Aware that the representational thesis is more plausible for the attitudinal than for the phenomenal, Dretske courageously focuses on sensory experience, where progress in our philosophical understanding of the mental has lagged. His view, essentially, is that what makes any mental state what it is is not so much what it's like as what it's about.

What makes a word bad? On the one hand, slurs and other derogatory language appear to be meaningful - different slurs can seem to refer to different groups, for example. On the other hand, slurs can seem to be just an arbitrary tool for insulting or enabling harm. How is the meaning of a slur related to its practical uses?

The knowledge account of assertion—roughly: one should not assert what one does not know—aspires to identify the norm distinctive of assertion. One main argument given in support of the knowledge account has been the success with which it explains a variety of Moore-paradoxical assertion. But that explanation does not generalize satisfactorily.

Relocating Kripke's puzzle about belief, this paper investigates i) in what the puzzle consists, exactly; ii) the method used in its construction; and iii) relations between meaning and rationality. Essential to Kripke's puzzle is a normative notion of contradictory belief. Different positions about the meaning of names yield different views of what constitutes the attribution of contradictory belief; and Kripke's puzzle unwittingly _imports a Millian assumption. Accordingly, the puzzle about belief is not independent of positions about the meaning of names.

Manley and Wasserman (2008) join the chorus of opposition to the possibility of conditional analysis of dispositions. But that score cannot be settled without more careful attention to the implicit philosophical methodology. Some of the opposition to such an analysis badly overestimates the effect of counterexamples, as if the Gettier example were sufficient to refute the possibility of conjunctive analysis of knowledge. A general objection to a form of analysis must satisfy a number of constraints, and Manley and Wasserman join (...) the chorus too in failing to satisfy them. Most significant is the optional presupposition that the conditional used in analysis will exhibit some sort of centring. We show that even a careful effort to repair and reform Manley and Wasserman's objection to provide a satisfactory argument requires, ultimately, appeal to centring. Worse, the particular positive proposal they offer is vulnerable to a minor variant of their own counterexample. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy’s antipathy to intuition can come to seem baffling. There is inadequate reason to move away from the intuitively attractive view that we have a faculty of intuition, in many ways akin to our faculties of perception and memory and introspection, that gives us reason for belief, and with it, often enough, gives us knowledge. The purpose here is to consider whether scepticism about intuition is more reasonable than a corresponding scepticism about other epistemic faculties. I am sceptical that (...) it is. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 1, Page 250-255, January 2022.

Consequentialist and Kantian theories differ over the ethical relevance of consequences of actions. I investigate how they might differ too over the relevance of what actions are consequence of. Focusing on the case of group action and collective responsibility, I argue that there's a kind of analog to the problem of aggregating the value of consequencesthat Kantian theories will not confront and consequentialist theories will. The issue provides a useful way to characterize a deep difference between Kantian and consequentialist theories (...) and points, ironically, toward a way of making those views compatible. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This volume is a vital resource for anyone interested in analytic philosophy.

P. Grice and P. F. Strawson. 45. Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man. (Wilfrid Sellars). 46. From The Blue and the Brown Books. (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

What is meaning? How is linguistic communication possible? What is the nature of language? What is the relationship between language and the world? How do metaphors work? The Philosophy of Language, Sixth Edition, is an excellent introduction to such fundamental questions. Incorporating insights from new coeditor David Sosa, the sixth edition collects forty-eight of the most important articles in the field, making it the most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the subject. Revised to address changing trends and contemporary developments, the (...) sixth edition features eighteen new articles, including influential work by Kent Bach, Paul Boghossian, M. A. E. Dummett, Delia Graff Fara, Hartry Field, H. P. Grice and P.F. Strawson, Carl G. Hempel, Saul Kripke, Benson Mates, Hilary Putnam, Diana Raffman, Nathan Salmon, Stephen Schiffer, John R. Searle, Roy Sorenson, David Sosa, Dennis Stampe, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A general introduction and introductions to each section give students background to the issues and explain the connections between them. A bibliography of suggested further reading follows each section. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I distinguish two sorts of motivation for dualism. One motivation is driven by the distinctive character of conscious phenomenology. The other is driven by the special character of normativity: Is rationality an even problem than consciousness? There is no dramatic climax in which I show that these two dualist currents have a common source; in fact, I think they are relatively independent.

