has proved so persistent.
(5) We keep the absoluteness of utterance truth.
(6) We thus keep: ‘I will die in 24hrs’ is true at t iff I die at t+24hrs.
Vices: (1) We lose: if p then there exists something which makes <p> true.
But that’s an acceptable cost given all the other virtues of the theory.
Roberto Ciuni, Università degli Studi di Firenze
[email protected]
Expired Possibilities
The idea that some possibilities have expired seems to represent a very central part of our intuitions
about modality and time. Take as an example Caesar’s possible murder by the pirates. Caesar was
once kidnapped by the pirates, and the pirates could have killed him. However, the pirates never
killed Caesar, and since he no more exists, our intuitions seem to suggest that this is no more
possible, in the sense that it is not possible now and it won’t be possible in the future.
Consequently, there is at least a sense of the term “possibility” that is sensitive to the flow of
time. In other words, there is a temporalised sense of “possible” beside the purely modal sense of
“possible”. If we like to find a formal rendering of such a temporalised sense, two families of logics
are at hand: tempo-modal logics and temporal ones. Roughly speaking, the former include the
logics that do not introduce ◊ as a derived operator, while the latter include all those logic that
define it somehow on the basis of temporal operators. In what follows, I will consider just two of
them: a Priorean logic and Kamp logic. In a Priorean logic the possibility operator M is defined on
the basis of the temporal operators P and F, and of a previously introduced derived operator. On
the other hand, a Kamp logic introduces both the modal operator ◊ (quantifying over worlds) and
the temporal ones P and F (quantifying over linearly ordered points of time). What I will show is
that, if one adopts a Priorean logic, he fails in rendering the concept of an expired possibility.
A Priorean logic is a temporal logic such that (i) its underlying structure (T, < ) is a left
linearly ordered and right branching ordered transitive time, where T is the set of instants, and (ii)
its non-extensional primitives operators are the temporal operators P and F, that quantify on points
of a linearly ordered past and on points of a branching ordered future respectively; they amounts to
“at least once in the past” and “at least once in some point of some branching future” (the latter thus
receiving a weak reading). The duals of the previous operators are: H (¬P¬) and G (¬F¬). The
priorean operator M is defined on the basis of the traditional operator for megarian possibility: m,
where mp := Pp ∨ p ∨ Fp. We have Mp := Pmp ∨ mp ∨ Fmp. The valid sentences involving M (and
its dual L) are the S5 ones, and hence MMp → Mp is valid. On the other hand, the valid sentences
involving mp (l is to be read as ¬m¬) are the B ones when it is defined on branching time, and thus
mmp → mp is not valid in the logic of branching time plus m. It has to be noticed that to be possible
at the instant t is not only to be true in some instant t can “see” (where this is equivalent to “being
earlier or later or coinciding”): it is to be true in some instant that an instant whatever can see.
Formally: v(Mp, t) = 1 ⇔ t∈ T, and it exists a t' such that t'∈ T and v(p, t') = 1, with t and t'
instants, v an evaluation function, and T the temporal branching order. Using this language, a
possibility has expired iff: PMp ∧ ¬Mp ∧ ¬Fp. Such a formula is unconsistent with respect of a
Priorean logic with M. Take the example of Caesar and the pirates, and let me use “g” for the
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sentence “Caesar is killed by the pirates”. In temporal contexts, the chief sense of PMg seems to be
“It was once true that, in one point of at least a possible future, g”. In Prior's logic, this is PFg. From
PFg it obviously follow Pmg and mmg (both by the definition of m). By the definition of Mg and
MMg → Mg, it is easy to see that Mg obtains. Hence, if one assumes PFg, derives Mg. The idea of
an expired possibility is inconsistent with a Priorean logic, and hence cannot be framed in it.
Kamp’s logic provides us with a different perspective on time and modality. ◊, P and F
behave as operators on worlds and on linearly ordered points of time respectively.
They are
all primitive operators. Worlds are maximal sets of linearly ordered points of time. The main change
with respect of a Priorean logic is that the openess of the future is not expressed by F, but by ◊F.
The semantic for this logic involves both worlds and instants, to the effect that the accessibility
relation between world is temporally relative: wi Rt wj ⇔ wi and wj share exactly the same past and
are equivalent with respect of the atomic formulae.
As a consequence of this, Kamp's structures validate the following: every valid sentence of
the Triv purely modal logic for atomic formulae (hence ◊p ↔ p); every S5 valid sentence for the
temporalised modality, and the necessity of the past (Pp → ¬◊¬Pp). By its linguistic and axiomatic
apparatus, one can have “It was possible that, in some future, g” without deriving “It is (now)
possible that g” or “It is possible that in some future g”. The first sentence reads as P◊Fg, the
second as ◊g and the third as ◊Fg. Since we have ◊p ↔ p, and g is false (Caesar is not killed by the
pirates now), we have ¬◊g. The same can be said for ◊Fg: there is no world (passing through the
present time) in which Caesar will be killed by the pirates.
Thus, in Kamp's logic, we can express the idea that something that was possible is now
impossible.
Scott Berman, Saint Louis University
[email protected]
Universals, Particulars, and Geography: Let Aristotle Rest In Peace
A standard strategy for articulating how universals differ from particulars draws the contrast by
means of claiming that universals can be multiply located (“wholly present”) whereas particulars
cannot. The aim of this paper is to argue that this strategy is misguided. The main insight driving
my argument will be very simple: universals cannot be located in spacetime at all – let alone in
multiple locations. My hope is that if successful, the argument will put to rest a particular view of
universals that has been part of the history of philosophy since medieval philosophers started
misinterpreting Aristotle many years ago, namely, the universalia in rebus or the so-called
“immanent universals” view. I will not argue the scholarly point concerning Aristotle and his
exegetes, only that the view encapsulated in this misinterpretation needs to at long last cease to be
considered a real option concerning universals, properties, qualities, concepts, types, or whatever
else one wants to call these entities. In place of this strategy then, I suggest that we differentiate
universals from particulars in terms of being spatiotemporal or not.
Here is how we can approach the problem: if we think that a necessary condition for
existence is being located in space and time, then there could exist no non-spatiotemporal entities.
This view has been called ‘nominalism,’ ‘materialism,’ ‘physicalism,’ ‘radical empiricism,’
‘naturalism,’ and many other names, but I shall call this view ‘strict spatiotemporalism’ or SST.
If, on the other hand, we think that it is not necessary for existence that the entity be located
in space and time, though still sufficient, then in addition to spatiotemporal entities, there also exist
non-spatiotemporal entities. This view has been called ‘realism,’ ‘platonism,’ ‘aristotelianism,’ and
many others, but I shall call this view ‘spatiotemporalism plus’ or STP. And the last part we need
to begin our argument is one more idea: Einstein’s discovery of The Special Theory of Relativity.
As is oft-repeated but apparently never integrated, Einstein discovered that Newton’s
commitment to Absolute Space and Absolute Time was mistaken. Space and Time are not
independent of each other at all but are instead two aspects of the same thing: Absolute Spacetime.
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Crucial to Einstein’s idea is that nothing spatial fails to have a temporal dimension and nothing
temporal fails to have a spatial dimension. Therefore, there are no things with spatial dimensions
and no temporal dimension and there are no things with a temporal dimension but no spatial
dimensions. Let us call this aspect of Einstein’s discovery ‘spacetime unification,’ or STU. STU
will play the pivotal role in what follows.
For philosophers who are concerned with what goes on the list of existent things, viz.,
metaphysicians, discoveries in physics can be either ontologically relevant or irrelevant, depending
upon whether the subject matters of the two fields are ontologically connected or completely
disjoint. And though there was a time when the consensus was different, I think it is no longer
plausibly believed by anyone doing metaphysics nowadays that the fields of physics and
metaphysics are disjoint. That consensus, of course, does not make it true, but the burden of proof,
we think, has shifted and assuming a connection between those two fields is not unreasonable. So,
though I think it could be done argued for quite satisfactorily, I will not do so here. But granting the
assumption of substantive connections, Einstein’s discovery of STU makes some notable classes of
entities considered by historical and contemporary metaphysicians ineligible for being on the list of
things that exist.
For starters, STU rules out entities which can change but are not located in space. Change
requires a temporal dimension. STU, therefore, rules out all theories which commit themselves to
non-spatially located concepts that can change. Metaphysical conceptualists, constructivists, neoWittgensteinians, anti-realists, relativists, and voluntarists typically commit themselves to nongeographically locatable abstract objects which can change.
Next, disembodied spirits would have to be ruled out. It might seem odd that Cartesian
dualism could be refuted by simply by discovering that STU is correct, but if the fields of physics
and metaphysics are connected and not radically disjoint, then this sort of cross-fertilization
between the fields really ought to be expected, in the same way as discoveries in chemistry, biology
and physics all inter-relate.
And closer to the focus of this paper, another class of entities that would have to be ruled
out are so-called “immanent” universals. Immanent aristotelian universals are usually contrasted
with “transcendent” platonic universals. What is supposed to be the difference between them?
Immanent universals are somehow “in” things and not capable of “separate” or “independent”
existence, usually explained by “the principle of instantiation,” and are only capable of dependent
existence. Transcendent platonic universals are not “in” things but are “outside” things and are
capable of “separate” or “independent” existence and so, there can exist uninstantiated forms. This
focus of this paper concerns the existence of uninstantiated universals. I will argue that since both
platonism and aristotelianism are committed to the existence of uninstantiated universals, the
difference between these two views concerns a different issue than the one traditionally canvassed
in terms of geography. A geographical difference could only be ontologically relevant to strict
spatiotemporalists. For STP theorists, geography is ontologically irrelevant.
If one believes in the weak version of the principle of instantiation, then in order for a
universal to exist at t, there has to exist an instantiation of that universal at t. Take all of the white
objects in the universe at t1. Let Mick Jaggar have his way at t2 and have all of those white objects
painted black. At t3, there would exist no white objects. Therefore, according to the weak version
of the principle of instantiation, the color white would cease to exist at t3. If one of those recently
painted objects got scratched at t4, then in addition to that white object coming into existence, so
also would the color white come into existence. Since such a view concerning universals coming
and going into and out of existence makes a mockery of science, theorists (esp. Armstrong) have
tended to commit themselves to a stronger version of this principle such that if the universal is
instantiated at any time, then it exists for all time. It is in this way that such universals will not
come-to-be and pass-away, i.e., be subject to change.
Armstrong (1997) admits that there exists a red thing at some time and some place if, and
only if, there exists the universal redness. Yet he argues that the best a platonist (e.g., Tooley and
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Fales) can achieve is the idea that if it possible for a red thing to exist, then it is possible for the
universal redness to exist. The platonist, on the other hand, thinks that the stronger claim is also
true, namely, if it is possible for there to be a red thing, then the universal redness exists. Here’s
how the argument goes: Both the platonist and Armstrong-the-aristotelian agree that:
1. (∃x) Fx → (∃x) x = F-ness (Armstrong would assent to this as a biconditional)
2. (∃x) x = F-ness → ◊(∃x) Fx (The platonist would assent to this as a biconditional)
3. ◊(∃x) Fx → ◊(∃x) x = F-ness
On the other hand, Armstrong and the platonist disagree about:
2a. (∃x) x = F-ness → (∃x) Fx
3p. ◊(∃x) Fx → (∃x) x = F-ness
But, given Armstrong's Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, Armstrong has to agree that:
4a. ◊(∃x) Fx only if (∃x) x = F-ness
which, as we know is,
4a*. ◊(∃x) Fx → (∃x) x = F-ness
But
5. 4a* = 3p
Therefore,
3p. ◊(∃x) Fx → (∃x) x = F-ness
But 3p is exactly what Armstrong wanted to avoid. He wanted only the weaker 3 and not the
stronger 3p. Armstrong, then, has to admit to the existence of uninstantiated universals given that
he has to admit to 3p.
I shall conclude by explicated what the real difference is between aristotelian and
platonistic theories concerning universals.
Sirine Shebaya, Columbia University
[email protected]
Past and Future Individuals: An individualistic argument for ‘ethical presentism’
This paper provides some considerations in favor of a principle that Elster has called ‘ethical
presentism’ – that only present and future individuals matter for distributive justice. I argue that in
political morality, we should take account of the interests of future individuals, but not of the
interests of past individuals. I further argue that the former claim does not rely on a purely
subjective understanding of well-being, and that the latter claim does not rely on a rejection of
normative individualism (the view that individuals are the ultimate units of moral concern) or of the
person-affecting principle (the view that something cannot be good unless it is good for someone).
The intuitive justification for consideration of future individuals and against consideration
of past individuals is that we owe consideration to those whose lives and prospects we can affect
(and not to those whose lives and prospects we cannot affect). But the application of this principle
to the questions at hand is problematic. This is because (1) it is arguable that we can affect the wellbeing of past individuals, if well-being is objective or involves objective components; and (2) it is
arguable that we cannot affect the well-being of future individuals because we are incapable of
benefiting or harming any particular future individuals. I argue that we can nonetheless justify
discounting the interests of past individuals based on a principle of supersession, and ground our
obligation to attend to the interests of future individuals based on the value of human flourishing.
Moreover, I argue that this way of grounding obligations to future generations is consistent both
with NI and with PAP.
Outline of two arguments for discounting the interests of past individuals
To claim that past individuals are not owed consideration because their well-being can no longer be
affected appears to take for granted a subjective view of well-being. Insofar as well-being is
dependent on more than what an individual experiences or realizes, there is no reason to think that
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we cannot affect the well-being of past individuals. Thus, it would appear that we ought to consider
the interests of past individuals.
First argument: The claim that we can affect the well-being of past individuals is problematic for
reasons that are independent of whether or not we take well-being to be subjective. Ruling out
backward causation means ruling out this possibility without appeal to a subjective view of wellbeing, because the well-being of an individual is not the kind of thing that can exist apart from the
individual herself.
Using language that is sometimes applied to values, we can say that the well-being of an
individual supervenes on the individual herself, and once the individual no longer exists, neither
does her well-being. Thus we cannot affect the well-being of past individuals. Therefore, their
interests can legitimately be discounted.
Second argument: If we remain unconvinced that we cannot affect the well-being of past
individuals, there is another, less hardheaded route available to justify discounting their interests. In
the case of claims to land or resources, Waldron argues that certain changes in circumstances can
supersede past injustices. The argument revolves around two intuitively appealing ideas: first, that
the severity of impact can alter the weight of entitlement claims; and second, that forward-looking
considerations can trump backward-looking considerations in matters of justice.
Just as changes in circumstances can cause an injustice to be superseded, it can also cause an
interest and/or a claim to consideration to be superseded. Consideration of past individuals and their
interests means less consideration of present and future individuals and their interests, since there is
an inevitable scarcity that necessitates limiting where we focus our attention and resources. The
impact on present and future individuals of taking away resources from them to devote to
promoting the interests of past individuals is weightier than the benefits that accrue to past
individuals. Thus we are justified in discounting the interests of past individuals in favor of the
interests of present and future individuals. The claim to consideration of past individuals is
superseded by the change in circumstances brought about by their passing away.
Outline of the argument for grounding obligations to future generations
Parfit has argued that we cannot meaningfully speak of specific future individuals that we are
benefiting or refraining from harming, since which future individuals exist is causally related to
what we do in the present. So which environmental policies we pursue, for example, affects which
individuals are brought into existence, but cannot benefit or harm specific future individuals. If
those individuals who would exist in a toxic environment nonetheless have lives that are worth
living, then they are not harmed by being brought into existence. And if we do not think that mere
bringing into existence is a benefit, then those individuals who come into existence as a result of
sound environmental policies are not benefited either. If we accept PAP, it appears that we cannot
also accept that we have duties to future generations, because the outcome of acting on such duties
(so the argument goes) is not good for anyone.
A possible way out of this problem would be to claim that future generations as a
collectivity are owed a world with a clean environment, available savings, and the possibilities for a
flourishing life. But if we accept NI, it appears that collectivities are not entities we can appeal to in
grounding moral conclusions, because the ultimate units of moral concern are individuals, not
collectivities. Thus, it appears that NI is further inconsistent with the existence of obligations to
future generations. Do we have to reject either our intuition that we have obligations to future
generations, or one or both of PAP and NI?
I argue, first, that the best way to understand NI is as a priority claim, not an exclusivity
claim. NI does not entail that the only things of value are individuals, but rather that the pursuit of
things that are of value must be constrained by attention to how such a pursuit affects individuals.
But it does not rule out value pluralism at the foundational level, and it does not imply that we have
no reason to pursue things that are of value. Insofar as human flourishing is valuable, we have
reason to pursue policies that bring about greater probable flourishing.
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Next, I argue that PAP is best understood as a standard for determining what things are
good or bad, rather than as the view that the goodness or badness of a thing derives at each moment
from its impact on some particular individual. I.e., it need not mean that something can only be
good or bad if it is good or bad for some particular person at a given moment, but rather that things
are good or bad insofar as they are, generally speaking, good or bad for individuals. Thus a clean
environment is not good unless it is good for individuals. But we know that a non-toxic
environment is good for individuals. Thus, we have reason to pursue policies that help preserve a
clean environment, even if this does not involve benefiting any particular or identifiable future
individuals. Such duties are best understood as duties to future generations because their point and
purpose is the maintenance of a world in which future individuals can flourish. This is so even if
particular future individuals cannot be benefited or harmed by our actions.
Sofia Miguèns, Universidade do Porto
[email protected]
Conceito de crença, triangulações e atenção conjunta
Na última fase da sua obra D. Davidson desenvolve um conjunto de teses em torno da ideia de
triangulação. Estas teses trazem modificações à anterior concepção de interpretação radical, cujo
propósito era compreender como podemos ver mente e significado a partir do comportamento de
agentes no mundo. O que trazem a mais é a questão da intersubjectividade.
Situações de triangulação são situações em que dois agentes reagem coordenadamente entre
si e relativamente a um objecto terceiro no mundo. Segundo Davidson, elas estão presentes desde o
comportamento animal até à comunicação linguística entre humanos. Davidson descreve dois tipos
de triangulação: i) pré-conceptual e pré-linguística, ii) conceptual e linguística. Entre a primeira e a
segunda triangulação dá-se a emergência do pensamento (o pensamento característico do nosso tipo
de mentes: pensamento acerca de um mundo objectivo, envolvendo os conceitos de crença e de
verdade). O problema é que Davidson descreve os dois tipos de triangulação – i) pré-conceptual e
pré-linguística, ii) conceptual e linguística – mas não avança hipóteses acerca do que permitiria a
passagem entre uma e outra (quando essa passagem obviamente acontece – ela ocorreu por exemplo
em cada um de nós). Nesta comunicação, avanço algumas hipóteses acerca de tal passagem a partir
dos estudos psicológicos da atenção conjunta. As hipóteses envolvem uma crítica a certas ideias
defendidas por Davidson. A crítica é feita a partir de trabalhos de N. Eilan (2005), C. Peacocke
(2005) e J. Campbell (2005) sobre atenção conjunta. Na terminologia de Eilan, Davidson está do
lado das interpretações ‘pobres’ da atenção conjunta em mentes pré-linguísticas enquanto
fenómenos de triangulação, sendo que existem boas razões para a interpretação ‘rica’. Esta é a pista
para pensarmos de modo diferente do de Davidson na natureza das mentes pré-conceptuais e prélinguisticas.
Referências:
CAMPBELL, John, 2005, «Joint attention and common knowledge», in Eilan et al 2005.
DAVIDSON, D, 2001, «The emergence of thought», in Davidson 2001, Subjective, Intersubjective,
Objective, Oxford, OUP.
DAVIDSON, D, 2001, «The Second Person», in Davidson 2001, Subjective, Intersubjective,
Objective, Oxford, OUP.
EILAN, HOERL, McCORMACK & ROESSLER 2005, Joint attention: communication and other
minds, Oxford, OUP.
EILAN, N., 2005, «Joint Attention, Communication and Mind«, in EILAN, HOERL,
McCORMACK & ROESSLER 2005.
PEACOCKE, Christopher, 2005, «Joint attention: its nature, reflexivity and relation to common
knowledge», in EILAN, HOERL, McCORMACK & ROESSLER 2005.
