Mind - current issue

Levity

Horsten, L. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:05 PDT

In this article, the prospects of deflationism about the concept of truth are investigated. A new version of deflationism, called inferential deflationism, is articulated and defended. It is argued that it avoids the pitfalls of earlier deflationist views such as Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth and Field’s version of deflationism.

On 'Average'

Kennedy, C., Stanley, J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:05 PDT

This article investigates the semantics of sentences that express numerical averages, focusing initially on cases such as ‘The average American has 2.3 children’. Such sentences have been used both by linguists and philosophers to argue for a disjuncture between semantics and ontology. For example, Noam Chomsky and Norbert Hornstein have used them to provide evidence against the hypothesis that natural language semantics includes a reference relation holding between words and objects in the world, whereas metaphysicians such as Joseph Melia and Stephen Yablo have used them to provide evidence that apparent singular reference need not be taken as ontologically committing. We develop a fully general and independently justified compositional semantics in which such constructions are assigned truth conditions that are not ontologically problematic, and show that our analysis is superior to all extant rivals. Our analysis provides evidence that a good semantics yields a sensible ontology. It also reveals that natural language contains genuine singular terms that refer to numbers.

Hume, Causal Realism, and Causal Science

Millican, P. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:05 PDT

The ‘New Hume’ interpretation, which sees Hume as a realist about ‘thick’ Causal powers, has been largely motivated by his evident commitment to causal language and causal science. In this, however, it is fundamentally misguided, failing to recognise how Hume exploits his anti-realist conclusions about (upper-case) Causation precisely to support (lower-case) causal science. When critically examined, none of the standard New Humean arguments — familiar from the work of Wright, Craig, Strawson, Buckle, Kail, and others — retains any significant force against the plain evidence of Hume's; texts. But the most devastating objection comes from Hume's own applications of his analysis of causation, to the questions of ‘the immateriality of the soul’ and ‘liberty and necessity’. These show that the New Hume interpretation has misunderstood the entire purpose of his ‘Chief Argument’, and presented him as advocating some of the very positions he is arguing most strongly against.

Compositionality, Understanding, and Proofs

Pagin, P. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:05 PDT

The principle of semantic compositionality, as Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore have emphasized, imposes constraints on theories of meaning that it is hard to meet with psychological or epistemic accounts. Here, I argue that this general tendency is exemplified in Michael Dummett's account of meaning. On that account, the so-called manifestability requirement has the effect that the speaker who understands a sentence s must be able to tell whether or not s satisfies central semantic conditions. This requirement is not met by truth-conditional accounts of meaning. On Dummett's view, it is met by a proof conditional account: understanding amounts to knowledge of what counts as a proof of a sentence. A speaker is supposed always to be capable of deciding whether or not a given object is a proof of a given sentence she understands. This requirement comes into conflict with compositionality. If meaning is compositionally determined, then all you need for understanding a sentence is what you get from combining your understanding of the parts according to the mode of composition. But that knowledge is not always sufficient for recognizing any proof at all of a given sentence. Dummett's proof-theoretic argument to the contrary is mistaken.

Objectivity

Peacocke, C. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Judgement, perception, and other mental states and events have a minimal objectivity in this sense: making the judgement or being in the mental state does not in general thereby make the judgement correct or make the perception veridical. I offer an explanation of this minimal objectivity by developing a form of constitutive transcendental argument. The argument appeals to the proper individuation of the content of judgements and perceptions. In the case of the conceptual content of judgements, concepts are individuated by their fundamental reference rules. Properly developed, this resource can be used against various forms of idealism, and to defend a conception of transcendental arguments that presupposes neither verificationism nor transcendental idealism. The article contrasts its approach with other recent transcendental treatments. It also addresses the relation between its argument and Principles of Significance. I close with a discussion of the right way of handling the extreme generality necessarily involved in transcendental reasoning.