While groups can do many things, and are subject to important sorts of assessment, persons can exhibit some normative statuses that no group can realize. I defend an anti-realist position about group belief (and group agency, generally) and suggest that it can still, in a way, sympathetically accommodate the range of cases discussed by Lackey in her groundbreaking The Epistemology of Groups. The distinctive normative character of belief—its integration, in consciousness, into a framework of rational relations—makes it impossible for a (...) group to believe. Our critique of a club, or a commission, or a community, or a company or corporation—in just the ways in which we seem also to evaluate individuals—can be explained in ways that do not require postulating that the group in question have beliefs: the evaluation is revealed as indicating a fundamentally different sort of feature. The group has perhaps failed, in a way that is worth attending to, but that failure was different in normative kind from the sort of flaw that characterizes, for example, irrational belief. (shrink)

How does mind fit into nature? Philosophy has long been concerned with this question. No contemporary philosopher has done more to clarify it than Jaegwon Kim, a distinguished analytic philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. With new contributions from an outstanding line-up of eminent scholars, this volume focuses on issues raised in Kim's work. The chapters cluster around two themes: first, exclusion, supervenience, and reduction, with attention to the causal exclusion argument for which Kim is widely celebrated; and (...) second, phenomenal consciousness and qualia, with attention to the prospects for a functionalist account of the mental. This volume is sure to become a major focus of attention and research in the disciplines of metaphysics and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In both ethics and epistemology an important question is whether justification is a fully internal or a partly external matter. In view of analogies between relevant considerations in each area, I recommend distinguishing, as basic and independent subjects of normative status, (i) people and (ii) what they do. Evaluations of subjects, on one hand, and of their beliefs and actions, on the other, are less intimately related than is presupposed. This helps resolve internalism/externalism controversies in both domains. An important related (...) advantage of the distinction is its effect on our understanding of normative luck, both moral and epistemic. (shrink)

It can be seen as a mark against a belief that its causal history be disconnected from the truth. And that idea fits well with the view that discovering that a belief’s causal history is so disconnected itself diminishes its normative status. But this latter view can also be held independently: believing that your belief was influenced by irrelevant factors might be seen as problematic even should it not be seen as in general a mark against a belief that it (...) be caused in one way or another. I pursue a more radical rejection of the role of truth in an adequate understanding of the normative status of belief. If a belief can be perfectly good independently of its connection to the truth, then perhaps it can be perfectly good even for an agent who knows that it is not causally determined by the truth. (shrink)

These three papers, each constituting a chapter, lie at the intersection of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Chapter 1 reviews and reassesses Kripke's puzzle about belief. I argue, contra Kripke, that the puzzle shows Millianism to be inadequate . It must be supplemented with a Fregean theory. But Millianism and Fregeanism need not be opposed. Developing a distinction between mental representation and linguistic representation, I divide the notion of proposition. It is one thing to be the object of (...) a propositional attitude, another to be the meaning of a declarative sentence. This perspective on entrenched difficulties in philosophy of mind and language discloses a unified theory accounting for all relevant intuitions. ;Chapter 2 discusses externalism in the philosophy of mind. I investigate the relation between the issue of Fregeanism and Millianism in philosophy of language and the issue of internalism and externalism in philosophy of mind. Having characterized externalism precisely, I argue that it faces a serious difficulty: it cannot correctly maintain the distinction between ignorance and incoherence. Mere empirical ignorance will be enough to make an agent logically incoherent. Worse, if externalism is correct, internal duplicates might differ with respect to logical coherence. ;In Chapter 3 I defend the Russellian conception of names from Kripke's modal argument. I offer a way to accommodate Kripke's claims about the rigidity of names without abandoning the Russellian theory. (shrink)

Conditionality is a modal feature (in only the trivial sense, in the case of the material conditional). For φ to be conditioned on ψ is for the appearance of φ and ψ to be connected in some way over some region of modal space.