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Teresa Marques, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
On an argument of Segal’s against singular object-dependent thoughts
Truth-conditional semantics assumes that the significance or meaning of a sentence can be
accounted for by stating the necessary and sufficient conditions for its truth. In the case of proper
names, the significance and proper understanding of sentences containing proper names is usually
thought to be essentially dependent on the existence and identity of the named object – sentences
with proper names have singular and object-dependent truth-conditions. This view on proper names
can be formulated in terms of thought expression. This is the thesis of the singularity and objectdependency of thoughts (SODT): singular thoughts about different individuals are different singular
thoughts, and if there is no individual thought about, there is no thought to be entertained.
Yet, there is often no guarantee that one will succeed in referring to a particular object by
using a proper name. One such example used to illustrate SODT is given originally by McDowell
[1977]. ‘Mumbo-Jumbo’ is the name for a god of a distant tribe, but there is no Mumbo-Jumbo.
According to the thesis that the content of sentences with proper names is singular and object
dependent, that there is no Mumbo-Jumbo means that a sentence like ‘Mumbo-Jumbo brings
thunder’ has no truth-conditions, and therefore no significance either, i.e., it has no truth-conditional
content and there is no thought to be expressed using that name. The natives of the distant tribe
cannot believe that Mumbo-Jumbo brings thunder, because there is no Mumbo-Jumbo.
Reference failure seems to be problematic because of the conflict between two requirements.
Firstly, there is the fact that, if SODT is correct, vacuous names do not contribute to truthconditions, and it seems that in the absence of truth-conditions we simply fail to have expressible
content. Secondly, reference failure also seems to be problematic because there is a strong intuition
that people nonetheless understand utterances of sentences with vacuous terms, take them to be true
and use them to express their beliefs, thoughts, desires, etc. Furthermore, there are arguments to the
effect that proper psychological and behavioural explanations require the same content to be
ascribed as the content of beliefs and thoughts, whether or not reference to an object is successful.
The two requirements seem irreconcilable.
The two clearer options to deal with the dilemma are to 1) permit the expression of truthconditional content irrespectively of the identity or existence of a particular object, and hence loose
the object-dependency of the truth-conditions of utterances with singular terms. Alternatively, 2)
reject the claim that psychological and behavioural explanation requires the assignment of the same
truth-conditional content even when no object, or no particular one object, is referred. In this case,
alternative explanations must be put forward. This paper discusses and criticizes Gabriel Segal’s
[1989] argument in favour of 1) above, and against 2), but it does not purport to provide the
alternative explanation 2) requires.
Segal’s argument is simple: the SODT theorist must explain the behaviour of the natives of
the distant tribe who utter and assent to ‘Mumbo-Jumbo brings thunder’. But, if the SODT theorist
can account for the behaviour of the mistaken subjects without positing object-dependent singular
thoughts, then that explanation is also sufficient to explain the actions and beliefs of the natives of a
distant tribe on Twin-Earth, whose use of ‘Mumbo-Jumbo’ does refer to a Mumbo-Jumbo god. If
so, the ascription of singular object-dependent thoughts is explanatorily redundant.
Segal’s argument is meant to support the claim that the same content must be ascribed, whether or
not reference to an object is successful, thus denying SODT. What Segal wants to hold is not simply
that some set X of beliefs are sufficient for psychological and behavioural explanation of natives on
both Earth and Twin-Earth, but that if the belief that Mumbo-Jumbo brings thunder is attributable to
both groups of natives.
Yet, what Segal wants to show does not follow from what he does establish. We can grant
that there must be a common set of beliefs concerning the use of a name attributable to the subjects
that are mistaken and to those that are not, which is explanatory of the common behaviour of both
groups. But this does not establish that both groups of subjects share the same singular belief, that
42
Mumbo-Jumbo brings thunder, i.e. it fails to establish that mistaken subjects believe that MumboJumbo brings thunder. To assume that Earth’s natives have this belief is to beg the question against
the SODT theorist. So, Segal’s argument fails to establish that “A viable taxonomy [that is
appropriate for psychological explanation] must collect appropriately similar thoughts about
different things, and include in the same type even thoughts the singular component of which lacks
a referent altogether” [Segal 1989: 40]. If there is no thought in the absence of a named object, as
the SODT theorist holds, then the non-existent thought cannot be appropriately similar to anything
else.
The remaining of this paper is dedicated to contrast Segal’s argument against SODT with
the truth-conditional semantic treatment of proper names in Larson and Segal [1995]. In this work,
Larson and Segal hold that what is distinctive of the semantic contribution of proper names to
sentences in which they occur is that they have conditions of satisfaction that are both singular –
exactly one individual meets the condition, and object-dependent – the named individual is
“crucially involved”. This contrasts with the satisfaction conditions of definite descriptions, which
are singular but not object-dependent. Larson and Segal want also to respect the intuition that
competent speakers understand utterances of sentences with vacuous names, partly motivated by
arguments like Segal’s [1989] argument; but, in accordance with the inspiration of truth-conditional
semantics, they hold that the meaning and proper understanding of any sentence can be spelled out
in terms of the sentences truth-conditions. Yet, it is not possible to hold both these claims together
with the singularity and object-dependency of truth-conditions of sentences containing proper
names. And one cannot simply abandon the idea of the singularity and object-dependency of such
truth-conditions, for this is in accordance with part of the role proper names play in language. The
options may be to revise the idea that 1) and 2) above identify the only alternatives to deal with the
problem of vacuous proper names, or even to question the assumption on which the alternatives are
considered, which is that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of
speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names.
References
Evans, Gareth, (1982). The Varieties of Reference. J. McDowell (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press
Frege, Gottlob (1892). On Sense and Meaning. In P. Geach and M. Black (eds.) Translations from
the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. (3rd Edition), Oxford UK and Cambridge
USA: Basil Blackwell, 56-78.
_____ (1918). The Thought – a Logical Inquiry. (A.M and M. Quinton transl.) Mind 65 (1956),
289-311. Reprinted in S. Blackburn and K. Simmons (eds.), Truth. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 85-105.
_____ (1980). Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. (3rd edition), P.
Geach and M. Black (eds.), Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Basil Blackwell.
Larson, R. and Segal, G. (1995). Knowledge and Meaning, an Introduction to Semantic Theory.
Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.
McDowell, J. (1977). On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name. Mind 86, 159-85.
_____ (1984). De Re Senses. in C. Wright (ed.), Frege: Tradition and Influence. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 98-109.
_____ (1986). Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space. In P. Pettit and J. McDowell (eds),
Subject, Thought and Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 136-68.
Segal, G. (1989). The Return of the Individual. Mind 98, 39-57.
Tomás Magalhães Carneiro, Instituto de Filosofia - Universidade do Porto
[email protected]
Emoções e racionalidade derivada
Partindo do trabalho em psicologia cognitiva e evolucionista de J. Tooby, L. Cosmides, A. Tverski,
D. Kahneman e G. Gigerenzer e em neurociência de A. Damásio discutirei sucintamente questões
como: a) de que forma as emoções motivam a acção; b) qual a sua funcionalidade; c) quão
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emocional é a nossa razão? Esta primeira parte será a parte introdutória do artigo, necessáriamente
breve, onde se pretende posicionar o artigo nas discussões empíricas contemporâneas sobre
emoções e raciocínio.
Ainda no que toca à contextualização do artigo no estado da arte, numa segunda parte farei
alusão ao trabalho de Stephen Stich (Research Group on Evolution and Higher Cognition) no
sentido de trazer os resultados da psicologia evolucionista para o campo das teorias da
racionalidade. Interessa-nos sobretudo o seu trabalho sobre racionalidade e irracionalidade das
emoções (Sripada e Stich).
Concluirei o artigo arriscando o esboço de um modelo de “racionalidade derivada”
(inspirado no trabalho de John Searle) para falar da racionalidade das nossas emoções mais básicas,
a que Damásio chama Emoções de Fundo, como a dor e o prazer (Damásio, 1999).
Na linha de Gianmatteo Mameli procurarei defender que em caso algum a chamada “pura
racionalidade” é iniciadora de uma intenção uma vez que os custos e os benefícios de uma acção
são sempre avaliados e comparados através das Emoções de Fundo. Ou seja, sem essas emoções
básicas não veríamos custos nem benefícios em nada e, como tal, não faria qualquer sentido
falarmos de uma análise racional de custos e de benefícios. Avaliar-se-ão as consequências deste
argumento para uma teoria da racionalidade e, nesse sentido, e à luz da teoria consequencialista
(Samuels et all) da racionalidade de Stich, defenderemos a atribuição de intencionalidade a essas
Emoções de Fundo, mesmo que num sentido fraco de intencionalidade. Consequentemente
atribuiremos a essas Emoções de Fundo uma forma de racionalidade derivada, dependente para essa
atribuição de estados mentais superiores (emoções superiores, crenças, desejos, intenções, etc.)
possuidores, esses sim, de racionalidade intrínseca. Atribuímos esse tipo de “racionalidade
derivada” às nossas Emoções de Fundo uma vez que estas constituem a estrutura biológica da
cognição, não apenas por serem responsáveis pela diminuição do número de considerações
relevantes para uma deliberação racional dos custos e benefícios de uma acção (Oatley e Damásio),
mas sobretudo por determinarem do princípio ao fim o nosso processo de tomada de decisão
(Mameli).
Referências:
COSMIDES, L. & TOOBY, J., “Are humans good intuitive statistians after all? Rethinking some
conclusions from the literature on judgement under uncertainty”, Cogntion, 58, 1996
DAMÁSIO, António R., “William James and the modern neurobiology of emotion”, in Evans,
Dylan and Cruse, Pierre (eds.), Emotion, Evolution and Rationality, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2004.
DAMÁSIO, António R., The Feeling of What Happens. Body and Emotion in the Making of
Consciousness, New York, Harscourt Brace and Company, 1999.
DAVIDSON, D. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
DAVIDSON, D. Problems of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
GIGERENZER, G., TODD, P., and The ABC Research Group, Simple Heuristics that make Us
smart. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000
MAMELI, M., “The role of emotions in ecological and practical rationality”, in Evans, Dylan and
Cruse, Pierre (eds.), Emotion, Evolution and Rationality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
OATLEY, K., Best laid schemes: The psychology of emotions, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
STICH, Steven, The Fragmentation of Reason – Preface to a pragmatic Theory of Cognitive
Evolution, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1990.
SEARLE, John R., Intentionality : an essay in the philosophy of mind, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, rep. 1997
SEARLE, Jon. Rationality in Action. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Models of Bounded Rationality vol. I, II. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982.
44
SRIPADA, Chandra S. & STICH, S.,”Evolution, Culture and the Irrationality of the emotions?”, in
Evans, Dylan and Cruse, Pierre (eds.), Emotion, Evolution and Rationality, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2004.
TVERSKY, Amos & KAHNEMAN, Daniel, “Judgments of and by representativeness”, in
KAHNEMAN, SLOVIC & TVERSKY (eds.), 1982.
Vitor Pereira, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Uma explicação para a ilusão de contingência das identidades psicofísicas de tipos
Vamos argumentar, contra Kripke, a favor da disponibilidade de uma explicação para a ilusão de
contingência das alegadas identidades psicofísicas de tipos.
O materialismo identitativo tipo-tipo é a tese segundo a qual cada tipo de estado ou
acontecimento mental, ou propriedade mental como a propriedade de ser uma dor, é numericamente
idêntico a um dado tipo de estado ou acontecimento físico, ou propriedade física como a
propriedade de ser uma estimulação das fibras-C.
Uma explicação segundo a qual identidades teóricas como água = H2O apenas parecem ser
contingentes consiste em dizer que se confundem erroneamente com identidades de facto
contingentes como o líquido incolor, transparente, bebível, no qual se toma banho = H2O, em que a
identidade é entre propriedades contingentes e propriedades essenciais do material.
Ora, uma explicação deste género não está, como argumenta Kripke (Naming and necessity,
Terceira Leitura), disponível no caso das alegadas identidades psicofísicas tipo-tipo como dor =
estimulação das fibras-C.
Não está disponível porque a identidade não é entre propriedades contingentes e
propriedades essenciais do material: dor não é uma propriedade contingente de cada dor, é uma
propriedade essencial.
Se alguma coisa é dor, é-o essencialmente: é impossível uma dor não ser sentida como dor
e é impossível algo que é de facto uma dor não ser uma dor.
Parece possível, por exemplo, que o líquido incolor, transparente, bebível, no qual se toma
banho não seja H2O, porque o conceito de água não contém desde logo a essência da água
(McGINN, The Character of mind, capítulo 1).
Apesar do líquido nos aparecer sob as mesmas propriedades superficiais, aparentemente
podia dar-se o caso de ser XYZ e não H2O.
A identidade o líquido incolor, transparente, bebível, no qual se toma banho = H2O é de
facto uma verdade contingente, porque depende de como a água nos aparece.
Mas, é possível que dor não seja estimulação das fibras-C, porque o conceito de dor
contém desde logo a essência da dor.
As propriedades sob as quais nos aparece a dor são propriedades essenciais da dor e se pode
dar-se o caso de não ser estimulação das fibras-C, então dor não é estimulação das fibras-C: esta
identidade não parece contigente, é contingente.
O materialista identitativo tipo-tipo não tem disponível nenhuma explicação para a ilusão
de contingência das alegadas identidades psicofísicas tipo-tipo se, e só se não tem disponível
nenhum argumento através do qual acomode o contraste entre conceitos que não contêm desde logo
a sua essência e conceitos que contêm desde logo a sua essência.
A diferença em carácter informativo de afirmações de identidade, para um utente
competente da linguagem, deve-se aos diferentes conceitos associados aos termos, ao seu conteúdo
conceptual, ao modo de apresentação da sua referência, não à sua referência (FREGE, “On Sinn
and Bedeutung”).
A distinção entre conceitos e propriedades pode ser usada para explicar a ilusão de
contingência das alegadas identidades psicofísicas de tipos da seguinte maneira.
45
Suponha-se, para efeitos de argumentação, que o materialista identitativo tem razão ao
alegar que identidades entre tipos mentais (como dores) e tipos físicos (como estimulação das
fibras-C) são como identidades teóricas como água = H2O.
Então, tal como água pode ser descrita como líquido incolor, transparente, bebível, no qual
se toma banho e pode ser descrito como H2O, assim dor pode ser descrita como dor e pode ser
descrita como estimulação das fibras-C.
Identidades teóricas como água = H2O apenas parecem ser contingentes porque são
erroneamente confundidas com identidades de facto contingentes como líquido incolor,
transparente, bebível, no qual se toma banho = H2O, inferindo-se falaciosamente da contingência
destas a contingência daquelas
Por analogia, alegadas identidades psicofísicas tipo-tipo como dor = estimulação das fibrasC apenas parecem contingentes porque “dor” e “estimulação das fibras-C” denotam a mesma
propriedade mas expressam conceitos diferentes, inferindo-se falaciosamente de uma diferença
entre conceitos uma diferença entre propriedades, a diferença entre o conceito de dor e o conceito
de estimulação das fibras-C é erroneamente confundida com uma diferença entre a propriedade de
ser uma dor e a propriedade de ser uma estimulação das fibras-C.
Tal como um utente competente da linguagem pode compreender “a porção de água neste
copo” e “a porção de H2O neste copo” e não saber que água = H2O, e não saber que são conceitos
da mesma coisa, assim um utente competente da linguagem pode compreender “dor” e “estimulação
das fibras-C” e não saber que dor = estimulação das fibras-C, e não saber que são conceitos da
mesma propriedade.
No caso de identidades como água = H2O, a diferença em carácter informativo, para um
utente competente da linguagem, deve-se aos diferentes conceitos associados aos termos, mas daqui
não se segue que a propriedade de ser água seja diferente da propriedade de ser H2O.
Por analogia, no caso de identidades como dor = estimulação das fibras-C, a diferença em
carácter informativo, para um utente competente da linguagem, deve-se aos diferentes conceitos
associados aos termos, mas daqui não se segue que a propriedade de ser uma dor seja diferente da
propriedade de ser uma estimulação de fibras-C.
A diferença que obtém não é entre propriedades, mas entre conceitos da mesma propriedade
por um utente competente da linguagem.
Em conclusão, está disponível uma explicação para a ilusão de contingência das alegadas
identidades psicofísicas de tipos, nomeadamente a seguinte:
tal como água = H2O parece contingente porque é contingente que o conceito de água e o
conceito de H2O sejam conceitos da mesma propriedade, dor = estimulação das fibras-C parece
contingente porque é contingente que o conceito de dor e o conceito de estimulação das fibras-C
sejam conceitos da mesma propriedade.
Ora, de uma diferença de conceitos não se segue uma diferença de propriedades. O conceito
de água é diferente do conceito de H2O, mas não se segue daqui que água não é H2O.
Analogamente, o conceito de dor é diferente do conceito de estimulação das fibras-C mas não se
segue daqui que dor não é estimulação das fibras-C.
46
Logic and Philosophy of Language
Adriana Silva Graça, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
About Speakers’ Linguistic Intentions
In a nutshell, I will propose a criterion for the semantic relevance of speakers’ linguistic intentions.
The main reason for its proposal stem from the need to distinguish the speakers’ intentions involved
in the uses of sentences containing singular indexical terms (namely, singular demonstratives) from
the intentions involved in the uses of sentences containing singular definite descriptions (when the
description is used referentially). The proposed criterion will arguably do the job well -- other
proposals available in the literature fail in this respect. I will begin by laying down the background
philosophical problem from which the issue of the semantic relevance of speakers’ linguistic
intentions has arisen. In the background problem, I see two main controversial topics one can
distinctively identify, and I take that the solution for the second one lies upon the solution given to
the first. As to the first topic, I will establish that we cannot legitimately infer the semantic content
of a sentence (relative to a certain context of use) on the basis of the proposition that may be
asserted by the speaker (using the sentence in the relevant context). As to the second, I will then
propose the criterion mentioned above, in the light of which we will be able to account for the
intuitive evidence that the speakers’ intentions involved in the uses of the two kinds of sentences at
issue are, in a certain sense, of a different kind.
Consider the sentences below:
(1) He is kind to Maria
(2) Maria’s husband is kind to Maria
Suppose additionally that they are uttered in the appropriate contexts so as to convey the same
singular proposition -- corresponding to a de re thought of the speaker -- about a particular man.
What the speaker wants to assert is that this particular man is kind to Maria in the relevant occasion.
In this case, the utterance of (2) is typically a referential use of the definite description “Maria’s
husband”. I take it to be beyond controversy that
(i)
(1) and (2) are different sentences;
(ii)
therefore, (1) and (2) have different linguistic meanings;
(iii)
(1) and (2) may convey the same singular proposition – or may express the
same de re thought the speaker wants to convey in the appropriate context.
But I take it to be controversial that
(iv)
the semantic content of (1) and (2) may be the same (in the appropriate relevant
contexts of use that generate the truth of (iii)).
There are two separate issues involved here that I wish to consider. First, (iv) seems to
follow from (iii); yet, I think (iv) is false and (iii) is true. Second, given (iii) and the fact that
speakers intentions are required in both cases in order to determine the relevant singular proposition
-- expressed by the relevant utterances of (1) and (2) -- it seemingly follows that these intentions are
semantically relevant in both cases; yet, I don’t think this is so. I will address these two different,
though related, issues in this paper and I take that the solution for the latter depends on the solution
for the former.
Regarding the first issue, as I see it, (iv) follows from (iii) only if ‘semantic content’ is
interpreted as the content of a speech act, i.e., the content of an assertion, in which case we do not
distinguish this content from the content of the linguistic expression itself in a determinate context
of use. But if we do make this distinction, we will no longer identify the content of the speech act
with the semantic content of a linguistic expression. In my view, ‘semantic content’ is more
properly applied to linguistic expressions themselves (rather than to speakers’ assertions).
Therefore, (iv) does not follow from (iii) since (iii) is true and (iv), strictly and correctly
understood, is false.
47
Turning to the second issue, for (iii) to be true, it must be the case that, regarding (2), the
definite description -- ‘Maria’s husband’ -- is used referentially by the speaker. When (2) is
concerned, the singular proposition that corresponds to a de re thought of the speaker, i.e., the one
the speaker wants to convey, is not identifiable by the semantic content of the sentence, rather by
the content of the speaker’s assertion. In addition, for (iii) to be true, as regards to (1), it must be the
case that a speaker’s intention is associated with the singular indexical term ‘he’. ‘He’ is an impure
indexical term, which means that its linguistic meaning alone is not enough to determine an
individual, relative to a certain context of use. Hence, for the sentence to express a proposition at
all, in a given context of use, speakers’ intentions are required.