Yalcin on 'Might'

Barnett, D. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

On one view about the word ‘might’, to say, sincerely and literally, that it might be that S is to say something about one’s epistemic state (and perhaps also about the epistemic states of those around one). For convenience, I will call this the natural view about ‘might’. On one version of the natural view, to say that it might be that S is to say that what one is certain of is consistent with the proposition that S. Seth Yalcin (2007) has argued that all versions of the natural view are wrong. My aim in this article is to show how at least one version of the natural view escapes Yalcin’s argument.

Meta-agnosticism: Higher Order Epistemic Possibility

Sorensen, R. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

In ‘Epistemic Modals’ (2007), Seth Yalcin proposes Stalnaker-style semantics for epistemic possibility. He is inspired by John MacFarlane’s ingenious defence of relativism, in which claims of epistemic possibility are made rigidly from the perspective of the assessor’s actual stock of information (rather than from the speaker’s knowledge base or that of his audience or community). The innovations of MacFarlane and Yalcin independently reinforce the modal collapse espoused by Jaakko Hintikka in his 1962 epistemic logic (which relied on the implausible KK principle and heavy idealizations). I respond to this new challenge with fresh objections to the underlying S4 equivalence: p p. I also propose counter-analyses of the intriguing data which Yalcin cites in support of his new semantics. A key collateral motivation for this defence of irredundant iterations is to ward off a threat to higher order vagueness.

More on Epistemic Modals

Yalcin, S. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

I respond to comments by David Barnett and Roy Sorensen on my paper ‘Epistemic Modals’.

On Two Reasons for Denying that Bodies Can Outlast Life

LaPorte, J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Hershenov (2005) gives two interesting, related arguments, which he calls ‘symmetry arguments’, to the effect that a living body or an organism cannot be identical to a corpse, superficial appearances to the contrary. I relate the two arguments briefly and then criticize them for related weaknesses.

Organisms and their Bodies: Response to LaPorte

Hershenov, D. B. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

I argue that a corpse cannot be identified with an earlier living body, because it acquires and retains parts in different ways. Contrary to what Joseph LaPorte maintains, there can be neither one principle of part-assimilation nor a non-disjunctive account of persistence conditions that can establish the identity of a living body and a later corpse.

Ethics Vindicated. Kant's Transcendental Legitimation of Moral Discourse, by Ermanno Bencivenga.

Wenzel, C. H. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

The Possibility of Knowledge, by Quassim Cassam.

Goldberg, S. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Plotinus on Intellect, by Eyjolfur Kjalar Emilsson.

Remes, P. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood, by Simon Evnine.

Baumann, P. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement, by Colin Farrelly.

Birnbaum, S. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

In the Name of Phenomenology, by Simon Glendinning.

Drummond, J. J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge, edited by Adrian Haddock and Fiona Macpherson.

Setiya, K. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Describing Inner Experience? by Russell T. Hulburt and Eric Schwitzgebel.

Fernandez, J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, by Mark Johnson.

McMahon, J. A. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Mathematical Knowledge, edited by Mary Leng, Alexander Paseau, and Michael Potter.

Chudnoff, E. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Authority and Estrangement: An Essay on Self-Knowledge, by Richard Moran.

Child, W. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, by Michael Murray.

Mawson, T. J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Themes from G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics, edited by Susana Nuccetelli and Gary Seay.

Dall'Agnol, D. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency, by Timothy O'Connor

Koons, R. C. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Error (On Our Predicament When Things Go Wrong), by Nicholas Rescher.

Kantin, H. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context, edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett, Harold Kincaid, and G. Lynn Stephens.

Vierkant, T. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Everyday Aesthetics, by Yuriko Saito.

Carlson, A. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Without Justification, by Jonathan Sutton.

Comesana, J. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry, by Tim Thornton.

Perring, C. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Aiming at Truth, by Nicholas Unwin.

Grimm, S. R. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:06 PDT

Books Received

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:07 PDT

Announcements

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:07 PDT

Philosophy ConferencePM@100: Logic from 1910 to 192721-24 May 2010Bertrand Russell Research CentreMcMaster UniversityHamilton, OntarioCanada

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:07 PDT