Any developed Millianism is forced to make an arbitrary choice. Some Millian theories are profligate: it suffices for believing that Clark flies that you assent to some way of taking that proposition. But Lois no more believes that Clark flies than she fails to believe that Superman flies. An abstemious Millianism requires for believing that Superman flies that you not refrain from assenting to any way of taking that proposition. Profligate Millianism gives subjects beliefs they do not seem to have. (...) Abstemious Millianism takes from subjects beliefs they seem to have. The fact that Millianism confronts such a choice is itself philosophically significant. (shrink)

Philosophy of language has been at the center of philosophical research at least since the start of the 20th century. But till now there has been no regular forum for outstanding original work in this area. That is what Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language offers.

Philosophy of language has been at the center of philosophical research at least since the start of the 20th century. But till now there has been no regular forum for outstanding original work in this area. That is what Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language offers.

Philosophy of language has been at the centre of philosophical research at least since the start of the 20th century. Since that 'linguistic turn' much of the most important work in philosophy has related to language. But till now there has been no regular forum for outstanding original work in this area. That is what Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language offers. Anyone wanting to know what's happening in philosophy of language could start with these volumes.

Philosophy of language has been at the center of philosophical research at least since the start of the 20th century. Since that 'linguistic turn' much of the most important work in philosophy has related to language. But until now there has been no regular forum for outstanding original work in this area. That is what Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Language offers. Anyone wanting to know what's happening in philosophy of language could start with these volumes.

About what are internalists and externalists in dispute fundamentally? Different sorts of thing.

The ‘Only connect!’ that serves as epigraph to Forster's Howards End tolerates a variety of interpretations; but the very idea of a connection, or a relating of one thing with another, is conceptually deep. One form of connection is when something is about a thing, representing or symbolizing that thing. When we think of someone, or discuss something, we connect to them, or to it.In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein asks, ‘What makes my image of him into an image of him? (...) […] Isn't my question like this: “What makes this sentence a sentence that has to do with him?”’ Wittgenstein thus notes the ramifications of his question: what makes her name hers? In virtue of what is this thought about them a thought about them? The issue he highlights has been with us since Plato's Cratylus and its history is unified by a presupposition: whatever makes it that (i) a bit of language (like a name or a sentence or any linguistic symbol) is about something is, fundamentally, also what makes it that (ii) a thought (or idea or image) is about a thing. The story of aboutness will be uniform, simplex, or so the presupposition has it.But the history of the issue has been one of failure: we still don't adequately understand the nature of representation. I will propose and develop a perspective that rejects the presupposition and explains the failure: there is more than one way for a thing to be about something. Representation comes, ultimately, in varieties. (shrink)

“This book is about the role of conscious perceptual experiences in the acquisition of empirical knowledge”. So begins Bill Brewer’s interesting Perception and Reason, whose introduction usefully sets out the structure of his essay as follows.

For an expression to be rigid means that it refers to one and the same thing with respect to any possible situation. But how is this in turn to be understood? An example will help us work through the definition. Take a word like ‘Aristotle.’ That word is a proper name; and proper names are a clear case of a type of word that refers. ‘Aristotle’ refers to a particular person, the last great philosopher of antiquity; in general, a name (...) refers to the thing of which it is the name. To continue working through the definition of rigidity, we need to make sense of referring with respect to. It is tempting, for example, but mistaken, to understand a word's referring with respect to a possible situation as it's being used, in that situation, to refer to something. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Life Modal logic Meaning Necessity, a priority, the mind‐body problem, and essentialism Truth Substitutional quantification Wittgenstein on following a rule.

Peacocke introduces The Primacy of Metaphysics with the apt observation that ‘[t]here can be few issues as fundamental as the relation between the metaphysics o.