Therefore, seemingly, for (iii) to be true, speakers’ intentions are required both in (1) and
(2). Their semantic relevance seems thus to follow. Yet, I think that the speaker’s intention is
semantically relevant only with respect to (1). It strikes me as intuitively evident that intentions are
needed in very different ways in both cases, and this intuition must be philosophically worked out.
The solution of our second issue lies upon the solution of the first and might bring us to the
following criterion to distinguish between the two kinds of intentions. The distinction in question
might be illuminated not by some internal property (so to speak) that semantically relevant
intentions may possess while others cannot, but by one external or relational property, one that
enables us to draw the boundary between them. Something along the following lines:
An intention I is semantically relevant if and only if I is connected with a token of a
sentence S whose linguistic meaning alone is not enough to determine a proposition p
relative to that context of use.
After discussing other proposals available in the literature, I am therefore inclined to think that the
two main problems, in both Kripke’s and Salmon’s approaches, are thus: the first problem is
wanting to place the characterization of what speakers’ semantic intentions are (and what they are
not) in connection to what is required for reference to take place, rather than in connection to what
is required for semantic content to be determined. On my view, the contrast between semantic
relevant vs. irrelevant speakers’ intentions is best seen primarily at the level of meaning problems
and not at the level of reference-fixing problems. The second problem is to attempt to distinguish
the two sorts of intentions by means of an internal property; I very much doubt that any
characterization along these lines will do.
The criterion I’ve just proposed is sort of programmatic, but it would seem to be useful in
illuminating the contrast between our sentences (1) and (2) as to the way in which, and as to what
purposes, speakers’ intentions are required.
Alik Pelman, University College London
[email protected]
An Outline for a General Theory of Intensions
We are on yet another philosophical expedition to Mars. Our host colleagues introduce us to some
Martian stuff called “T”, and ask us to help them to identify T on other possible worlds, to which
they frequently travel. (Needless to say, Mars, as well as Earth, both belong to the actual world). In
other words, we are asked to determine what would deserve to be called “T”. Or, more technically,
we are simply asked to determine the intension of the singular term “T”, where “intension” means
assigning each possible world an extension. We, of course, are happy to assist.
So we start working. Let us define a descriptive term Φ in the following manner: Φ has a
sense and Φ designates, with respect to every possible world, that which fits Φ’s sense on that world
(if there is such a thing). Thus, if “T” is a descriptive term then the Martian stuff is designated by
“T” by virtue of fitting “T”’s sense, and likewise “T” will designate, with respect to each possible
world, whatever fits “T”’s sense in that world.
48
Yet “T” may not be such a term; it may be something like a name – a sort of term that we shall
call “nondescriptive”, and define in the following way: a nondescriptive term Ψ is designed to
designate, with respect to every possible world, the same stuff that it designates in the actual
world (if such stuff exists there). If that is the case, then “T” designates, with respect to every
possible world, just this very same stuff that we were introduced to a short while ago on Mars,
on that world. So we need to be able to tell whether a certain stuff we might encounter on some
possible world is or is not identical to our actual stuff. This may not be so trivial as some
possible worlds contain stuff that is similar to our stuff in certain respects but differs from it in
other respects. So we go and have a closer examination of our Martian stuff. We note its
manifest properties – that it is purple, jellylike, etc., and call them collectively M, and upon
further examination we determine its physical constitution to be P. So “T”, if nondescriptive,
designates, with respect to every possible world, that which is identical to this P+M stuff.
We then start to consider types of possible worlds, i.e., types of relevant candidates,
deserving to be called “T”. There are four such candidates: 1. Stuff that is P and M (P+M); 2. Stuff
that although shares the manifest property M has nonetheless a different physical constitution, say,
Q (Q+M); 3. Stuff that has the same constitution P but a different collection of manifest properties,
say, N (P+N); and, finally, 4. Stuff that is neither P nor M, say, some Q and N stuff. (Q+N).
For a start, we consider the candidate that has the same material constitution P as the actual
stuff, but different manifest property, namely, P+N, which is the stuff on World 3. Is it identical to
the actual stuff or not? Being heavily indoctrinated by the presuppositions of our Earthean science,
we tend to believe that the universe is such that it contains various materials, such as P and Q, that
merely happen to have manifest properties, like M and N. So it seems that despite the difference in
the manifest property, the stuff on possible world 3 (P+N), is the same stuff, P, as the actual stuff
(P+M); so we are naturally drawn to conclude that that stuff is indeed identical to our actual referent
of “T”. Yet, to our surprise, we soon learn that the Martians have a different view on this matter;
they take the universe to be such that it contains primarily manifest entities, such as M and N, that
merely happen to have some material constitution, like P or Q. Thus on their view, the stuff on
possible world 3, having the manifest property N rather than M, is in fact distinct form the stuff on
actual Mars; it is, rather, the stuff on possible world 2, Q+M, which is identical to the actual stuff
P+M, despite the difference in their material constitution.
We thank each other for the mutual awakening from our dogmatic beliefs, and conclude so
far: the intension of the term “T”, i.e., “T”’s reference with respect to different possible worlds,
depends upon three different factors: 1. The semantic rule of “T”, i.e., whether “T” it is descriptive
or not; 2. What the actual referent of “T” is (what properties it has); and, 3. The metaphysical
background of the universe, namely, what kind of objects the universe contains and what properties
they have.
But what is the intension of “T” then? What does in fact deserve to be called “T”? Well,
surely, to determine the intension of “T” we need the values of each of the above three variables.
We have already realised that we do not know for sure the value of the third variable – the
metaphysical background of the world. But as if this epistemic limit was not enough, the Martians
go on to tell us that they were not even sure about the values of the other two variables as well – the
semantic rule of “T”, and also the true properties of the actual referent. All they are willing to
commit to is the purple jellylike stuff to which the term “T” actually applies on Mars. Firstly,
regarding the true properties of this actual referent, although their current science told them that it
had the properties P and M, still, based on their past experience, they were well aware of how
fallible their science was in the past, and therefore were careful not to assume that it isn’t failing
this time as well. And secondly, as to the semantic rule of “T”, some of them thought that “T”
designated that stuff by virtue of simply naming it, like a label; whereas others, by contrast,
contended that “T” designated the stuff by virtue of being linked with a sense, ‘being M’, that
49
allowed “T” to designate that stuff by virtue of that stuff having the property M, i.e., by virtue of
fitting the sense of the term “T”. Furthermore, they thought that other opinions on this matter were
also possible. And there was nothing in the actual application of the term on Mars to tell them
which of the views was right.
True, our mission is not to determine the intension of “T” relative to the Martians’ views,
but to determine it simpliciter. So in a sense, their uncertainty should not impede our job. But that
would be the case if our epistemic state were different to theirs. Yet, exercising some philosophical
integrity, we have to realise that as a matter of fact it is not…
We gradually understand the implication of this epistemic state. We realise that we have to
give up providing a definite intension of “T”, and that we need to settle for producing a formula,
from which such an intension could be derived, once filled in with the required values. After the
initial disappointment, and upon a second reflection, it dawns upon us that such a formula is in an
important sense a much more valuable tool, than merely finding the exact intension. For firstly,
once we are in a position to determine the values of the variables, the formula may be used to
calculate any intension; and secondly, which is the more important aspect from a philosophical
point of view, such a formula would provide an understanding of the general regularity behind
individual intensions of specific terms. Encouraged by this revelation, we enthusiastically set for
our task.
After working out each possible case separately (detailed in the paper), we finally come up
with the following general formula of intension, i.e., the extension of “T” with respect to different
possible worlds, in the form of a table:
Semantic rule
The
actual Metaphysical
referent’s
background
of
properties
universe
(whatever)
(whatever)
1 Descriptive
Material
2
P+M
Manifest
3
Material
4
Q+M
Manifest
5
Nondescriptive
Material
6
P+N
Manifest
7
Material
8
Q+N
Manifest
9
W1
W2
W3
W4
the P+M Q+M P+N Q+N
+
+
+
+
+
-
+
+
+
+
+
-
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Åsa Maria Wikforss and Sören Häggqvist, Stockholm University
[email protected]
Natural Kind Terms: Beyond Rigidity Lies Descriptivism
In this paper we argue that Kripke’s arguments against a descriptivist semantics for names do not
carry over to the case of natural kind terms; that natural kinds do not have a (type of) semantics
different from that of other general terms; and that a version of the descriptivist cluster theory
remains attractive in spite of Kripke’s criticisms.
We begin by briefly rehearsing the arguments concerning what sort of terms natural kind
terms are. We grant the option, endorsed by e.g. Genoveva Martí, Joe LaPorte and Bernard Linsky,
to regard them as designating terms. But we concur with Scott Soames in holding that their primary
function is as general terms. We consider arguments for and against the viability of various notions
of rigidity for general terms and concur with Soames that there no such notion which does all the
jobs Kripke has rigidity do in the case of names.
50
Next, we consider Kripke’s direct objections to descriptivism and show that they are
strikingly weak when their target is the cluster theory. For instance, the modal arguments against
this theory depend on implausible extrapolations of already tenuous thought experiments.
We then consider Soames’ argument that although the thesis that natural kind terms are
rigid cannot be upheld, the semantic mechanisms that determine the reference of such terms still
underwrites most Kripkean claims concerning them, in particular the claim that the necessity of a
posteriori theoretical identities like “water is H2O” is semantically grounded. We show that the
mechanisms envisaged by Soames depend crucially on assumptions that far from being semantical
are rather (i) empirical (e.g. concerning homogeneity of samples) and (ii) metaphysical (e.g.
concerning what unites a kind and what sorts of kinds there are).
We suggest that the metaphysical assumptions are questionable and observe that the
empirical assumptions are highly fallible. However, Soames’ account makes virtually no provision
for the (arguably frequent) cases where they do fail. Soames in effect admits this, but unduly
downplays its importance. We argue that this is a serious lacuna in his position, and that it provides
strong grounds for preferring an account that treats (supposed) natural kind terms on a par with
other general terms. In this connection, we consider and reject the idea that what sort of semantics a
term in fact has is itself a posteriori in the sense that it depends on what, say, the chemical facts are.
We conclude by attempting a superficial sketch of what an attractive cluster theory should
look like. We emphasize that it should not be committed to “superficialism”, the idea that only
observable properties enter the cluster; among the many beliefs that contributes to determining the
meaning of “water” may be the belief that water has a uniform microstructure. Moreover, we stress
that the cluster theory is not committed to “stipulationism", to the idea that natural kind terms are
introduced into the language via explicit stipulations, nor to implausible aprioristic implications –
unlike both externalism and the form of semi-descriptivism known as two-dimensionalism. Finally,
we argue that our preferred version of the cluster theory has strong resources for explaining patterns
of intuitions concerning e.g. Twin Earth.
Asunción Álvarez, King´s College London
[email protected]
Sense without language
The Fregean notion of sense was originally introduced in order to account for what are known as
"Frege cases", instances of a thinker's failure to recognise the identity of what appear to him to be
different objects. Frege notoriously claimed that senses are objective, non-psychological entities,
which do not belong in space or time, but in the Platonic Third Realm. Given the difficulties of
positing such entities, later theorists have tried to salvage Fregean sense while rejecting Frege's
ontological commitments.
Certain truth-theoretical theories of meaning – most notably, John McDowell's and Mark
Sainsbury's – have attempted to redefine sense in linguistic terms. Despite the differences in their
respective approaches, both McDowell and Sainsbury agree that a theory of sense must be
essentially communicational, i.e. an account of how speakers of a language understand each other's
utterances; and that a Davidsonian truth-theoretical account of meaning can adequately perform this
task. In this view, then, sense is seen as an eminently linguistic notion, departing from Frege's
epistemic approach.
In this paper, I will defend the thesis that Fregean senses are language-independent, and
thus that a language-based approach cannot provide an adequate substitute for Frege's original
conception. My key arguments for this claim are the following:
1. Davidson notoriously denied that languageless creatures have beliefs and desires. His claim
involves two distinct subarguments:
a) that in order to have a belief, a creature must have the concept of belief itself;
b) that in order to have the concept of belief, a creature must have language.
51
Both claims can be objected on several grounds – most notably, by arguing against the link
established by Davidson between first- and second-order thoughts. These objections will be put
forward, as well as a number of possible counter-examples. However, surely the best case against
Davidson's claim would be provided by evidence that typical cognitive states in languageless
creatures involve propositional attitudes. And such cognitive state typical of languageless creatures
would no doubt be perception.
2. All three main current kinds of theories of perception – namely, sense-datum theories,
intentionalism, and disjunctivism – involve propositional attitudes, either by claiming that
perception entails inferential processes involving beliefs and desires, or by claiming that perception
is itself a propositional attitude. Hence, in the absence of a theory which accounts for perception
without resort to propositional attitudes, perception must be seen as necessarily involving
propositional attitudes in some way or the other.
3. If languageless creatures have propositional attitudes, then Frege cases can take place in
languageless creatures: for Frege cases can be formulated in terms of propositional attitudes,
without involving linguistic terms.
4. Thus, if senses are invoked in order to explain Frege cases, and Frege cases can take place among
languageless creatures, then sense cannot be a linguistic entity.
5. Therefore, theories which link sense to language cannot properly account for Frege cases.
Brian Hill, IHPST, Université Paris 1
[email protected]
The problem of baldness and the problem of vagueness
A man with 0 hairs counts as bald, and if a man with 0 hairs counts as bald, a man with 1 hair
counts as bald, and if a man with 1 hair counts as bald, so does a man with 2 hairs, and so on, so it
follows that a man with n hairs, for any n, will count as bald. Sorites arguments of this sort have
played an important motivational role in traditional and contemporary thinking on vagueness.
Theories of vagueness are judged by how they reply to the sorites argument; more often than not,
they are also developed on the basis of particular replies to the argument.
The aim of this paper is to present a certain reply to the sorites argument which has generally been
ignored in recent literature, and argue for its coherence. Such a reply shall entail a certain
conception of what a theory of vagueness should be, or more specifically, what questions it should
concern itself with. Consequently, this paper shall be concerned to present a conception of the
problem posed by the phenomenon of vagueness, and to motivate this conception.
Roughly speaking, the reply rejects the general use of the number of hairs to argue about what is
and what is not bald. It does so on the basis of the inappropriateness of the use of the number of
hairs in detailed argument about baldness. It follows from what has been said previously that a
theory of vagueness inspired by and sustaining such a reply would study and characterise the
appropriateness of terms for use together.
Such a reply will be explained and motivated using an analogy with Zeno’s ‘dichotomy’ paradox,
which argues that a runner never finishes a race, since, before reaching the finish line, he must first
reach the half-way point, and then still reach the point half-way between this point and the finish
line, and so on. The apparent structural resemblance between this argument and the sorites
argument – both involve a long series of apparently legitimate steps, which, taken together,
apparently yield an unacceptable conclusion – will allow certain aspects of a well-known reply to
the Zeno argument to be transposed onto the sorites case.
More precisely, one can think of the Zeno argument as employing a sort of ‘Zeno watch’, which
ticks only when the runner passes the half-way point between his previous position and the finish
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line (in the full paper, a precise notion of ‘scale’ shall be defined to capture this idea). Treatments of
the paradox have generally needed to assert, if only implicitly, that it is not the Zeno watch which is
used to decide whether or not the race has finished. That is, that the Zeno watch is inappropriate for
talking about whether or not the race has finished. Similarly, it seems coherent to reject the sorites
paradox, which relies on a grading system (‘scale’) which organises heads by number of hairs, by
arguing that this grading system is inappropriate for reasoning about baldness.
This point may be made in terms of the language used. There is a language LZ containing terms
‘after n ticks on the Zeno watch’ for each n and a predicate ‘finishesZ’, with a theory TZ containing
the proposition ‘X finishesZ if and only if there is a number n such that X has passed the finish line
after n ticks’. The crux of the reply to the Zeno’s paradox is that ‘finishes1’ is not the everyday
notion of finishing the race. The ordinary notion is better captured by the predicate ‘finishesO’ of
LO, which is just like LZ (and has a theory TO just like TZ), except that it is an ordinary watch rather
than the Zeno watch which is involved. Similarly, the sorites argument is couched in a language L1
with terms ‘a man with n hairs’ for each n, and a predicate ‘(is) bald1’, with a theory T1 containing
the appropriate principles, such as the premises of the sorites argument. The proposed reply to the
sorites argument suggests that ‘bald1’ is not the same term as the everyday term ‘bald’; the everyday
term seems closer to the predicate ‘(is) bald2’ in a language L2 (for example) which does not contain
‘a man with n hairs’ for all n, but just for 0 and 5000, and a theory (T2) containing the appropriate
propositions concerning the application of ‘bald2’ to these cases.
This reply has several potentially attractive properties, such as the intuitive relationship between the
notion of appropriateness of number of hairs to the predicate bald and the hesitation one naturally
feels towards propositions about the baldness of men with 187 hairs, or the fact that classical logic
holds (inside L1 and L2). However, its main interest lies in the rather novel conception of the
problem of vagueness which it entails.
The proposed reply differs from previous approaches to the paradox, which accept the language L1
but reproach some aspect of the theory T1, whether it be one of the premises of the sorites argument
(as in the epistemic approach), or its logic (as in the supervaluationist or multi-valued logic
approach). Correspondingly, previous theories have accepted to work within a given language – to
borrow Carnapian terminology, they are ‘internal’ –, and have generally proposed accounts of the
truth of sentences featuring vague terms (of this language). By contrast, the reply proposed here
calls for a theory which is concerned exactly with the relevance of the language – such a theory may
be called ‘external’. In other words, the theory will characterise which collections of terms can be
appropriately used with particular vague predicates. The problem of vagueness is not that of
analysing its truth, but rather that of understanding where it appears and where it does not.
Dan Zeman, Central European University, Budapest
[email protected]
Relativism vs. Indexicalism. The Moral Case
Relativism about truth has recently taken the form of a semantic account to be given to some
specific areas of discourse. Among these relativistic-treatable discourses are those about future
contingents, knowledge attributions, epistemic modals, gradable adjectives, and cases of what has
been called “faultless disagreement”. Other applications, not worked out yet, are seen as having
good prospects to fit the truth-relativistic model.
Crucial for relativism about truth is the notion, coined by John MacFarlane, but found under
other guises elsewhere, of “context of assessment”. This notion becomes the main tool in the hands
of the relativist in order to construct her position as different, and, given the right motivations, as
more suitable as other semantic accounts of the phenomena.
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The paper starts with a brief history of avatars of the notion of “context of assessment” to
be found in the work of David Kaplan and David Lewis. The Kaplanian notion of “context of
evaluation” is obviously a related notion. Kaplan contrasts this notion with that of “context of
utterance”. In the same vein, Lewis contrasts the notion of “index” with (his understanding of) the
notion of “context”. In both cases, the first notion of the pair plays a role in determining the content
of a sentence uttered in a particular context, whereas the second plays a role in determining the
truth-value of the sentence. Although the same factors play a role in both these “activities”, they are
nevertheless distinct. MacFarlane marks the contrast by speaking about the context of utterance as
different from the context of assessment.
After familiarizing the notion of “context of assessment” by putting it in connection with its
more known predecessors, I lay out what is the main difference between the present notion and the
earlier ones. The difference is that in the context of assessment there might be some factors that do
not play any role in the context of utterance. That is, the relativist introduces some new parameters
on which the truth-value of sentences depends that are not to be found among the parameters on
which the content of these sentences depends. The introduction of these new parameters eventually
allows the relativist to claim that sentences expressing contradictory contents could both be
evaluated as true – and therefore allowing her to make her point.
However, relativism is not the only theory on the market that purports to account for the
semantics of such discourses. To embrace relativism one should have good motivations to do so. In
the final part of the paper I offer a motivation for adopting relativism instead of one of its countercandidates in a particular area of evaluative discourse: morality. One of the theories competing with
relativism is “indexicalism”, the view that the predicates of a certain discourses have a place for a
hidden indexical whose values are supplied by the context, thus yielding in each case a given value
that contributes to the content of the sentence uttered in the context. Indexicalism, it is argued, is
well suited to account for evaluative discourse.
