Mind - recent issues

Supervaluations Debugged

Asher, N., Dever, J., Pappas, C. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

Supervaluational accounts of vagueness have come under assault from Timothy Williamson for failing to provide either a sufficiently classical logic or a disquotational notion of truth, and from Crispin Wright and others for incorporating a notion of higher-order vagueness, via the determinacy operator, which leads to contradiction when combined with intuitively appealing ‘gap principles’. We argue that these criticisms of supervaluation theory depend on giving supertruth an unnecessarily central role in that theory as the sole notion of truth, rather than as one mode of truth. Allowing for the co-existence of supertruth and local truth, we define a notion of local entailment in supervaluation theory, and show that the resulting logic is fully classical and allows for the truth of the gap principles. Finally, we argue that both supertruth and local truth are disquotational, when disquotational principles are properly understood.

There Are No Phenomenal Concepts

Ball, D. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

It has long been widely agreed that some concepts can be possessed only by those who have undergone a certain type of phenomenal experience. Orthodoxy among contemporary philosophers of mind has it that these phenomenal concepts provide the key to understanding many disputes between physicalists and their opponents, and in particular offer an explanation of Mary’s predicament in the situation exploited by Frank Jackson's knowledge argument. I reject the orthodox view; I deny that there are phenomenal concepts. My arguments exploit the sort of considerations that are typically used to motivate externalism about mental content. Although physicalists often appeal to phenomenal concepts to defend their view against the knowledge argument, I argue that this is a mistake. The knowledge argument depends on phenomenal concepts; if there are no phenomenal concepts, then the knowledge argument fails.

Spreading the Joy? Why the Machinery of Consciousness is (Probably) Still in the Head

Clark, A. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

Is consciousness all in the head, or might the minimal physical substrate for some forms of conscious experience include the goings on in the (rest of the) body and the world? Such a view might be dubbed (by analogy with Clark and Chalmers’s (1998) claims concerning ‘the extended mind’) ‘the extended conscious mind’. In this article, I review a variety of arguments for the extended conscious mind, and find them flawed. Arguments for extended cognition, I conclude, do not generalize to arguments for an extended conscious mind.

Illusions, Demonstratives, and the Zombie Action Hypothesis

Mole, C. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

David Milner and Melvyn Goodale, and the many psychologists and philosophers who have been influenced by their work, claim that ‘the visual system that gives us our visual experience of the world is not the same system that guides our movements in the world’. The arguments that have been offered for this surprising claim place considerable weight on two sources of evidence — visual form agnosia and the reaching behaviour of normal subjects when picking up objects that induce visual illusions. The present article shows that, if we are careful to consider the possibility that a demonstrative gesture can contribute content to a conscious experience, then neither source of evidence is compelling.

Perceptual Experience and Perceptual Knowledge

Roessler, J. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

Commonsense epistemology regards perceptual experience as a distinctive source of knowledge of the world around us, unavailable in ‘blindsight’. This is often interpreted in terms of the idea that perceptual experience, through its representational content, provides us with justifying reasons for beliefs about the world around us. I argue that this analysis distorts the explanatory link between perceptual experience and knowledge, as we ordinarily conceive it. I propose an alternative analysis, on which representational content plays no explanatory role: we make perceptual knowledge intelligible by appeal to experienced objects and features. I also present an account of how the commonsense scheme, thus interpreted, is to be defended: not by tracing the role of experience to its contribution in meeting some general condition on propositional knowledge (such as justification), but by subverting the assumption that it has to be possible to make the role of experience intelligible in terms of some such contribution.

The Moral Behaviour of Ethicists: Peer Opinion

Schwitzgebel, E., Rust, J. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

If philosophical moral reflection tends to improve moral behaviour, one might expect that professional ethicists will, on average, behave morally better than non-ethicists. One potential source of insight into the moral behaviour of ethicists is philosophers’ opinions about ethicists’ behaviour. At the 2007 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, we used chocolate to entice 277 passers-by to complete anonymous questionnaires without their knowing the topic of those questionnaires in advance. Version I of the questionnaire asked respondents to compare, in general, the moral behaviour of ethicists to that of philosophers not specializing in ethics and to non-academics of similar social background. Version II asked respondents similar questions about the moral behaviour of the ethics specialist in their department whose name comes next in alphabetical order after their own. Both versions asked control questions about specialists in metaphysics and epistemology. The majority of respondents expressed the view that ethicists do not, on average, behave better than non-ethicists. Whereas ethicists tended to avoid saying that ethicists behave worse than non-ethicists, non-ethicists expressed that pessimistic view about as often as they expressed the view that ethicists behave better.