Here is an example that brings to light what both theories would have to say about matters
of taste. Imagine the following utterly simple conversation:
Maria: Avocado is tasty.
Juliet: No, it isn’t.
The sentence uttered by Maria has the content that a particular kind of fruit (avocado) has a
particular property (is tasty). The content of the sentence uttered by Juliet is the denial of that of the
sentence uttered by Maria. At first glance then the two interlocutors contradicted each other. Now
the indexicalist view about this kind of examples is that the word ‘tasty’ is to be interpreted as
containing a hidden indexical whose role is to take a relevant factor from the context as argument
and yield a given value that is part of the content of the sentence. In the case above, the relevant
factor would be a relevant standard of taste, and so ‘tasty’ would have to be construed as ‘tastyaccording-to-the-relevant-standard-of-taste’. (Usually, the relevant standard of taste is the utterer’s,
but this is not necessarily so.) Since in this case the content of the sentence uttered by Maria is that
avocado is tasty-according-to-Maria’s-standard-of-taste and the content of the sentence uttered by
Juliet is that avocado is not tasty-according-to-Juliet’s-standard-of-taste, there is no contradiction.
On the contrary, the relativist interprets the case as one of genuine contradiction. Her view
is that the contents of the two sentences uttered by the two interlocutors stand in the relation of
contradiction, since one is the negation of the other. Without introducing a hidden indexical, the
relativist’s diagnose regarding the case is the following: the content of the sentence uttered by
Maria is that avocado is tasty, period, whereas the content of the sentence uttered by Juliet is that
avocado is not tasty, period. What the relativist adds, however, is that in assessing both sentence’s
truth value, one has to appeal to standards of taste. A standard-of-taste parameter is part of the
context of assessment in which the two sentences are evaluated and not part of the context of
utterance. In the latter case, the content varies, but in the former it does not. Since the standard-of-
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taste parameter yields (in the given case) different values for different people, the two sentences,
although having contradictory contents, will both be ascribed the truth-value ‘truth’.
Now why should anyone buy the relativist story and not settle with the indexicalist one? As
several authors have indicated, at the level of semantic theory the two positions are quite similar in
the results they give for particular cases of the kind presented above. One might think that a verdict
might come from appeal to common-sense, but it would surely be of no help, since both
introduction of a hidden indexical or the appeal to an extra parameter in the context of assessment
would seem equally counterintuitive.
However, consider the following dialogue involving the same characters:
Maria: Killing is wrong.
Juliet: No, it isn’t.
As above, the indexicalist and the relativist differ in that the first postulates a hidden
indexical attached to the evaluative term ‘wrong’, whereas the second appeals to a further
parameter that is needed in assessing the truth-values of the sentences uttered by the two
interlocutors. According to the latter view, the extra parameter needed is a moral outlook, a moral
perspective or something of this sort. (What exactly this means is obviously something that a
coherent description must be given, but this is not the point here.) Here it seems that we arrived at
the same situation in which the semantic apparatus itself cannot dictate which position is better,
since the results given are similar.
Is appeal to common-sense going to help in this case? I claim that the answer is yes. It has
been frequently noted by philosophers of all stripes that moral discourse has a particular
“absolutistic thread”. When engaging in moral debates, people don’t see their sentences as meaning
something else than they say. That is, a sentence like “killing is wrong” is not seen as having the
content that killing is wrong-according-to-the-relevant-moral-outlook. This is exactly what the
relativist has to say about this kind of cases. The upshot is that within evaluative discourse there are
cases in which relativism vindicates our intuitions about specific cases in a better way than
indexicalism. At least in the moral case, relativism about truth is in the lead.
Isidora Stojanovic, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris
[email protected]
False Truths
In this paper, I discuss several intertwined puzzles from philosophy of language. The problem
revealed in those puzzles is that there seem to be arguments that are logically valid, and yet, the
utterances of the premises are intuitively true while the utterance of the conclusion is intuitively
false.
The first type of case that I shall discuss is universal instantiation. Suppose that at a philosophy
conference I say:
(1) Everyone is a philosopher.
Since, let's assume, there are no non-philosophers at that conference, (1) is true. But now consider:
(2) Britney Spears is a philosopher.
By the rule of universal instantiation, (2) logically follows from (1). Yet (2) is false.
The puzzle can be summarized as follows:
(i) 'Everyone is a philosopher. Therefore, Britney Spears is a philosopher.' is a logically valid
inference.
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(ii) (1) is true (as uttered in the context of the philosophy conference.)
(iii) (2) is false (as uttered in the same context)
i, ii and iii are inconsistent, and taken together lead to a contradiction.
There are four ways to try to dispel the puzzle, namely, to deny i, ii, iii or iv. The contextualist
strategy would amount to denying i: (1) really expresses the proposition that everyone at that
conference is a philosopher, and that proposition does not logically entail (2). The literalist strategy
is to deny ii, and hold that (1) is, strictly speaking, false, though it may convey something true. (Eg
Bach and Soames). As for the denial of iii, according to Barwise (also, B. and Etchemendy), given
that Britney Spears is not part of the context of the conference, (2) is neither true nor false, so that
we don't get a counter-instance to the rule of universal instantiation. Barwise also insists that (1)
expresses a fact that is non-persistent, since it holds in the conference situation, but ceases to hold in
larger situations. Finally, the strategy of index-shifting, advocated, for instance, by S. Predelli,
would be to deny iv, and explain how i, ii and iii are in fact consistent. The point is that in stating ii
and iii, we said in which context the sentences were uttered, but we did not say in which
circumstance (to adopt Kaplan's terminology) they were evaluated for truth. Now, (1) is true only if
evaluated at a circumstance that does not contain any non-philosophers. But by mentioning Britney
Spears, the proposal goes, a new, larger circumstance becomes salient, one that contains Britney
among others. Evaluated at that circumstance, (2) is false. But at that same circumstance, (1), too, is
false, hence we don't have a counter-example to universal instantiation.
The second puzzle, which, to my knowledge, has not been discussed in the literature, involves the
dual of universal instantiation, namely existential generalization. Consider the case of Mary who
calls the police and says:
(3)Someone has been at my place and taken my jewellery.
Suppose furthermore that it was Mary herself who has taken her own jewellery. Intuitively, Mary
lied to the police, hence her utterance of (3) is false. But (3) logically follows from (4), which is
true:
(4)Mary has been at her place and taken her jewellery.
Again, the most obvious options are: (i) contextualist: deny that (3) logically follows from (4), for
(3) really expresses the proposition that someone other than Mary has been at her place and taken
her jewellery. (ii) literalist: insists that, intuitions notwithstanding, (3) is true. (iii) deny that (4) is
true – but it is not clear that anyone would take this option, and, in particular, it is unclear that
Barwise would have a move analogous to non-persistent facts that were deployed in the previous
case. (iv) deny that the truth of (4) and the falsehood of (3) are inconsistent with (4) logically
following from (3). The idea would have been that (4) gets evaluated at a circumstance whose
domain does not include Mary. However, this solution is not as obvious as one might have thought,
because, although Mary is not a constituent of the proposition expressed by (3) (to use this jargon),
(3) is indirectly about Mary, since it is about her place and her jewellery. Hence Predelli's indexshifting does not seem to be immediately applicable to the case of existential generalization.
I will argue that neither the contextualist nor the literalist strategy are attractive options. The
proposal by Barwise, on the other hand, requires too much of a fresh starts to be really interesting. It
is thus worthwhile to work out Predelli’s index-shifting strategy in more detail, which is a task that
I will undertake in my paper.
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Luiz Carlos Baptista, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
[email protected]
Troubles with “what is said”
Intuitions about “what is said”, like common sense to Descartes, are “the most fairly distributed
thing in the world”. And they are also highly context-sensitive, even hopelessly so if we want to
propose a theoretical notion of “what is said” that tries to preserve at least some of our intuitions on
that matter. After all, depending on the context, “what is said” can be accurately reported as a
verbatim transcription, a resume, a paraphrase or even an implicature. And this spells trouble for
any attempt to base a notion of “implicating” (suggesting, hinting, etc.) in a distinction from some
precisely specified notion of “saying”.
More than any other philosopher, Grice took great pains to develop a notion of “what is
said” that might be useful in establishing that distinction. But he failed to offer a precise and
theoretically motivated definition. For instance, it is usual in the literature to equate Gricean “what
is said” with notions such as “literal meaning” or “proposition expressed”. But this is not correct.
Something may be part of the literal meaning of an expression (whatever that is) without being
“said” in Grice’s sense (e.g., conventional implicatures); on the other hand, there are cases in which
a proposition is clearly expressed, but in which Grice would defend that nothing was “said”, but
only “made as if to say” (e.g., irony).
After all, if “what is said” is nothing more than “literal meaning” or “proposition
expressed” (and notice that these two notions are not necessarily equivalent), why didn’t Grice use
one of them, instead of sticking to a “favored” notion of “what is said”? It seems that what he was
aiming at was the idea of commitment to the truth of a statement. But the fact that this conclusion
can only be drawn after a hard exegetical work (such as done by Robert Arundale and Tim
Wharton) only shows that Grice’s motivations were not at all clear, or at least not clearly expressed.
And his later (and sparse) remarks on “dictiveness” and “formality” only seem to complicate things
more, by offering examples that, although pointing to promising developments, don’t fit well with
previous formulations.
Be that as it may, I will try to show that, even if understood in the “ethical” sense of
commitment to the truth, the Gricean notion of “what is said” is dispensable – and, for that matter,
any notion of “what is said” that is claimed to play an important role in Semantics or in the
Semantics/Pragmatics interface. It is significant to note that authors situated at opposing sides of the
“Literalist”/“Contextualist” divide (Cappelen & Lepore for the former, and Sperber & Wilson for
the latter) have argued convincingly against the usefulness of that notion. I will draw on their
criticism in order to explore the consequences of the denial of any theoretical import to the notion
of “what is said” – especially regarding the related notion of “implicature”. My aim is purely
destructive; I won’t offer any way out of the problems identified. But sometimes, destruction may
be the midwife of discovery.
Manuel García-Carpintero, Universitat de Barcelona
[email protected]
Two-Dimensionalism and the Contingent A Priori
In an influential article in the seventies, Donnellan (1979) argued that what can be properly counted
as knowable a priori in examples of the contingent a priori like those involving 'one meter' or
'Neptune' famously proposed by Kripke is not the very same singular content that is contingent; he
distinguished for that between knowing a true proposition expressed by an utterance, and knowing
that an utterance expresses a true proposition. In a series of papers, Robin Jeshion (2000, 2001) has
recently attacked Donnellan's proposal, and she has argued in favour of the most straightforward
interpretation of Kripke's claim: in the relevant cases, the very same singular content can be both
contingent and knowable a priori. In my paper, I will argue that this cannot be the case; I will
appeal to a version of two-dimensional semantics to advance an account of the Kripkean cases
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along the lines of Donnellan's, and I will argue that Jeshion's compelling arguments against
Donnellan's view do not apply to this version.
The main argument will be based on contrasting cases of failure of reference such as (1)
with successful cases such as (2):
(1)
Vulcan causes perturbations in Mercury’s orbit, if it exists
(2)
Neptune causes perturbations in Uranus’s orbit, if it exists
Someone who, like Jeshion, wants to defend that it is the very singular proposition expressed on
Millian assumptions by (2) that is both contingent and a priori faces a problem with (1). On the 2-D
take on Donnellan’s view, what is known a priori is not that singular, object-dependent content;
hence, (1) does not pose any special problem: there is still a truth to be known a priori. The
defender of the alternative view confronts a dilemma, relative to which of the two available options
she chooses: either it is a priori knowledge of the content of that utterance that is claimed, or it is
merely a priori defeasible justification.
If the first option is chosen, the defender of the contrasting view that the singular objectdependent content of (1) is known a priori will have to envisage true but gappy propositions. This
would require a semantics that is technically attainable, and in fact has been adopted recently by
Sainsbury (2005). I will argue, however, that the required semantics is theoretically in need of a
justification that is not at all easy to provide. Lehmann (2002) includes a useful discussion of
different kinds of free logics, and the problem they confront to justify the truth-conditions they
ascribe to referential sentences. Semantics for free logics should justify the non-validity of rules
like, say, existential generalization, and at the same time the truth of sentences like (1), or instances
of excluded middle involving non-referring terms. A bivalent proposal like Burge’s (1974) achieves
this by stipulating that all atomic sentences are false; however, as Lehmann notes (op. cit., 226),
Burge’s justification for the stipulation presupposes bivalence, which is at stake once we envisage
non-referring terms. Non-bivalent supervaluationist semantics are among the most popular, but they
confront a similar problem. Lehmann rightly criticizes a proposal by Bencivenga based on a
“counterfactual theory of truth”: “Why should truth, which is ordinarily regarded as correspondence
to fact, be reckoned in terms of what is contrary to fact? Why should we reckon that ‘Pegasus is
Pegasus’ is true because it would be true if, contrary to fact, ‘Pegasus’ did refer?” (op. cit., 233),
concluding, “If supervaluations make sense in free logic, I believe we do not yet know why” (ibid).
In fact, and as a corollary to my argument here, I will argue that it is only 2-D accounts, such as the
one on which I will rely, are in a position to provide the required semantic justification for
supervaluationist semantics for free-logics.
If, on the other hand, the defender of the alternative view chooses the alternative option that
it is merely a priori defeasible justification that competent speakers have concerning the truth of
(1), then she can argue that, although acceptance of (1) was justified a priori, empirical findings
have shown that it is not true. The problem now is that, although there are clear examples of the
empirical defeasibility of a priori beliefs (see Jeshion 2002), it is defeasibility by, say, the testimony
of relevant experts that those examples are based on; defeasibility by straightforward empirical
findings like those establishing the non-existence of Vulcan is a much more doubtful matter.
References
Burge, Tyler (1974): “Truth and Singular Terms,” Noûs 8, 309-25.
Donnellan, Keith (1979): “The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designation,” in French, P., Uehling,
T. and Wettstein, H. Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, 45-60,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jeshion, Robin (2000): “Ways of Taking a Meter,” Philosophical Studies 99, 297-318.
Jeshion, Robin (2001): “Donnellan on Neptune,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63,
111-135.
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Jeshion, Robin (2002): “The Epistemological Argument Against Descriptivism,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 64, 325-345.
Lehmann, Scott (2002): “More free logic”, in Gabbay, ed. Handbook of Philosophical Logic, 2nd
edition, Vol. 5, Kluwer-Academic Publishers 197-259.
Sainsbury, Mark (2005): Reference without Referents, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Max Kölbel, University of Birmingham
[email protected]
Vagueness as Semantic
In everyday use, the vagueness of natural language predicates, such as “bald” or “poor” is as
unproblematic as it is widespread. This suggests strongly that vagueness, if it is a semantic feature,
is not a deficiency or shortcoming but quite normal. A semantic framework for natural language
should therefore be able to accommodate vagueness.
Let us assume that vagueness is a semantic phenomenon. Whatever it means to say that
vagueness is semantic, at the very least it means that the meaning of a vague predicate does not
determine for every individual whether it falls under that predicate. In standard semantics (a la
Kaplan 1989 or Lewis 1980), there are in principle three ways in which an expression can fail to
determine an extension: either (a) the expression is ambiguous (it is used with different
meanings/characters in different contexts of use), or (b) the expression is indexical (it varies in
content/intension with context of use); or (c) the expression varies in extension with different
circumstances of evaluation (e.g. it has different extensions in different possible worlds). In case
(a), disambiguation will remove the source of indeterminacy, in case (b) placing the expression in
an appropriate context of use will remove the indeterminacy. I shall provide some reasons against
locating the source of vagueness in (a) or (b), i.e. reasons against viewing vagueness as a form of
ambiguity or indexicality. But I shall argue that, by treating vague predicates as exhibiting the
characteristics of case (c) standard semantics can explain/predict the phenomena of vagueness, so
that, ultimately, standard semantics does have the resources to accommodate vagueness.
Consider the view that the vagueness of a predicate consists in its ambiguity between several
meanings, each of which does determine an extension. Difficulty: successful communication via
ambiguous expressions requires disambiguation, but not so in the case of vague predicates. This
difficulty is not conclusive, there do seem to be forms of ambiguity that do not require
disambiguation. (Consider: “It’s a chemical purifyer factory.”.) Another difficulty: when sentences
containing vague predicates are used in communication, they either (i) semantically express a
unique proposition, corresponding to one of the meanings of the predicate, or (ii) they semantically
express several propositions. In case (i), there is some semantic contextual mechanism that
determines one of the range of propositions as the one semantically expressed, so that we are
dealing not with ambiguity but with indexicality. In case (ii), there must be a further, pragmatic,
mechanism that explains how the range of propositions semantically expressed yields a single
communicated proposition. Case (ii) does, in my view, constitute a genuine option, however, it
views communication with vague predicates as always involving conversationally or conventionally
implicated propositions. This seems an unusually great burden on pragmatics, which, if
unnecessary, should be avoided.
Consider now the view that vagueness is a special case of indexicality, i.e. that vague
predicates fail to determine extensions in the sense that they determine different intensions in
different contexts of use, each of these intensions being non-vague, i.e. itself determining an
extension. There are several problems with this proposal. For brevity, let me adumbrate just one
these difficulties, namely one concerning speech reports.
Correctly reporting indexical utterances requires adjustment to make up for relevant
discrepancies between the context of the reported utterance and the context of the report. For
example, on Tuesday, Mary might say “Yesterday John said that it was a bank holiday then.”, when
John’s original utterance was “Today is a bank holiday.”. If vague predicates were indexicals then
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reporting vague utterances should be subject to the same constraint on compensating any changes in
the context. However, this is not so. Whatever we might single out as the contextual feature to
which vague predicates are allegedly sensitive, reports are not subject to the corresponding
constraint.
It remains to examine the view that the source of vagueness lies in (c), i.e. a variation of
extension with circumstances of evaluation. The phenomenon is well-known from modal semantics:
the same proposition (predicate) varies in truth-value (extension) from one circumstance of
evaluation—one possible world—to another. Similarly, one might say that the same vague
proposition (predicate) varies in truth-value (extension) from one sharpening to another, where each
sharpening determines the extension of all the vague predicates. Now, this view faces the same
problem as its better-known relative in modal semantics: if the truth of propositions is relative to
some parameter, then we need to say something about the normative role of truth vis-à-vis
assertion. In the modal case this problem can be solved by saying that an assertion complies with
the truth norm only if the proposition asserted is true at the world of assertion. In the case of
vagueness, we need to answer the same question: truth relative to which sharpening(s) is
normatively relevant for assertions?
In the talk, I will show how the phenomena of vagueness impose constraints on any answer to
this question. If we are to explain the pursuasiveness of sorites reasoning, we must say that the
(range of) sharpening(s) relevant to evaluating the correctness of an assertion varies from one
context of assertion to another. Again, suppose we want to explain the widespread impression that
of a borderline case it is neither correct to say that it is F nor to say that it is not F. Then we should
say that an assertion is correct only if it is true relative to all relevant sharpenings.
Therefore classical semantics has the resources to accommodate the phenomena of
vagueness. We learn from the contextualists and boundary-shifters (e.g. Soames and Graff), that the
appeal of the sorites is due to some form of context-sensitivity. We learn from supervaluationists,
that borderline cases can be explained as cases that are in the extension of a vague predicate relative
to some but not all relevant sharpenings. However, the account does not postulate hidden
indexicality, nor does it require a three-valued semantics.
Ricardo Santos, Universidade de Évora and Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
[email protected]
Truth Conditions and Logical Forms
Logic is the science of deduction and validity. Because of this subject matter, the logician is
interested both in logical forms and in truth conditions. He is interested in logical forms because the
logical form of a sentence determines its inferential properties: which sentences it follows from and
which sentences can be deduced from it. And, as the received wisdom says, the validity of an
argument is a matter of its form alone. But the logician is also interested in truth conditions, because
validity can also be said to depend on the relations between the truth conditions of sentences: an
argument is valid just in case all the conditions that make all its premises true are conditions that
make its conclusion also true. Where and how do these two interests intersect?
The notion of logical form has been recognized as rather problematic. At least, it has been
the subject of much discussion and of conflicting theoretical proposals. Less so with the notion of
truth conditions. This has been considered clear enough to be honoured as the central or
fundamental notion of formal semantics. Regarding particular pronouncements of the form
«sentence s is true in this language if and only if ...», Davidson said: “anyone can tell whether it is
right” (1967: 25); and he certainly would not say the same about particular assignments of logical
form.
Perhaps because of this asymmetry, the idea was formed of using what is clear to throw
light on the less clear. This gives rise to what might be called the truth-conditional account of
logical form, first advocated by Davidson and more recently developed by Ernest Lepore, Kirk
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Ludwig and others. According to this account, the logical form of a natural language sentence is a
property of the sentence which is revealed by a canonical proof of the corresponding T-sentence, in
the context of a theory of truth for the language as a whole.
In this paper, I propose an indirect defence of the truth-conditional account of logical form.
The plan for that is the following. After some motivation for the subject, I stress the fact that the
notion of truth conditions is ambiguous. When philosophers refer to, or simply state, the truth
conditions of a certain sentence, they may mean, and they have actually meant, different things. The
next step is to show that one particular understanding of truth conditions is the most adequate and
fruitful if one is primarily interested in logical form. This particular understanding I call “meaningbased”, and I show how it results from a revision of Davidson’s original project for constructing
theories of truth for natural languages which can serve as theories of meaning for those languages.
The semantic structures of sentences and arguments which can be discovered by such theories have
a right to be called “logical forms”, and the reasons for that are identified. Thus, a theory of logical
form is one of the main products of a revised Davidsonian theory of meaning, and, after showing
that, I conclude by contrasting this kind of theory with the traditional conception of logical form,
based on the idea of translating a natural language sentence into a canonical idiom of some
independently studied logical system.
Sebastiano Moruzzi, University of St Andrews
[email protected]
Vagueness and Omniscience
The paper explores the consequences of the notion of omniscience for vagueness in relation to the
supervaluationist approach. Why is the notion of omniscience relevant to the problem of vagueness?
John Hawthorne suggests that the notion of omniscience is relevant of the problem of vagueness
because since no boundary in the sorites series seems hidden to us, we are in a position to know
everything in relation to the application of the relevant vague predicate. Omniscience functions thus
as a useful abstraction to test the coherence of any conception of vagueness which is committed to
the idea that vague predicate are boundaryless , (Hawthorne (2005) p. 9).
Following a suggestion made by Cian Dorr, a semantic theory of vagueness can be seen an
instance of the the so-called .no-ignorance theories. about vagueness. According to these theories,
unwillingness to assert .p. and to assert .not-p. when .p. is borderline entails that it is not the case
that we are ignorant as to whether p. (Dorr (2003) p.87). In borderline cases there is is nothing to be
ignorant of, we are thus in shcu cases in the same position of an omniscient being.
Vagueness can be introduced in connection to the notion of the borderline cases, and
borderline cases can be suitably introduced by ostension (I will not pursue attempt to de_ne these
notions). Thus I will delimit the application of .vague. to atomic sentences where the subject is a
borderline case of the predicate: to say that it is vague whether Bob is bald, it is to say that Bob is a
borderline case of baldness.
Now, several semantic account of vagueness connect the notion of vagueness to the notion
of semantic indeterminacy. According to this cluster of theories, vagueness is a peculiar case of
semantic indeterminacy.
Thus, for example, if it is vague whether Bob is bald, then it is indeterminate whether bob is
bald - where to say that it is indeterminate whether Bob is bald is to say that is indeterminate that
Bob is bald and that Bob is not bald. Generalising, we have:
(Indeterminate whether) : p is indeterminate whether p iff (it is not determinate that p and it is not
determinate that not-p)
(Vagueness) if it is vague whether p, then it indeterminate whether p
The second principle I want introduce is a well-known principle that connects vagueness to
ignorance.
Consider again Bob who is borderline case of .bald.. By (Vagueness) the semantic theorist
holds that it is semantically indeterminate that Bob is bald. How does this indeterminacy hinge on
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our knowledge that Bob is bald? Given Bob's scalp and the actual meaning of .bald., there is no fact
- linguistic or not - to appeal to in order to establish whether Bob is bald, therefore there is nothing
to know about Bob which could provide us knowledge of whether or not he is bald - that is to say,
there is nothing to know about Bob's baldness. The supervaluationist seems then to be committed to
the ignorance principle that indeterminacy entails lack of knowledge:
(IP) Necessarily, if it is indeterminate whether p, then no one knows that p
In the paper, followong Hawthorne, I consider three definitions of omniscience and I highlight
problems for all these definitions (showing in detail why, under minimal assumption for the logic of
definitely (all these defnitions are incoherent with the previous principles) .
The paper concludes suggesting that we are not in a position to know that omniscience is
possible, we too readily come to accept omniscience is possible because of a misapprehension of
the phenomenology of vagueness. Hawthorne's motivation of the relevance of omniscience for the
problem of vagueness relies on a consideration about our epistemic situation in a sorites series.What
Hawthorne is entitled to say is not that since we lack any view on the matter, we consequently lack
any evidence on any aspect of the matter - e.g. that, in relation to baldness, we lack on the existence
of a boundary. The explanans must be a different one, but which? A suggestion to find the right one
lies in a proper appreciation of the nature of our hesitance, which could even lead to suspension of
judgement, that we characteristically feel when faced with borderline cases. The nature of this kind
hesitation seems to be constrained by three principles:
Insufficiency: if a thinker takes a view, the evidence he could possibly exhibit for his judgement is
of a rather peculiar sort: it is not sufficient to dismiss someone else view; Objectivity: when the
view is held, it counts as, from the point of view of the thinker, the correct view; No-Ignorance the
insufficiency of the evidence is not prima facie explicable in terms of probabilistic evidence or,
more generally, insufficient evidence of certain fact which we are ignorant of to certain extent (see
Schiffer (2003)).
In the paper I try to show that, under the above description of the phenomenology of
vagueness the fact that we are in this epistemic consideration is not something constitutive of the
cases of application vague predicates qua borderline cases, rather it is, so to say, a byproduct, of the
interaction of two phenomena: being presented in front of borderline cases and being engaged in a
sorites reasoning. If these two phenomena happen to occur together, then our epistemic situation
does indeed happen to be such that we are omniscient simply because there is nothing to know,
justifying then the claim that vague predicates are boundaryless.
The harmless thought that vagueness entails lack of ignorance of any boundaries in a sorites
series becomes the dramatic thought that vague predicate are boundaryless and thus the
unwarranted claim that even an omniscient being would not be in a better epistemic position than a
normal thinker in respect to the knowledgeability of a boundary in the sorites series.
References
Dorr, C. (2003). Vagueness Without Ignorance. In J. Hawthorne and D. Zimmerman (Eds.),
Language and Philosophical Linguistics, pp. 83.114. Blackwell.
Hawthorne, J. (2005). Vagueness and the mind of god. Philosophical Studies 122(1).
Schiffer, S. (2003). The Things we Mean. Oxford University Press.
Stefano Predelli, University of Nottingham
[email protected]
Monsters and Fiction. Operators on Contexts in the Semantic Analysis of Talk About Fiction
Consider an utterance of
(1)
Mozart’s Requiem was commissioned by Antonio Salieri.
If uttered as a factual remark, (1) is intuitively false: the Requiem was commissioned by Count
Walsegg, not by Antonio Salieri. Yet, it seems that (1) may be uttered truly during a discussion of
Milos Forman’s movie Amadeus: according to this fictional account, it is a disguised Salieri that
commissions the mass for the dead.
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According to the dominant view, this discrepancy may be explained by postulating that a hidden
intensional operator occurs within the logical form appropriate for (1), when occurring in scenarios
of the latter type. Thus, the semantic analysis of (1), uttered as part of a comment on the history of
music, may well focus on a syntactic construct sufficiently close to surface structure. The
interpretation of the aforementioned comment on the movie, on the other hand, is allegedly directed
towards a syntactic construct roughly along the lines of
(2)
according to Amadeus, Mozart’s Requiem was commissioned by Antonio Salieri.
In this view, the operator ‘according to Amadeus’ is in turn interpreted as an intensional operator:
‘according to Amadeus S’ is evaluated as true (with respect to the actual world) iff S is evaluated as
true with respect to the circumstances determined by the movie.
There are a variety of well known problems associated with the traditional view, in particular
having to do with the notion of the ‘circumstances’ determined by a fictional account. Here, I ignore
these metaphysical complications, and I focus on a genuinely semantic problem for the received
view. Consider an utterance of
(3)
although Mozart thought that he was an otherworldly figure, the actual commissioner of the
Requiem was none other than Salieri.
occurring within a discussion of Amadeus. Intuitively, (3) is true in this setting: in the movie, the
disguised character that commissions the Requiem is indeed Salieri. Yet, the intensional-operator
view yields the wrong results. Focusing for simplicity’s sake on the latter half of (3), the result of
the traditional view is
(4)
according to Amadeus, the actual commissioner of the Requiem was none other than Salieri.
As is well known, ‘actual’ (and other indexicals) escape the effects of intentional operators, that is,
it induces a forced ‘wide-scope’ reading. Thus, unlike its analysandum, (4) conveys the false claim
that, according to Amadeus, Count Walsegg commissioned the Requiem.
The natural solution for this problem consists in a re-assessment of the context appropriate for
the analysis of fictional discourse. In this view, what must be at issue are not alternative
circumstances of evaluation (in David Kaplan’s sense of the term, that is, as the parameters shifted
by intensional operators), but appropriate contexts of interpretation. In the context relevant for
utterances of (1) or (3) as fictional commentaries, the contextually privileged circumstance is that
determined by Amadeus, rather than the actual state of affairs.
A simple procedure for implementing this suggestion relies on the idea of ‘pre-semantic’
contextual shifts. These shifts are independently well motivated, for instance in the analysis of
messages recorded for later broadcast. If on March 8th I write ‘I am away today’, and I post my note
on my office doors on March 9th, the intuitively correct context of interpretation is not the context of
inscription, but the context intended as relevant for my communicative purpose. Similarly, when
addressing a fictional account such as Amadeus, the context the speaker assumes as relevant is one
which determines the circumstances described in the movie, rather than the actual course of events.
In this view, then, both utterances of (1) are appropriately represented by the same syntactic
structure, but are accompanied by distinct contextual parameters.
But this account also encounters problems. Consider an utterance of
(5)
Mozart could have been French
made during the commentary on Amadeus. This may be interpreted either (i) as a claim about the
possibilities admitted within the actual narrative for Amadeus (in the movie, it is a possibility that
Mozart be born and raised in France) or (ii) as an assertion about the actual possibilities for fictional
accounts (it is possible that, in the fictional story, Mozart was in fact French). It seems furthermore
eminently plausible to suppose that this ambiguity is to be explained as a classic scope ambiguity.
Yet, in the proposal from the previous paragraph, no operator may interact with the intensional
expression ‘could have been’ occurring in (5) so as to generate the desired scope interactions.
What this shows is that the traditional view was indeed correct in postulating the presence of a
hidden operator in the analysis for utterances about fiction, but that it went wrong in assuming that
it had to be a classic intensional operator. The desired results may rather be obtained in terms of an
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operator that shifts contextual parameters, rather than circumstances of evaluation. The conclusion
is that the semantic analysis of discourse about fiction requires the resources provided by operators
on contexts, that is, by what David Kaplan called ‘monsters’. Contrary to Kaplan’s claim, then,
monsters are not only a formally admissible but otherwise idle device, but must also be accepted as
important resources within the analysis of our use of language.
Vera Tripodi, University of Rome "La Sapienza"
[email protected]
Singular Terms and Inferential Criteria
In this paper I focus on the role of inference in Michael Dummett’s criteria for discriminating
singular terms from other kinds of expressions. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it is to
offer an up to date formulation of Dummett’s criteria for singular terms. Second, it is to
defend Dummett’s syntactical approach from criticisms. Accordingly, the paper is divided in
two parts. In the first, I examine the so called ‘syntactic priority thesis’ (henceforth, SPT), i.
e. the thesis of the priority of the syntactic categories over the ontological ones. To this effect,
I expose the inferential criteria presented in Dummett (1980) and I show how, following
Crispin Wright and Bob Hale’s recent work, they can be refined. In the second part, I address
Linda Wetzel’s contention that (i) such criteria are viciously circular and that (ii) the role that
Dummett ascribes to them is in conflict with SPT. In spite of the objections voiced by
Wetzel, I argue, Dummett’s criteria are neither circular – since they are grounded on a pretheoretical notion of valid inference which is shared by speakers – nor in conflict with SPT.
At the heart of Frege’s philosophy of mathematics lies “the thesis of the priority of the
syntactic over ontological categories” according to which linguistic categories are prior to
ontological categories. In order to explain what sort of thing an expression can refer to, we
need to explain what sort of expression we are dealing with, and in order to understand the
sort of thing to which the expression might refer, we need to understand how that expression
functions in the sentence of which it is part. As a result, everyone who wishes to endorse
(some version of) Frege’s programme needs to characterize formally the class of singular
terms. According to Dummett, this can be done in “wholly linguistic terms”, by giving clear
and exact criteria for them.
To this effect, Dummett (1980) offers five criteria for discriminating singular terms
from expressions of other kind. These criteria are not based merely on conditions of
grammatical correctness, because the place that a genuine singular term stands in a sentence
can be occupied by other expression that expresses generality (such as “everything”,
“nothing”, etc.). Thus, Dummett’s criteria are inferential criteria.
Unfortunately, these criteria establish only necessary conditions for an expression’s
being a singular term. Moreover, as Hale and Wright point out, they require some significant
emendations. In fact, even if such criteria can exclude various expressions standing in place
of some genuine singular terms, they cannot exclude indefinite noun phrases occurring where
singular terms cannot be. Hence, we need some supplementary tests allowing us (i) to
distinguish a difference in function or semantic role between those expressions that can refer
to a particular object and those which can not and (ii) to distinguish first-order from second
(and higher) order generality.
Dummett’s criteria are based on the speaker’s recognition of ‘the sentence as wellformed’ and ‘the correctness or incorrectness of certain patterns of inference’ at the intuitive
level. Several philosophers, however, do not accept Dummett’s thesis in this respect. Among
others, Linda Wetzel maintains that the thesis according to which the recognition of simple
patterns of inference is at the intuitive level is problematic in some points. More specifically,
according to Wetzel, the thesis presupposes at the outset what should be explained, i.e. the
very notion of singular term. Moreover, the thesis is committed to the view that a valid
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inference is one that preserves syntactic property. Hence, Wetzel argues, the notion of
inference to which Dummett refers presupposes a certain general grasp of the notion of
singular term. As a result, Wetzel claims, Dummett’s thesis about the recognition of simple
patterns of inference is, untenable, since it fails to furnish a general notion of singular terms.
It follows, if Wetzel’s objection is correct, that Dummett’s criteria are viciously circular and
fail to delimitate formally the class of singular terms.
However, I think, this is not the case. Wetzel’s argument rest upon a confusion
between our everyday and our theoretical notion of inference. Inferences should not be
considered in semantic terms, but in terms of what kinds of inference are accepted as valid by
speakers. For, in order to be able to apply the criteria for singular terms, we need to be able to
distinguish a valid inference from an invalid one. Hence, we need to assume that the speaker
already understands the distinction between singular terms and other expressions, if she
understands the validity of certain patterns of inference. Nevertheless what speakers accept as
valid concerns – as a matter of fact – the community's shared sense of a certain expression,
not a theoretical notion of validity. Now, as Wetzel correctly points out, the application of
Dummett’s criteria requires that the speakers already understand some concepts, such as the
quantifier ‘something’. However, since what Dummett clearly means – and what we ought
mean – by ‘inferences accepted as valid’ is ‘inference that our community recognize as
valid’, Wetzel’s alleged threat of circularity can been seen to be merely apparent. For our
theoretical notion of inference is arguably different than the one we use in our everyday
practice. As a result, I conclude, Dummett’s inferential criteria for discriminating singular
terms provide a useful semantic tool that is free from any charge of circularity.
References:
Dummett 1981: M. DUMMETT, Frege Philosophy of Language, Cambridge Mass. 1981.
Frege 1988: G. FREGE, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Eine logisch-mathematische
Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl, Hamburg 1988.
Hale 1987: B. HALE, Abstract Objects, Oxford 1987.
Hale 1979: B. HALE, Strawson, Geach and Dummett on Singular Terms and Predicates,
«Synthese», 42 (1979), 275-295.
Hale 2001: B. HALE, Singular Terms (1), in B. HALE - C. WRIGTH [ed. by], The Reason’s
Proper Study. Essays towards a Neo-Fregean Philosophy of Mathematics, Oxford 2001, 3147.
Hale 2001: B. HALE, Singular Terms (2), in B. HALE - C. WRIGTH [ed. by], The Reason’s
Proper Study. Essays towards a Neo-Fregean Philosophy of Mathematics, Oxford 2001, 4871.
Wetzel 1990: L. WETZEL, Dummett’s Criteria for Singular Terms, «Mind», 99 (1990),
239254.
Wrigth 1983: C. WRIGHT, Frege’s Conception of Numbers as Objects, Aberdeen 1983.
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Practical Philosophy
Aires Almeida, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Arte e cognição – Uma má estratégia anti-cognitivista
O cognitivismo estético é a perspectiva segundo a qual a arte tem valor qua arte porque proporciona
conhecimento acerca do mundo. Em defesa da sua perspectiva, o cognitivista tem de mostrar que 1)
a arte é capaz de proporcionar conhecimento acerca do mundo e que 2) o conhecimento
proporcionado é uma justificação do valor da arte qua arte.
Uma das tentativas de mostrar que o cognitivismo é falso foi apresentada por Jerome Stolnitz no seu
ensaio On The Cognitive Triviality of Art (1992). A tese central de Stolnitz é que mesmo as obras de
arte que são acerca de algo – como é o caso da ficção literária – são incapazes de nos ensinar seja o
que for sobre o mundo. Segundo Stolnitz, não há verdades sui generis: nenhuma das verdades que
encontramos nas obras de arte é peculiar à arte. Pelo contrário, a arte serve-se de verdades
adquiridas de outros modos extra-artísticos, com as quais as pessoas estão há muito familiarizadas,
não se podendo falar de verdades genuinamente artísticas. Isto faz do conhecimento proporcionado
pela arte um conhecimento de banalidades. No melhor dos casos a arte activa conhecimentos
anteriormente adquiridos.
Stolnitz procura, assim, colocar os defensores do cognitivismo perante o seguinte dilema acerca da
noção de verdade: ou as verdades da literatura são muito particularizadas e exclusivamente acerca
de personagens ficcionais, ou então são verdades universalizáveis, de maneira a revelarem a
natureza psicológica das pessoas. Se se dá o primeiro caso, são simplesmente verdades de ficção,
pelo que não se trata de conhecimento do mundo em sentido robusto; se se dá o segundo, não são
verdades artísticas mas verdades de senso comum.
Um segundo dilema envolve a noção de justificação e é muito semelhante ao anterior: ou
justificamos as verdades da ficção recorrendo a informação exterior às obras de arte, caso em que
não podemos falar de verdades artísticas, pois trata-se de algo que já sabemos por outra via, ou a
confirmação é interna às próprias obras, caso em que a justificação é insatisfatória, por recorrer a
elementos estritamente ficcionais.
Defenderei que é possível responder aos argumentos de Stolnitz de duas maneiras, embora siga
apenas um dos caminhos. Pode-se, por um lado, rejeitar a noção de conhecimento que Stolnitz tem
em mente, mostrando que é uma noção de conhecimento demasiado restrita: nem todo o
conhecimento é um «saber que», ou conhecimento proposicional; a arte pode proporcionar um
«saber como», ou conhecimento não proposicional. Pode-se, por outro lado, aceitar a noção de
conhecimento em causa, mostrando que há conhecimento genuinamente artístico sem ser acerca de
trivialidades. Será este o caminho seguido.
Começarei por argumentar que há verdades genuinamente artísticas na arte, mesmo quando essas
verdades podem ser obtidas de outras maneiras. Basicamente, o argumento consiste em mostrar que
a expressão «o conhecimento proporcionado pela arte» é ambígua, uma vez que tanto pode referir o
conhecimento obtido como a maneira de o obter. Se estivermos a falar das verdades conhecidas, e
não da maneira de as obter, então não há conhecimento especificamente artístico, pois as verdades
veiculadas pela arte não são diferentes das verdades que descobrimos olhando directamente para o
mundo. Mas se falamos da maneira de obter essas verdades e não das verdades obtidas, o
conhecimento proporcionado pela arte pode ser único e especificamente artístico.
Em segundo lugar, argumentarei a favor da ideia de que a arte proporciona verdades acerca do
mundo, mesmo que essas verdades não estejam sujeitas a qualquer processo de confirmação
exterior. Sem qualquer necessidade de confirmação externa, a ficção estabelece de forma conclusiva
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e auto-suficiente a verdade do que descreve, revelando um universo desconhecido de possibilidades
de experiência humana, cuja verdade é estabelecida apenas em virtude da inteligibilidade, para o
leitor, de certas descrições psicológicas. Neste caso, o leitor não precisa de qualquer tipo de
informação prévia (nem posterior) para que os fenómenos descritos sejam encarados como
autênticas possibilidades de vida dos seres humanos, pois trata-se de estados mentais que, pela sua
própria inteligibilidade, os seres humanos reais podem ter. Isto significa que podemos alargar a
compreensão da nossa natureza moral e psicológica e que esta compreensão não é de carácter
teórico ou meramente conceptual. A noção de inteligibilidade em causa é a seguinte: a acção de
uma personagem num contexto ficcional é inteligível se for coerente (tanto no que se refere aos
meios como aos fins em vista) com as características psicológicas e o conjunto de estados mentais
do agente em causa. Para tornar uma acção inteligível, o autor da obra ficcional tem de descrever
algum tipo de objectivo do agente e de lhe atribuir a crença de que a acção em causa lhe permite
alcançar esse objectivo. A razão para agir de uma determinada maneira é dada pela descrição do
objectivo (ou objectivos) e da crença (ou crenças) do agente, assim como do contexto de formação
desses objectivos e crenças. Além disso, os objectivos do agente ficcional são inteligíveis para o
leitor se eles forem ceteris paribus desejáveis.
Anna Bergqvist, University of Reading
[email protected]
Brandom and Dancy on the normativity of prima facie reasons
The aim of this paper is to defend Robert Brandom’s inferentialism against a recent objection made
by Jonathan Dancy1, to the effect that Brandom’s account of primafacie reasons cannot capture
how the normative aspect of contributory reasons may vary from case to case, a claim that the
particularist maintains is necessary for any adequate account in the theory of reasons. This debate
deserves attention because it has wider implications for the live issue of what endorsement variance
holism commits one to, and, in particular, whether or not Dancy’s holism can incorporate
inferences, or epistemic rules of some sort. Although I myself am broadly to particularism, I argue
that the objection from variance holism fails because there is an alternative reading of Brandom’s
example of non-monotonic reasoning, the target of Dancy’s critical discussion, which is not
vulnerable to the particularist challenge. The upshot of my positive defence of Brandom is that
inferentialism and variance holism are ultimately compatible, though the defence may nevertheless
involve an interpretation of Brandom’s analysis that is different from Brandom’s own.
I start by outlining Brandom’s account of the sort of deafeasible reasoning that the notion
of a prima facie (or pro tanto) reason employs, a task which I approach by exploring an example
that plays a central role both in Brandom’s own picture of prima facie reasons2 and Dancy’s critical
treatment thereof. In section 2 I explain the particularist challenge to this aspect of Brandom’s
inferentialism. Dancy’s problem with Brandom is twofold. Firstly, whilst agreeing with the general
pragmatist stance of Brandom’s inferentialist semantics3, whereby conceptual contents are
identified by their inferential role, Dancy argues that a Brandom-style approach to ethics cannot
account for the notion of a contributory reason – that is, how a consideration of the situation may
make something of a case for believing (or doing) something in that situation. Secondly,
inferentialism cannot account for a phenomenon that the particularist holds is necessary for any
adequate theory of reasons, namely the way in which the specific normative role of any particular
contributory reason may vary from case to case. The reason for this is that Brandom ‘does not look
inside combinations of [contributory] reasons’, and this stems from the fact that the Brandomian
account of the game of giving and asking for reasons in terms of properties of material inferences
operates only with two notions ‘whose home is really the overall level’ - commitment and
entitlement.
Overall, I believe that some aspects of Dancy’s claims with respect to Brandom are right,
while others are perhaps correct, but not in the right sort of way for the attack on inferentialism to
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be on target. Here it is important to distinguish two sorts of issue that are at play in Dancy’s
challenge. On the one hand, there is the objection that Brandom’s account of prima facie reasons
does not seem to work on its own terms. For instance, you may complain that Brandom cannot
capture the notion of a contributory reason even if contributory reasons are invariant in their
normative polarity. That is, even if we allow atomism of some sort in the theory of reasons,
Brandom cannot get it to work, given that his account only operates with the two notions of
commitment and entitlement – whose home is really the overall level. So, from this point of view,
the problem with Brandom’s account is not so much the failure to account for the alleged variance
of normative polarity of reasons as such but, rather, the failure to account for the simple notion of
contribution. On the other hand, one may also claim that Brandom just cannot capture the variant
polarity of (certain) contributory reasons because his account is not sufficiently holistic in the
Dancyan sense of the word. That is, even though Brandom’s account is explicitly a form of
semantic holism such that ‘one must have many concepts in order to have any’, advocates of the
sort of variance holism that partly motivates Dancy’s version of particularism are likely to object
that Brandom’s holism does not go far enough; Brandom does not have the right kind of holism,
according to the particularist. Like Dancy, I hold that Brandom’s account fails to capture the notion
of a contributory reason, invariant or otherwise, and I have argued for this claim elsewhere. But, as
mentioned above, the primary target of this paper concerns the more specific ojection that a
Brandom-style approach to ethics cannot account for the way in which the normative role of any
particular contributory reason may vary from case to case. It is this aspect of the particularist attack
on inferentialism that I will argue fails.
The leading thought in my proposal, which I outline in section 3, is that we can understand
Brandom’s example of the match in terms of a certain notion of default that I call default
entailment, which refers to a asymmetric defeasible dependence relation that I identify the first
conditional statement (1) in Brandom’s original example as expressing. If, as I maintain, we can
understand the role played by the additional information (symbolized by r in Brandom’ original
example) as functioning, not as a separate part of a complex reason (symbolized by (p & r) in
Brandom), but, rather as a disabling condition - as a consideration that somehow blocks p from
having the normative effect it is set up to have by default in a way that turns the original inference
from p to q into a bad one, then we have effectively managed to reconstruct Brandom’s example in
a way that approaches the sort of lines of argument that a holist in Dancy’s sense would put
forward. I defend this claim in section 4 by showing that the alternative reading of Brandom that I
outline fits rather well with Dancy’s recent defence of the notion of default reason, made in
response to an important objection put forward by Michael Ridge and Sean McKeever.
Annabelle Lever, University College London
[email protected]
Is judicial review undemocratic?
Jeremy Waldron has long argued that judicial review of legislation is inconsistent with democratic
equality and political participation. This paper takes issue with his claims. It starts by accepting
Waldron’s fairly idealized view of democratic politics, and then argues that, even on these very
generous assumptions, Waldron’s critique of judicial review is flawed. It shows that Waldron
overstates the importance of voting to democratic politics, and overlooks the forms of fairness,
equality and accessibility that judicial review can embody. It then notes how unrealistic Waldron’s
assumptions are, and why more realistic assumptions highlight the advantages of judicial review to
democratic equality, rights and government. It illustrates these claims by challenging Waldron’s
interpretation of judicial review in Britain, in the wake of the Human Rights Act (1998). However, I
conclude, Waldron is right that judiciaries are not evidently better than legislatures in protecting
rights, and this means that democracies do not have to have judicial review of legislation.
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Antonio Gaitán, University of Reading,
[email protected]
Meta-ethics and Meta-rationality
The main purpose of my paper is to present some arguments to question the idea that we can
relocate meta-ethics into the more abstract level of inquiry represented by the theory of rationality
or meta-rationality. It has been widely argued in recent times that, in order to solve central metaethical disagreements, it would be necessary to use some arguments coming from the abstract level
represented by the theory of normativity. I am going to focus on a very recent argument by Michael
Smith that tries to solve the meta-ethical impasse using some insights from the theory of
normativity. Smith’s general argument goes as follow:
(1) Meta-ethics deals with a basic question: What kind of mental states do we express when we
make a moral claim or when we engage in the practice of moral appraisal?
(2) Moral judgments share two central features with judgments about reasons and rationality:
both kinds of judgments must be capable to guide our actions and they both share an
authoritative character built inside.
(3) Meta-rationality deals with a two-level task: (i) meta-rationality tries to define what kind of
concepts are more basic in the realm of reason and rationality; (ii) meta-rationality asks, at
the second level, what kind of mental states do we express when we make a reason or
rationality’s judgment?
(4) If (2) is a plausible ground in order to reduce (1) to (3) – and if we find a basic normative
concept - then we could give an answer to (1) in the indirect way pointed by (3.ii)
I want to focus my discussion on premises (3) and (4). First, sections 2 and 3 present Smith’s
proposal within a wider historical context. Section 4 exposes the argument for (3.ii). Section 5
presents my case against “the descriptive intuition” underlying Smith’s argument for (3.ii). Finally,
section 6 and 7 argue against the “descriptive intuition”.
My paper moves, in certain way, around an alternative interpretation of the level expressed by (3.ii)
in Smith’s general argument. (I will put the basic normative concept as “______” and the set of
features as “[C,U,I]”). I take Smith’s argument as claiming:
(1) The basic normative concept is __________
(2) A priori we are able to know that ________= [C,U,I]
(3) To argue for whatever member of the set [C,U,I] is “to argue for the significance of some
non-normative features over others”
(4) A priori, if a psychological system can instantiate the non-normative features that
determines the set [C,U,I], then the psychological system is one that_________ (by 2 and
3)
(5) When we ascribe a basic normative predicate to a system using these features we are
expressing a minimal belief: the belief that certain system instantiates the non-normative
features of the set (by 3).
(6) It follows that when we make a basic judgment of reason or rationality, we are expressing a
belief (by 4 and 5).
I will accept that Premise (1) is true. Suppose that we have such basic normative concept. Premise
(2) claims that if we ask ourselves, from certain perspective, how we are using the basic concept
(an agent’s psychology that meets all requirements and ideals of reasons and rationality) when we
apply it to a wide and central range of cases, then we find a set of normative features that are central
to our more informed descriptions of such cases. These normative features (coherence, unity,
informedness) are grasped by us in a clearer way than the basic normative concept and it could be
possible, in principle, to give a descriptive characterization of each feature.
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Premise (3) states the fact that the above normative loaded descriptions supervenes over non
normative features. Although the central features are linked to a normative genus, they apply over
non-normatively instances in a consistent way.
Premise (4) claims that if a psychological system instantiates the above mentioned set of non
normative features, then our use of such basic normative predicate, as referring to a system, is
entailed by a conjunctive and non normative fact.
Premise (5) claims that when we ascribe a judgment of reasons and rationality we are, at least,
grounding our judgment on certain descriptive facts, as premise (4) defends. If we say that “A is
being coherent in believing that p” then A is instantiating certain descriptive features that makes his
belief coherent, and we believe it. If the important thing from the meta-rationality’s stance is to
know what we are doing when we ascribe normative or evaluative properties to agents, then
premise (5) gives us an answer: we are expressing a belief.
Premise (6) claims that when we ascribe a basic normative concept to a system we are – by (4) and
(5) – expressing, at least, a minimal belief related to the way in which this system fits the
descriptive characterization.
The above argument defends, in the end, that if a descriptive content is constitutively attached to
our third-personal normative ascriptions then we must infer that a descriptive component must be
expressed in every normative claim period. In order to give support to this strong intuition we need
to argue for two further points: (i) that there is certain continuity between the cognitive
requirements grounding our third personal ascription and the very normative content which is being
ascribed. Besides, we must to accept that (ii) we have a positive argument excluding the possibility
of fulfilling a normative requirement without the intermediate action of any cognitive state. I will
argue that we have a good theoretical argument supporting this very possibility - partially developed
by Smith himself and by Richard Moran and Niko Kolodny around the different topic of
“transparency”. I will finish my paper claiming that the argument for cognitivism coming from the
theory of rationality is not sound - at least if Smith cannot argue for both assumptions in a positive
way.
António Lopes, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Ethics and Aesthetics in the Performance of Music
The issue of the relevance of ethical considerations to art criticism has been a source of recent
debate among aestheticians, mainly in connection with literature, theatre and cinema. In this paper, I
address the topic from the point of view of an art form less usually related to that debate, namely,
music. The problem will be the following: are there any obligations that we might properly call
ethical that are relevant to the performance of music in the western classical tradition of notated
musical works? This problem can be raised concerning hypothetical duties of performers towards
either their audiences, the works being performed, or their composers, and in the latter case,
concerning composers who are still alive or those who are already dead.
I will hold that there is indeed an ethical dimension to the performance of music, clearly in
all the cases above except that of the works themselves, where I will claim that the obligations are
in fact obligations towards the public and the composers. In addressing the most problematic case,
which is that of obligations regarding the intentions of composers who are no longer alive towards
the way of performing their compositions, I will take the side of Peter Kivy against Randall Dipert’s
denial that there can be any obligations to dead composers, adding to the exposition of their views
two further arguments, of a consequentialist nature, in defence of the relevance of composers’
performance intentions. My aim will be to establish, not that performers should be unconditionally
70
bound by those intentions, but rather that these must have their role in the weighing of interpretive
choices by musicians, although they may be overridden by other considerations.
I will also try to show how difficult it can be in some cases to classify the nature of a
performer’s obligation as specifically ethical rather than aesthetic. For that purpose, I will address
something that both philosophers of music and musicians alike talk about, the duty to present a
musical work “in the best possible light”, regardless of an audience. This becomes especially
interesting when it is made part of a definition of authenticity in musical performance, as it is by
(for instance) Stephen Davies, and when doing so would seem not just to do justice to the work
being performed, but actually to make it sound better than it really is: can this in fact happen?; and
if it can, isn’t it also a misrepresentation of the author’s work?
Francesco Orsi, University of Reading
[email protected]
What Does Goodness Do?
Joseph Raz claims, and many would agree, that “possession of features which show actions to be
good in some respect constitutes reasons” (Raz 1999: 1). It is hard to imagine anyone rejecting
altogether the claims that if something is good, then we have at least pro tanto reason to choose it,
and if it is bad, we have pro tanto reason to avoid it. There is indeed a multifarious tradition which
seeks to understand and explain normative claims in terms of evaluative ones; in a word, it is hard
to ignore the existence of what many have called value-based reasons. But it is far from clear how
value-based reasons should be explained. I argue that two leading accounts of value make it
extremely hard to keep believing in value-based reasons. The Moorean account—which perhaps
does not represent G. E. Moore’s real views—has it that thin evaluative properties of goodness and
badness are themselves the reason-giving features. The reason for f-ing is the fact that f-ing, or a
consequence of f-ing, is good. This account can hardly be true, given what I call the buck-passing
intuition, whereby it is either redundant or uninformative to cite goodness when asked for a
normative reason. The only acceptable answer to such a request is given by the good-making
features.
The other account is the buck-passing one, as developed by T. Scanlon (1998) and many others.
Goodness is the higher order property of an object to have features that provide reasons for a
positive attitude towards it. On this view, value-based reasons are given by the features of an object
that make it good, thereby respecting the buck-passing intuition. But the very claim that “valuebased reasons are given by the features of an object that make it good”, if the analysis is true, is
nothing but the empty one “value-based reasons are given by the features of an object that make it
such as to provide reasons”. The idea of an explanatory priority of the evaluative over the
normative, implicit in the claim that there are value-based reasons, gets completely lost here. Buckpassers like Derek Parfit seem to accept this consequence: “value-based theories needn’t even use
the concepts good, bad, or value…[they] need not include…truths about what is good or bad”
(Parfit 2001: 20). The notion of value-based reason thus amounts to an uninteresting tautology. (In
the paper I discuss and reject some ways in which buck-passers may deny that their view is
uninteresting in this respect.)
The dilemma then is that, on the Moorean account, goodness itself gives reasons, but that is a role
that goodness cannot play; on the buck-passing account, goodness does not give reasons, but neither
does it contribute in any way to explaining reasons, being nothing but the presence of reason-giving
features. A solution seems required.
Two desiderata should be satisfied. First, goodness should not end up as a reason-giving property
over and above—nor indeed beside—the good-making properties. Second, claims about the relation
between reasons and value should not end up being trivialized. This means that a solution must
consist in finding the appropriate explanatory role for goodness in respect to reasons.
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I argue that the notion of programming explanation as devised by F. Jackson and P. Pettit (1990) in
the theory of causal explanation provides the right kind of explanatory level for goodness. A glass
breaks: is it because the water contained in it is extremely hot or because of certain molecular
properties of the water? There is reason to think that the latter is what is really causally efficacious.
Is the heat then explanatorily superfluous? No: its presence programs for the glass breaking, though
it doesn’t cause it. The situation with reasons is analogous. Good-making features are what really
provides reasons. Is goodness then superfluous? No: its presence programs for the existence of
reasons. Better: the fact that certain features are good-making programs, that is, enables, renders
possible, that they are also reason-giving, though that fact itself is not reason-giving. If so, the
evaluative can be seen to play a role that is not that of reasons, but neither is reducible to the
presence of reasons.
Some may feel that such a programming role is not needed: the buck-passing view is much more
economical. I argue instead that there are important questions about reasons that the buck-passing
view does not even allow one to ask, and that this alternative view of goodness—or something like
it—goes some way towards answering. The questions are: Why do certain features and not others
give reasons? And: What do reason-giving features have in common? My answer is that the goodmaking capacity of certain features is what distinguishes reason-giving from not reason-giving
features, without thereby thinking that goodness is a higher reason-giving property. Value-based
reasons are thus features which give reasons in virtue of their making good what possesses them.
Whether this is a viable third way to the dilemma remains to be seen. My main hope is to show that
a third way seems to be needed, and that the “programming” view put forward is not an obviously
flawed one.
References (in the abstract)
Jackson F. and Pettit P., 1990, “Program Explanation: A General Perspective”, in Analysis, 50, 2.
Parfit D., 2001, “Rationality and Reasons”, in Exploring Practical Philosophy, edited by D.
Egonsson, J. Josefsson, B. Petersson, & T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, Aldershot: Ashgate.
Raz J., 1999, Engaging Reason, OUP.
Scanlon T., 1998, What We Owe to Each Other, Harvard University Press.
Luís Duarte d'Almeida, Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Ascriptivism, Action, and the Criminal Law
In this paper I intend to discuss H. L. A. Hart’s early theses on the “defeasibility” of legal concepts
and the “ascriptive” function of the concept of human action. My main purpose is to suggest that
Hart’s infamous “ascriptivism” may be of considerable pertinence to the assessment of the nature of
justificatory claims in criminal law; in passing, I argue that ascriptivism gives no cause for infamy.
Firstly, I will maintain that although Hart’s famous 1948 article “The Ascription of
Responsibility and Rights” has been the object of much critical assault both from legal and
language philosophers, its main contentions are fundamentally correct. I propose to establish that
Hart’s critics have gravely misconstrued one or several of the essential aspects of his theory,
overlooking its clear austinian “speech act” approach and failing to recognize the distinction of the
different possible uses or functions of a concept. Although Hart may not have been, at the time, in
full command of “the seminal distinction between the ‘meaning’ and the ‘force’ of utterances,” as
he came to acknowledge (cf. Hart 1983, 2), I believe that such a neglect, which has induced some
errors in later texts, does not sensibly distress the overall viability of his 1948 account. Although his
terminology is occasionally imprecise, that does not preclude that the substance of Hart’s thesis
may be reframed independently of any confusion between “meaning” and “force”. I offer a
reconstruction which preserves Hart’s major insights, and sustain that (1) there is no reason to think
that non-descriptive uses of a legal concept preclude the descriptive use of the same concept; (2)
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non-descriptive uses of a legal concepts may in some sense depende on the possibility of its
descriptive use; and (3) the object of conceptual defeasibility is only the primary non-descriptive
use of legal concepts, not its descriptive one: otherwise, the negation of the disjunction of any legal
concept’s defeating conditions would be subject to representation as a condition of the concept’s
“applicability” in truth-valuable statements, which contradicts the very idea of conceptual
defeasibility.
Secondly, I examine in what sense the concept of human action may be said to be
“primarily ascriptive” of responsibility and “irreducibly defeasible”. I will maintain that (1) the
commonly proposed analysis of Hart’s claims on the relation between action and responsibility
(P(a) ∧ (P(a) → R(a)) reduces “ascriptivism” to triviality, and that it fails to provide a useful
distinction between conceptual defeasibility and defeasible inference; and I will defend ascriptivism
as being a theory of action as a social kind, dependent on the context of our practices of holding
someone responsible
Finally, I briefly suggest that Hart’s analysis of the concept of human action may prove
useful in characterizing the general distinction between “offences” and “defences” in the criminal
law.
REFERENCES
AUSTIN, J.L. 1956: “A Plea for Excuses”, Philosophical Papers (J.O. Urmson, G.J. Warnock, eds.),
third edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1979) 175; originally in Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 57 (1956-7) 1.
BAKER, G. P. 1977: “Defeasibility and Meaning”, in Law, Morality and Society. Essays in Honour
of H. L. A. Hart (P. M. S. Hacker and J. Raz, eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1977) 26.
BAYLES, Michael D. 1992: Hart’s Legal Philosophy. An Examination, Dordrecht: Kluwer (1992).
FEINBERG, Joel 1965: “Responsibility and Language”, in The Philosophy of Action (Alan R. White,
ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press (1968) 95; originally in Philosophy in America (M.
Black, ed.), Allen & Unwin (1965) 134.
GEACH, P.T. 1960: “Ascriptivism”, The Philosophical Review 69 (1960) 221.
GIZBERT-STUDNICKI, Tomasz 1976: “Hart on Ascription of Responsibility”, Archivum Juridicum
Cracoviense IX (1976) 133.
HART, H.L.A. 1948: “The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights”, in Logic and Language (First
Series) (Anthony Flew, ed.), Oxford: Blackwell (1951) 145; originally in Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 49 (1948-9) 171.
HART, H.L.A 1953: “Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence”, in Essays in Jurisprudence and
Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1983) 19; originally in Law Quarterly Review 70 (1954).
HART, H.L.A 1958: “Legal Responsibility and the Excuses”, in Punisment and Responsibility.
Essays in the Philosophy of Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1968) 28; originally in Determinism
and Freedom (Sidney Hook, ed.), New York (1958).
HOWARTH, William 1981: “The Feasibility of Defeasibility”, The Cambrian Law Review 12 (1981)
33.LOUI, Ronald P. 1995: “Hart’s Critics on Defeasible Concepts and Ascriptivism”, in
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law,
Maryland: College Park (1995) 21.
MACKIE, J. L. 1955: “Responsibility and Language”, in Persons and Values. Selected Papers, vol.
II (Joan Mackie and Penelope Mackie, eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press (1985) 28; originally in
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 33 (1955)
PITCHER, George 1960: “Hart on Action and Responsibility”, The Philosophical Review 69 (1960)
226.
SNEDDON, A. 2006: Action and Responsibility, Dordrecht: Springer (2006).
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TUR, Richard H. S. 2001: “Defeasibilism”, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 21 (2001) 355.
Mauro Rossi, London School of Economics
[email protected]
Two Platitudes about Interpersonal Comparisons
Suppose utility represents the intensity of an individual’s preferences for different options. If we are
interested in making interpersonal utility comparisons, the main problem that we face is whether
such comparisons are empirically meaningful or not. A statement T is empirically meaningful if and
only if it is determined by the empirical evidence, that is, if and only if it is determined by a set of
observation sentences Φ. In turn, T is determined by Φ if Φ implies T. Thus, the problem is whether
the available empirical evidence implies statements expressing interpersonal comparisons of utility.
The debate is often introduced by reference to daily life examples. This strategy raises three
questions. First, what are the intuitions conveyed by these examples? Second, how do they contrast
with theoretical reflection? Third, to what extent do daily life situations fit the theoretical picture of
decision-making? I distinguish two platitudes about interpersonal comparisons. The first is that,
decision-making requires making interpersonal comparisons, when a choice affects two or more
individuals; the second is that we need interpersonal comparisons to explain people’s behaviour.
Typically, these intuitions provide the grounds for an argument which holds that interpersonal
utility comparisons are empirically meaningful.
The literature explores various strategies to defend this conclusion. I argue that they can all be
reduced to three kinds of strategies, based, respectively, on isomorphism, extended sympathy, and
the formulation of relations between ‘objective’ proxies and preferences. Their success depends on
the adoption of similar, although not identical, versions of what I call Harsanyi’s principle.
Roughly, Harsanyi’s principle states that if two individuals are alike in all observable respects, they
have identical utilities. The adoption of this principle is normally justified on the grounds that it
leads to a theory that explains the evidence in a more parsimonious or simpler way. In the paper, I
show that this justification fails. The adoption of Harsanyi’s principle does not lead either to a less
parsimonious theory or to a simpler one. Therefore, the three strategies fail. Interpersonal utility
comparisons are indeed empirically meaningless.
However, we can maintain our intuitions. Donald Davidson claims that the attribution of mental
states to an agent requires the interpreter to project her own standards of rationality and values. The
interpreter’s projection establishes a comparison between his mental states and the agent’s. This
means that the agent’s mental states become - from the start - comparable, in certain relevant
dimensions. Davidson thinks that the intensity of preferences is one of these dimensions. This
would imply that interpretation makes utilities interpersonally comparable from the start. I endorse
Davidson’s argument only partially. I argue that comparability of preferences in certain relevant
respects is necessary for the explanation of individual behaviour to be possible. However, I dispute
the claim that preference strengths need to be interpersonally comparable to allow explanation of
individual behaviour. Davidson’s insight sheds light on the first intuition about interpersonal
comparisons. Interpersonal comparisons are indeed necessary for the explanation. However, it does
not show that so are interpersonal comparisons of utility.
This conclusion raises issues concerning the use of the ‘standard picture’ of decision-making to
interpret daily life examples involving apparent interpersonal utility comparisons. The ‘standard
picture’ conceives decision-making as a three-step procedure. In the first step, the parties (or the
judge) collect information about preferences and their strength and represent them through a utility
function; in the second step, they make interpersonal comparisons of utility; in the third step, they
reach a decision, based on such comparisons.
If the parties believe that the second step involves making factual judgments, then the
conclusion that interpersonal comparisons of utility are empirically meaningless implies that they
have mistaken beliefs. Then, the task is to defend an error theory of interpersonal utility
comparisons. Alternatively, one may reject the assumption about the parties’ beliefs and hold that
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they do not believe that they are making factual judgments. In the former case, one needs explain
why they have mistaken beliefs; in the latter case, which alternative beliefs they may have.
I suggest three possible accounts, showing the beliefs that the parties may either project or
actually hold. The first account claims that the parties are making interpersonal comparisons of a
normative sort. I explore various possibilities. The second account claims that they are making
interpersonal comparisons concerning objects different from preference strength, and, presumably,
reflecting the variety of reasons that play a role in decision-making. The third account claims that
they are not making any comparison at all, but they are deciding in accordance to decision rules that
do not demand any interpersonal comparisons. Ultimately, I argue in favour of a more careful
reading of the relationship between actual decision-making and standard theoretical accounts.
Michael Moehler, London School of Economics,
[email protected]
Rawls' Three Conceptions of Reason and Stability of Cooperation
In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls identifies two principles of justice for the basic structure of
society. These principles essentially remain the same throughout all of his later, relevant writings.
What changes is their justification, however. Rawls regards his principles of ‘justice as fairness’
first as the most rational ones, then as the most reasonable ones, and finally as justified by public
reason. The move from the rational to public reason is motivated by Rawls’ intention to broaden the
justificatory basis for his principles. The wider the consensus on the principles of justice is, the
more broadly they can secure stability of cooperation. I shall argue, however, that Rawls’ move
from the rational to public reason does not widen the scope of his principles. Instead it narrows their
reach by raising the standard of rationality the contractors need to fulfil. The higher the standard is,
the fewer contractors can fulfil it. As a consequence, the principles of justice as fairness can only
secure stability of cooperation locally. In order to derive basic principles of cooperation that can be
agreed upon globally, one has to go back to the notion of the rational, and then follow a different
path to stability. I will do so by first, laying out the basic structure of such an alternative theory
based on instrumental rationality, and second, by discussing its rationale.
Pedro Galvão, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
Prescrições inconsistentes e deontologia radical
A deontologia radical é a perspectiva ética que se caracteriza por admitir restrições centradas no
agente que nunca podem ser infringidas. Argumentar-se-á a favor de um princípio de consistência
para teorias éticas que refuta esta perspectiva.
1. Um princípio de consistência e qualificação de Donagan
A discussão tomará como ponto de partida o seguinte princípio:
PC. Uma teoria ética é inconsistente se, em conjunção com uma qualquer descrição de um
agente numa situação possível, implica prescrições inconsistentes.
Elucidado este princípio, discutir-se-á de seguida a seguinte qualificação do mesmo, proposta por
Donagan (1977) de modo a salvar a deontologia radical:
Um sistema moral é inconsistente somente se admitir a possibilidade de um homem, sem que
tenha praticado qualquer mal, ficar numa situação na qual só poderá evitar praticar um mal se
praticar outro mal. (itálicos meus)
Mostrar-se-á que esta qualificação é indefensável. Suponhamos que uma teoria moral inclui dois
princípios, P1 e P2, que o agente está numa certa situação possível descrita por uma proposição S, e
que os princípios, em conjunção com a descrição, implicam prescrições incompatíveis – e.g., R &
~R. Estamos a supor, então, que a seguinte proposição complexa é verdadeira:
[(P1 & P2) & S] → (R & ~R)
E estamos também a supor que S é verdadeira. Tomando as duas proposições como premissas,
podemos inferir ~P1 ∨ ~P2. Deste modo, a qualificação proposta por Donagan revela-se inútil, pois
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não bloqueia a conclusão de que a teoria que gera as prescrições inconsistentes é inaceitável, já que
pelo menos um dos seus princípios é falso.
A qualificação de Donagan está também sujeita à objecção segundo a qual compete a uma
teoria moral dizer-nos também o que devemos fazer depois de não termos feito algumas das coisas
que deveríamos ter feito. Em resposta a esta objecção, Donagan afirma que a moralidade comum
desempenha esta função através de «preceitos de primeira ordem sobre a confissão, a restituição e a
reparação, e também de princípios de segunda ordem sobre a censura, o arrependimento e o
castigo». Esta resposta é deslocada, já que nenhum destes preceitos e princípios proporciona
qualquer orientação prática a um agente que se veja perante prescrições inconsistentes.
2. O alcance do princípio
Discutir-se-á de seguida o alcance de PC. Entendido com o maior grau de generalidade, PC aplicase a quaisquer situações lógica ou conceptualmente possíveis. Adoptando uma interpretação mais
moderada do princípio, ficamos apenas com a ideia de que a inconsistência de uma teoria ética se
revela quando encontramos uma situação fisicamente possível na qual esta gera prescrições
incompatíveis. Argumentar-se-á a favor desta interpretação mais moderada, mas contra uma
restrição ainda mais forte do alcance de PC, segundo a qual devemos atender apenas às situações
fisicamente possíveis que não sejam muito invulgares ou improváveis.
Mostrar-se-á que PC não é incompatível com a existência de dilemas irresolúveis: importa
não confundir a exigência de nunca gerar prescrições inconsistentes com a exigência,
consideravelmente mais forte, de proporcionar sempre prescrições definidas.
3. A crítica de Marcus
Discutir-se-á por fim a crítica de Ruth Barcan Marcus (1980) a PC. A sua rejeição deste princípio
baseia-se na seguinte definição de consistência para regras, aplicável a forteriori a regras e a
princípios morais:
Definida para um conjunto de frases ou proposições com significado, a consistência é a
propriedade em virtude da qual é possível que todos os membros do conjunto sejam
verdadeiros, ou seja, a contradição não é uma consequência lógica da suposição de que cada
um dos membros do conjunto é verdadeiro. (…) Analogamente, podemos definir um conjunto
de regras como consistente se existe um mundo possível em que todas elas são podem ser
observadas em todas as circunstâncias nesse mundo. (1980: 599)
A sua definição implica que um conjunto de regras é inconsistente apenas se não existem quaisquer
circunstâncias, qualquer mundo possível, em que todas as regras sejam satisfazíveis. A definição é
aceitável, pelo que temos de rejeitar PC: mesmo que uma teoria moral implique prescrições
inconsistentes em algumas circunstâncias fisicamente possíveis, não podemos inferir que a própria
teoria seja inconsistente.
O deontologista radical fica assim em condições de afastar a acusação de inconsistência. No
mundo actual, a sua teoria pode gerar prescrições inconsistentes em certas circunstâncias, mas só
poderíamos inferir a inconsistência dos princípios ou regras que a constituem se, em qualquer
mundo possível, não houvesse maneira de observar todos eles. Mas há muitos mundos possíveis em
que todos os princípios ou regras podem ser observados: e.g., um mundo possível governado por
uma divindade que providencie a ausência de quaisquer dilemas morais ou, talvez, um mundo
possível que nem sequer tenha agentes morais.
Atendendo à definição de Marcus, devemos abandonar PC e, consequentemente, isentar o
deontologista radical da acusação de inconsistência. Contudo, a definição de Marcus não anula a
conclusão anterior: se a sua teoria implica prescrições inconsistentes em algumas situações
fisicamente possíveis, então tem de ser rejeitada ou revista, ainda que não seja inconsistente. Afinal,
não deixa de ser verdade que, a partir de [(P1, P2 … Pn) & S] → (R & ~R) e de S, podemos inferir
validamente ~P1 ∨ ~P2 … ∨ ~Pn. Por isso, a seguinte reformulação de PC permanece inatacável:
PC’. Uma teoria ética tem de ser rejeitada ou revista se, em conjunção com uma qualquer
descrição de um agente numa situação fisicamente possível, implica prescrições inconsistentes.
Este princípio é tão embaraçoso para o deontologista radical como o princípio original.
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Referências
Donagan, Alan (1977) The Theory of Morality. Chicago e Londres: The University of Chicago
Press.
Marcus, Ruth Barcan (1980) «Moral Dilemmas and Consistency». Reimpresso em S. Cahn e J.
Haber (1995) 20th Century Ethical Theory. Nova Jérsia: Prentice-Hall pp. 594-604.
Roberto Merrill, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
[email protected]
The burdens of judgment and reasonable disagreement
1. The reasonable disagreement argument
In Political Liberalism (Rawls, 1993), the burdens of judgment (BJ) provide the main explanation
of why there can be reasonable disagreement about the good. The “reasonable disagreement”
argument can be summarised this way:
(a) The BJ are a necessary cause of reasonable disagreement amongst sincere and rational people
regarding conceptions of the good
(b) We want our political principles to be acceptable to sincere and fully rational people
(c) Therefore, we need to avoid basing our political principles on grounds where the burdens cause
disagreement
2. The “asymmetry” objection
Critics have argued against the “reasonable disagreement” argument by formulating the
“asymmetry objection”, according to which there is also reasonable disagreement about antiperfectionist principles of justice. This makes indefensible the asymmetry between disagreements
about justice and disagreements about the good.
3. Four reactions to the asymmetry objection
There have been mainly four reactions to the asymmetry objection:
1) To admit the asymmetry objection, like Rawls himself does, but to consider it apparently
nevertheless harmless regarding the neutral justification of liberalism (2001).
2) To admit the asymmetry objection, but to consider it harmless, by rejecting the burdens of
judgment, as a plausible basis for the neutrality principle (S. Lecce, 2006).
3) To reject the asymmetry objection by insisting that disagreements about justice are less profound
than disagreement about the good. (G. Klosko, 2003).
4) To reject the asymmetry objection, by distinguishing foundational versus justificatory
disagreements (J. Quong, 2005).
4. The “reasonable agreement” objection
I think that the “asymmetry objection” is vulnerable to the above four reactions, although mostly to
(4). Therefore, I want to argue for another objection to the reasonable disagreement argument,
which I hope, will not be vulnerable to any of them. I coined it the “reasonable agreement”
objection.
The proponents of the asymmetry objection, as well as those who have reacted to it in the
above four ways, seem to assume in common that the recognition of the BJ leads only to reasonable
disagreement.
I do not wish to reject its plausibility as a possible cause of reasonable disagreement, about
the good or about the right. Neither do I wish to reject the “many flowers view” (McKinnon, 2002).
I want to claim that recognising the BJ does not necessarily lead to (or explain why there is)
reasonable disagreement. More positively, I want to argue that recognising the BJ can also be a
cause of reasonable agreement, that is, the burdens can also be seen as a necessary condition of
reasonable agreement, and not only as a necessary obstacle to reasonable agreement. In other
words, it seems to me that the features of the burdens which can cause reasonable disagreement, can
also cause reasonable agreement.
If my claim is true, then the argument in (a) (b) (c) is unsound, since (a) is false.
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I wish to defend my claim by drawing on the following three points.
4.1. The distinction between the fact of the burdens and recognising the burdens
I argue that while the fact of the BJ can be seen as a necessary obstacle to reasonable agreement,
however, the recognition of this fact can make reasonable agreement possible. It is my opinion that
failure to see this ambiguity between the fact of the burdens and the recognition of this fact leads to
the erroneous idea that the BJ are a necessary cause of reasonable disagreement. Although we can
easily concede that the brute fact of the BJ is a good explanation of why there are disagreements
that can be reasonable, nevertheless the recognition of this fact can instead lead to reasonable
agreement, and not only reasonable disagreement.
4.2. The “stupid people” example
I then draw on the “stupid people” example to make my point more appealing.
Stupid people, as opposed to intelligent people, do not recognise the six BJ, that is, they:
a) oversimplify empirical and scientific evidence;
b) insist that there can be only one set of relevant considerations to any given issue,
and that there is only one correct weighting of these;
c) believe that moral and political concepts apply themselves automatically and
mechanically in the absence of interpretation and judgment;
d) regret that people’s total experiences must differ, because if everyone could have
lived as they did, then they, too, might have recognized the truth;
e) see issues from only their points of view; and finally;
f) think that all values are commensurable, so that setting priorities and adjusting
goals should never require sacrificing anything. (S. Lecce, 2006)
With this example, I wish to make clear why stupid people cannot reach reasonable agreements:
because they are not able to recognise the BJ. This means that recognising the BJ can be a necessary
cause of reasonable agreement, and not a necessary cause of reasonable disagreement. Therefore,
the premise (a) in the (a)-(b)-(c) argument above, is false.
4.3. The “one conception of the good” example
I then draw on another fictive example: by supposing there is only one conception of the good in the
world, and that everyone agreed about the truth of that conception. My point is that even so, the
burdens would still exist. Because intelligent people still need to go through these burdens each
time they need to solve a theoretical or practical problem, even if they all share the same
comprehensive conception of the good.
5. Conclusion
If reasonable agreement can be possible thanks to the recognition of the BJ , then they are not a
good explanation of reasonable disagreement, that is, the premise (a) in the (a)-(b)-(c) argument
should be seen, if not necessarily false, at least as too indeterminate to serve as a basis for justifying
the anti-perfectionist neutrality principle. This could add fuel to those who reject the antiperfectionist versions of the neutrality principle, that is, to most of those who formulated the
asymmetry objection in the first place, without making it vulnerable to any of the four reactions to
the asymmetry objection mentioned above.
Stuart Yasgur, London School of Economics
[email protected]
Accounting for Rationality
“Several philosophers have argued that rational requirements must be somehow inherent in the
nature of the mental states they are concerned with. I am sure they are right in some way…
However, I do not know how this general idea can be worked out in detail, to provide a criterion for
determining what rationality requires.”
- “Requirements of Rationality” John Broome
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This paper explores the possibility that rationality requires a connection between recognizing a fact
to be a reason and taking a fact to be a reason. Further, it is argued that this connection can
accommodate some of Broome’s recent contributions to the bootstrapping literature.
Some of Broome’s recent contributions:
Claim 1: If one intends an end, and believes the means are necessary to achieve it, but does not
intend the means, then one is not as one ought to be.
Claim 2: Intending an end does not give one reason to intend the means one believes necessary.
While many seek to hold both of these claims, there is an obvious tension between them.
For, if intending an end does not give one reason to intend the means one believes necessary, in
what is the agent at fault if he does not intend to take the means?
Broome’s recent works have made a substantial contribution to resolving this tension by
arguing that the normative requirement referenced in (1) is not the reason relation mentioned in (2).
Broome has argued that we would be well served to recognize a requiring relation that is distinct
from the reason relation. Indeed, Broome has identified the four following possible relations.
Narrow
Broad
Strict
Ought
p oughts q
p → Oq
Requires
p requires q
O(p → q)
Slack
Reason
p reasons q
p →Rq
Recommends
p recommends q
R(p → q)
In this current paper we are only concerned with the Reason and Requires relations. From this we
can see that while the Reason relation has a narrow scope, it is slack. Whereas, the Requires
relation has a broad scope, but is strict. We can illustrate these differences as follows.
Narrow vs. Broad:
If an agent has a reason to intend an end, and a means is necessary to achieving that end, then the
agent has reason to take the means. The Reason relation is narrow.
However, if an agent intends an end, and believes that a means is necessary to achieving the
end, he is not required to take the means. Rather, what is required of him is not to be in a state in
which he intends the end, and believes the means necessary, but does not intend the means. He can
avoid being in such a state by coming to intend the means, or by dropping the end, or by coming to
believe that the means is not necessary. Any of the three will fulfill the Requires relation. The
Requires relation is broad.
Strict vs. Slack:
While there are three different ways in which the agent can comply with the requiring relation in the
current example, the strictness of the requiring relation demands that one of the three. The Requires
relation is strict.
The Reason relation is weaker in this regard. That the agent has a reason to take the means
is consistent with his not intending to take the means, because he may have more reason not to take
the means. The Reason relation is slack.
Suggestion
While Broome’s discussion of the different characteristics of the Requires relations makes a
considerable contribution, it also has a major drawback. As described, it seems troublingly opaque
in two ways. First, there is no basis to enumerate what it requires. We might be able to come to a
consensus based on intuition about what it requires, but then it seems talk of the Requires relation is
little more than a convenient way to talk about a number of strict and broad requirements. In other
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words, the real work seems to be done by Broome’s arguments that certain requirements are strict
and broad. The stipulation of a Requires relation seems to do little work.
Second, though the characteristics of the Requires relation, strictness and broadness, do
seem to carve things at the joints, there is no basis for understanding why this is the case.
My suggestion is that we recognize broadness and strictness as features of a more basic
account of rationality. Rationality is the ability to be ruled by one’s own reason. One cannot be
ruled by one’s own reason if one does not take to be a reason that which one recognizes to be a
reason. Therefore, rationality requires that one take to be a reason that which one recognizes to be a
reason. Further, if one fails to do so, one is thereby irrational.
This requirement of rationality is strict. Each case in which an agent fails to take to be a
reason that which he recognizes to be one, is a case of irrationality. To see what this means, let’s
return to the earlier example. The agent intends an end, but does not intend to take the means he
thinks necessary to achieve it.
If the agent intends the end, then he recognizes himself as having a reason to bring the end
about. If he also believes a means to be necessary, then he recognizes himself as having a reason to
take the means. For to recognize that a means is necessary to achieving an end which one
recognizes oneself as having reason to bring about is to recognizes oneself as having a reason to
take the means. The belief that the means is necessary is a belief that there is an identifying reason
to take the means.
Having said this, there are two relevant scenarios in which the agent may fail to have the
intention to take the means. First, the agent may fail to take himself to have a reason to take the
means. This is straightforwardly a case in which the agent fails to take as a reason that which he
recognizes is a reason, and is therefore irrational.
Second, the agent may not form the intention to take the means because he realizes he has
more reason not to take the means than he does to take the means. But if this is the case, and the
agent recognizes that the means is necessary to achieving the end, then the agent recognizes himself
as having reason not to achieve then end. As in the first scenario, the belief that the means is
necessary is the belief that there is an identifying reason against taking the ends. Given this belief,
if the agent takes himself to have more reason not to take the means than to take it, then he
recognizes himself as having more reason not to take the end than to take it, and rationality requires
that he take this to be the case.
From this discussion, we can also see that the scope of rationality is broad. The agent’s
irrationality does not consist in his failing to take the means, but in his intending to take the end
while not intending to take the means that he believes is necessary. Or, to say the same thing more
explicitly, the agent’s irrationality does not consist in failing to take himself to have a reason to
achieve the means, but in failing to take himself as having such a reason when he recognizes that he
does. The agent would no longer be irrational if he took himself to have a reason to take the means
or if he no longer recognized himself as having a reason to do so. This could be the case if he no
longer believed the means to be necessary, or if he no longer took himself to have a reason, all
things considered, to achieve the end. These are the same possibilities that we discussed above.
Moving Forward
This paper identifies a specific requirement of a narrow conception of rationality and argues that it
is both strict and broad in Broome’s sense. If, as I will argue in future papers, the failure of this
specific rational requirement can be located in each of the canonical versions of irrationality (e.g.,
akrasia, believing a contradiction, intention inconsistency, and failure of means end rationality),
then we may think that the distinction between recognizing a fact to be a reason and taking a fact to
be a reason goes a long way towards offering a general account of the requirements of rationality.
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Valerio Salvi, University of Reading,
[email protected]
Value, fittingness and reasons
The buck-passing account of value is an Analysis of value in terms of Reasons (from now on AR):
x has value=df. there is a reason to favour x.
However, there is at least an alternative analysis of value. The analysis in question (from now on
AF) is in terms of fittingness:
x has value=df. it is fitting to favour x.
A matter of taxonomy (sect.1)
The alleged superiority of AR over AF rests on a difference between reasons and fittingness:
fittingness admits of an evaluative reading, whereas reasons are clearly deontic.
Evaluative
Deontic
value, fittingness
reasons
According to this taxonomy, AF turns out to be an analysis of value in terms of another evaluative
notion (fittingness); whereas AR, an analysis of value in terms of a deontic notion (reasons). An
analysis of value in terms of a deontic notion is far more interesting than one in terms of an
evaluative notion. On this ground AR is superior to AF.
There is at least a reason not to be happy with such a taxonomy. Fittingness could be argued
to be as much deontic as reasons are.
Evaluative Deontic
value
fittingness, reasons
Both fittingness and reasons have a common feature that is not shared by value. The bearers of
value are occurring entities (On this we have strong intuitions: how could unexemplified happiness
have any value?). On the other side what is fitting and what we have reason to do are possibly non
occurring entities. (Also on this our intuitions seem strong: doing so and so is fitting even though
there is no one that exemplifies the property of doing so and so. Likewise doing so and so is
something we have reason to do, even though the property of doing so and so isn’t yet exemplified.)
My contention is that this distinction (occurring vs. non-occuring) marks the divide between
the deontic and the evaluative.
On this score AR is on a par with AF; both define value in terms of the deontic. Thus, the
criticism that AR is to be preferred to AF turns out to be groundless.
This might be thought of as not well advised. An agent a has a reason to f only if he is
personally capable of f-ing; whereas a’s f-ing is fitting even though a isn’t personally capable of fing. It is this difference that marks the boundaries of the deontic. Fittingness and value are again on
the evaluative side; reasons, on the deontic. AR reaffirms its superiority towards AF.
There are two taxonomies on the offing. According to one AF is on a par with AR because
they both define the evaluative in terms of the deontic (fittingness and reasons are both deontic);
according to the other, AR is superior to AF (reasons are deontic and fittingness is evaluative).
In the paper I argue that it is not clear which of these taxonomies is to be preferred to the
other. Consequently, it is not clear whether AR is superior to AF. What is clear is that there is an
independent argument against AR.
The argument against AR (sect.2)
This argument rests on three premises. First, there might be infinite or unlimited value.
(Many would say that were God existed, He would have infinite value or that if there were infinite
things with finite value, the conjunction of these things would have infinite value.) Any analysis of
value should account for such a possibility.
Second, AF easily accounts for infinite value:
x has infinite value=df. an infinitely intense favour of x is fitting
This format of analysis isn’t available to the definition of value in terms of reasons. We can’t
possibly favour something with infinite intensity. Since reasons are bound to personal possibility,
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we don’t have any reason to evince such an attitude either. To this extent there would be no infinite
value at all. Hence, AR owes us an alternative account of infinite value.
Third, such an alternative account doesn’t seem forthcoming. Consider this first:
x has infinite value=df. there is a reason to prefer x to anything else.
Although preference is an attitude we are personally capable of, the present suggestion won’t do. If
there is a reason to prefer x to anything else, all that follows is that x is the best; but that x is the
best doesn’t entail that x has infinite value (no more than x is the tallest entails that x is infinitely
tall). Here is another alternative:
x has infinite value=df. there is a reason to favour x and this reason has infinite stringency.
But if the reason to favour x has infinite stringency, favouring x is what we have most reason to do.
However, although x has infinite value it doesn’t seem that what we have most reason to do is
favouring x. For example if we are physically impaired to the effect that we can’t favour x,
favouring x won’t be what we have most reason to do. And to be sure if by favouring x we fail to
produce a good result, to respect our promises, to show gratitude, to make amend or to be just, to
favour x won’t be what we have most reason to do either.
The conclusion is straightforward: AF accounts for infinite value whilst AR can’t. To this
extent AF is superior to AR.
Conclusion
In the first section I present two rival taxonomies (reasons are deontic but fittingness is
evaluative vs. both fittingness and reasons are deontic). There is no clear argument to prefer one
taxonomy to the other. If so, it is not clear that AF is an analysis of value in terms of an evaluative
notion (fittingness). On this ground we shouldn’t take AF to be inferior to AR. In the second
section, I gave an argument against AR. On balance, I conclude, we should prefer AF to AR.
Xavier Vanmechelen, Antwerpen, België
[email protected]
Zest for Life
In his The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell argues that zest is “the most universal and
distinctive mark of happy men”. The world-wide burden on society of mental depression – i.e. the
general loss of interest in daily and social activities one used to enjoy – proves that Russell has a
point. However, zest for life is rarely considered to be a virtue. Since it involves a kind of lust, the
opposite is the case. It is common to think that zest should be curbed by moral considerations. In
this paper I argue that normative ethics should start with a plea for the virtue of zest for life: it is the
most basic element of one’s moral attitude.
What is zest for life? Zest for life is an attitude towards life: the attitude of embracing life or
of being affirmative towards life. A person exhibiting zest for life is enthusiast about the activities
and experiences which basically constitute a human life, such as cooking a meal, eating together,
having a conversation, working, resting, discovering the world, … (this is of course an open-ended
list). She enjoys these activities and experiences. She exhibits vitality. Two features are important.
Zest for life is (i) an attitude of taking interest in (ii) simple activities and experiences constituting
human life.
The context of my argument for the virtue of zest for life is an ongoing debate in
contemporary normative ethics. The start of this debate has been given by Elisabeth Anscombe in
her 1958 article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. Her objection to the two mainstream normative ethical
theories – consequentialism and Kantian ethics – has been repeated ever since in different ways by
Harry Frankfurt, Michael Stocker, Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf and others. One way of putting
the objection goes like this. One can imagine a person who lives in perfect compliance with the
principles of consequentialism and Kantian ethics, yet whom one does not admire as a person.
Something important seems to be lacking in this kind of person. This ethical deficit has been filled
up in a variety of ways: by the importance of personal relations (Stocker), of individual perfection
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(Wolf), of having projects and commitments (Williams), of something or someone we care about
(Frankfurt).
This criticism of mainstream normative ethics has led also to a revival of virtue ethics.
Contemporary virtue ethics, like its classical predecessor, focuses on the importance of having
excellent character traits or entrenched dispositions (ways of looking at situations, of feeling and
reasoning about them, … which motivates one to a way of acting). I follow Michael Slote in his
claim that the more interesting and radical kind of virtue ethics also bases the rightness of action on
the excellence of the character traits of the agent.. Slote himself argues for a warm agent-based
virtue ethics favouring particular benevolence (caring) as the ultimate foundation of his normative
ethics. His argument for the virtue of caring overlaps the proposals of Frankfurt, Stocker, Wolf and
Williams to fill the ethical deficit. I believe that this is on the right track because it highlights the
importance of taking interest in something. My objection is that all these proposals are too highminded to really solve the problem of the ethical deficit of mainstream normative ethics.
What is my argument for the claim that the virtue of zest for life is the most basic element
in someone’s moral attitude? First I argue that zest for life is a candidate virtue: it is a entrenched
disposition involving ways of feeling and reasoning about situations, and so on. Secondly I argue
that it is at least a virtue. If you have a choice between a life of enthusiasm for cooking meals and so
on and a life without this enthusiasm (other things being equal), than the first life is the better
option. Zest is a virtue which neither can be reduced to a good that should be promoted
(consequentialism) nor to a duty (Kantian ethics). The crucial question is: does zest for life have the
excellence that makes it the most basic element in someone’s moral attitude? Here my argument is
that zest for life solves the problem of the ethical deficit more thoroughly than the solutions I
mentioned above. These solutions share the lofty character mainstream normative theory always
tends to have. For that reason they are prone to the same ethical deficit objection. Interest in and
enthusiasm about the activities and experiences constituting human life are so important because
without this love for life considerations of well-being, unconditional respect for persons and virtues
such as caring make no sense. So, exhibiting zest is of prime moral importance. I compare my
approach to Robert Solomon’s argument for the virtue of a passionate life. (Note that this is not a
argument for pure virtue ethics. I defend an integrated normative ethics involving core elements of
consequentialism and Kantian ethics as well. Here I only argue that we should start with the virtue
of zest.)
Finally, I answer two objections. The first is that zest for life tends to be excessive and for
that reason vicious instead of virtuous. My answer is that it is wrong to leap from zest to excess
(compare: Blackburn on lust) and that it is rather consequentialism (overdemandingness) and
Kantian ethics (unconditional character of the categorical imperative) which really involve a danger
of excess. The second objection goes in the opposite direction: zest for life is too innocent to belong
to the moral attitude. It is happens to someone. One is not answerable for having it. Here my answer
is that even when zest for life is to some extent something that happens to someone, it also is an
attitude which can be sustained or thwarted intentionally.
This concludes my agent-based virtue ethical argument for zest for life.
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Symposium on Emotions
Organized by Dina Mendonça, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de
Lisboa
Peter Goldie, University of Manchester
Seeing what is the kind thing to do: Perception and Emotion in Morality
Is it possible to have non-inferential perceptual knowledge of normative and deontic facts, such as
that doing some particular action is the kind thing to do in some particular situation? For example,
Mary is upset and about to cry because she is being teased. Jack, who is a kind person, immediately
changes the subject. Could Jack literally have perceived (seen) from the situation that he ought to
change the subject—that this is what he ought to do? If so, what is the role of emotion and character
in gaining this kind of perceptual knowledge? And what, precisely, is meant by ‘non-inferential’ in
this context?
Anthony Hatzimoysis, University of Manchester
Emotional Consciousness
Emotions are variously described as states, attitudes, or feelings. Is it possible to keep these notions
apart, in a way that does justice to the phenomenology of emotional experience? The paper
articulates an answer that draws upon the Sartrean approach to emotions as conscious adaptations to
reality. The argumentation focuses on two issues. First, the limitations of recent attempts to reduce
emotional feeling to bodily awareness. Secondly, the theoretical difficulties involved in appealing to
the unconscious for interpreting emotional states whose existence the subject disclaims. It is argued
that the problems involved in both cases stem from a simplistic view of conscious activity, which
fails to take into account that emotional consciousness is primarily consciousness of the world.
Michael Lacewing, Heythrop College, London
On explaining recalcitrant emotions
In ‘The significance of recalcitrant emotion (or, antiquasijudgmentalism)’ (Philosophy 2003; 52
(Supp): 127-145), Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson argue that ‘quasi-judgmentalist’ theories of
emotion, i.e. those cognitivist theories, such as Greenspan and Roberts, that argue the act of
cognition is less than judgment or belief, cannot adequately account for emotions that are in tension
with the subject’s considered judgment. They further argue that there can be no principled means by
which debates about which emotion-type a token emotion belongs to if we individuate emotiontypes only by their cognitive content. In response, they argue, in outline, for a theory of ‘natural’ or
‘basic’ emotions according to which basic emotion kinds are ‘products of relatively discrete specialpurpose mechanisms that are sensitive to some important aspect of human life’. This paper responds
that, while there is much of value in D’Arms and Jacobson’s critique of quasi-judgmentalism, their
solution cannot adequately explain recalcitrant emotions either, and there is an alternative solution,
relying on a theory of unconscious imagination, that is closer to the phenomenology of emotion.
Dina Mendonça, Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Normativity of Emotions
The paper tries to map out the various issues concerning emotions’ norms. It is argued that when
one reflects and discusses reasons for emotions one is considering the adequacy or inadequacy of
emotions (De Sousa 1987). De Sousa, for instance, equates such adequacy with the notion of
paradigm scenarios, arguing that these involve a set of characteristic or “normal” responses to the
situation at hand, and that such normality is first a biological and then a cultural matter (De Sousa
1987, 182). In the first part of the presentation, I lay down some of the different types of norms
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implicit in the notion of adequacy of emotions. In the second part of the paper, I focus on the
possibility of transformation of such normative schemes as well as consider the limits of such
transformation.
85
Speakers’ List
Adriana Silva Graça
Aires Almeida
Alik Pelman
Andrea Borghini
Anna Bergqvist
Annabelle Lever
Anthony Hatzimoysis
António Branco
Antonio Gaitán
Universidade de Lisboa
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
University College London
Columbia University
University of Reading
University College London
University of Manchester
Universidade de Lisboa
University of Reading
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
António Lopes
Åsa Maria Wikforss
Asunción Álvarez
Brian Hill
Célia Teixeira
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
Stockholm University
King´s College London
IHPST, Université Paris 1
King´s College London; Centro de Filosofia da
Universidade de Lisboa
University of York
King´s College London
Central European University, Budapest
IHPST, Université Paris 1
Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Universidade de Lisboa
Universidade da Beira Interior; Universidade de
Lisboa
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona; LOGOS
Group, Barcelona
University of Reading
University of Rennes 1
Universidade de Lisboa
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Institut Jean Nicod, Paris
Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
University of St Andrews
Szczecin University, Poland
Universidade de Lisboa
Universidade de Lisboa
Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Universitat de Barcelona
Lund University, Sweden
London School of Economics
Umiversity of Birmingham
Heythrop College, London
London School of Economics
University of St Andrews
Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
University of Manchester
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[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Christian Piller
Christopher Bartel
Dan Zeman
Denis Bonnay
Dina Mendonça
Diogo Fernandes
Eduardo Castro
Fabrice Correia
Francesco Orsi
Franck Lihoreau
Gonçalo Baptista dos Santos
Gustavo Ortiz Millan
Isidora Stojanovic
João Fonseca
Jorge Ornelas
Julien Murzi
Karol Polcyn
Luís Duarte d'Almeida
Luís Rodrigues
Luiz Carlos Baptista
Manuel García-Carpintero
Marcus Romberg
Mauro Rossi
Max Kölbel
Michael Lacewing
Michael Moehler
Patrick Greenough
Paul Egré
Pedro Galvão
Peter Goldie
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[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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86
Ricardo Santos
Roberto Ciuni
Roberto Merrill
Scott Berman
Sebastiano Moruzzi
Sirine Shebaya
Sofia Miguens
Sören Häggqvist
Stefano Predelli
Stuart Yasgur
Teresa Marques
Timothy Williamson
Tomás Magalhães Carneiro
Treasa Campbell
Valerio Salvi
Vera Tripodi
Vijay J. Mascarenhas
Vitor Pereira
Xavier Vanmechelen
Wlodek Rabinowicz
Universidade de Évora, Instituto de Filosofia da
Linguagem da Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Università degli Studi di Firenze
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
(EHESS), Paris
Saint Louis University, USA
University of St Andrews
Columbia University
Universidade do Porto
Stocholm University
University of Nottingham
London School of Economics
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
University of Oxford
Instituto de Filosofia, Universidade do Porto
University of Limerick, Ireland
University of Reading
University of Rome "La Sapienza"
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Universidade de Lisboa
Antwerpen, België
Lund University, Sweden
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[email protected]
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87