Beth's Theorem and Deflationism

Bays, T. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:47 PST

In 1999, Jeffrey Ketland published a paper which posed a series of technical problems for deflationary theories of truth. Ketland argued that deflationism is incompatible with standard mathematical formalizations of truth, and he claimed that alternate deflationary formalizations are unable to explain some central uses of the truth predicate in mathematics. He also used Beth’s definability theorem to argue that, contrary to deflationists’ claims, the T-schema cannot provide an ‘implicit definition’ of truth. In this article, I want to challenge this final argument. Whatever other faults deflationism may have, the T-schema does provide an implicit definition of the truth predicate. Or so, at any rate, I shall argue.

Beth's Theorem and Deflationism -- Reply to Bays

Ketland, J. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Is the restricted, consistent, version of the T-scheme sufficient for an ‘implicit definition’ of truth? In a sense, the answer is yes (Haack 1978, Quine 1953). Section 4 of Ketland 1999 mentions this but gives a result saying that the T-scheme does not implicitly define truth in the stronger sense relevant for Beth’s Definability Theorem. This insinuates that the T-scheme fares worse than the compositional truth theory as an implicit definition. However, the insinuation is mistaken. For, as Bays rightly points out, the result given extends to the compositional truth theory also. So, as regards implicit definability, both kinds of truth theory are equivalent. Some further discussion of this topic is mentioned (Gupta 2008, Ketland 2003, McGee 1991), all in agreement with Bays’s analysis.

Roger Crisp on Goodness and Reasons

Stratton-Lake, P. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Roger Crisp distinguishes a positive and a negative aspect of the buck-passing account of goodness (BPA), and argues that the positive account should be dropped in order to avoid certain problems, in particular, that it implies eliminativism about value. This eliminativism involves what I call an ontological claim, the claim that there is no real property of goodness, and an error theory, the claim that all value talk is false. I argue first that the positive aspect of the BPA is necessary to explain the negative aspect. I accept the ontological claim but argue that this does not imply any sort of error theory about value.

Goodness and Reasons: A Response to Stratton-Lake

Crisp, R. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

This article is a response to some of Philip Stratton-Lake’s criticisms of an earlier paper of mine in this journal, on the so-called ‘buck-passing’ account of goodness. Some elucidation is offered of the ‘wrong kind of reasons’ problem and of T. M. Scanlon’s view, and the question is raised of the role of goodness in the view outlined by Stratton-Lake.

Truth and Truthmakers, by David M. Armstrong.

Keller, P. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception, edited by Thomas Baldwin.

Gallagher, S. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Conventionalism, by Yemima Ben-Menahem.

Leng, M. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Aristotle and Beyond: Essays on Metaphysics and Ethics, by Sarah Broadie.

Clarke, T. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable, by Anjan Chakravartty.

Handfield, T. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Time and Realism: Metaphysical and Antimetaphysical Perspectives, by Yuval Dolev.

Le Poidevin, R. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Semantic Relationism, by Kit Fine.

Rattan, G. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Developmental Theism: From Pure Will to Unbounded Love, by Peter Forrest.

Pruss, A. R. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

The Re-enchantment of the World: Art Versus Religion, by Gordon Graham.

Gellman, J. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Aristotle on the Common Sense, by Pavel Gregoric.

Johansen, T. K. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Contradiction in Motion: Hegel's Organic Concept of Life and Value, by Songsuk Susan Hahn.

Sedgwick, S. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

The Metaphysics of Knowledge, by Keith Hossack.

Lockard, M. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm, by F. M. Kamm

Lawlor, R. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Ineffability and Philosophy, by Andre Kukla.

Larvor, B. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

God, the Best, and Evil, by Bruce Langtry.

Schellenberg, J. L. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults, by Jerome Neu.

Walker, M. U. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Knowledge of God, by Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley.

Bishop, J. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World, by Zenon Pylyshyn.

Shapiro, L. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Self-Consciousness, by Sebastian Rodl.

Debus, D. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1, by Ernest Sosa.

Morton, A. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Books Received

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Announcements

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association 2010 * University College Dublin, 9-11 July 2010

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

Index of Mind Vol. 118 * Nos 1-4, 2009

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:19:48 PST

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

Knowledge and Presuppositions

Blome-Tillmann, M. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:10 PDT

The paper explicates a new way to model the context-sensitivity of ‘knows’, namely a way that suggests a close connection between the content of ‘knows’ in a context C and what is pragmatically presupposed in C. After explicating my new approach in the first half of the paper and arguing that it is explanatorily superior to standard accounts of epistemic contextualism, the paper points, in its second half, to some interesting new features of the emerging account, such as its compatibility with the intuitions of Moorean dogmatists. Finally, the paper shows that the account defended is not subject to the most prominent and familiar philosophical objections to epistemic contextualism discussed in the recent literature.

Modalism and Logical Pluralism

Bueno, O., Shalkowski, S. A. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:10 PDT

Logical pluralism is the view according to which there is more than one relation of logical consequence, even within a given language. A recent articulation of this view has been developed in terms of quantification over different cases: classical logic emerges from consistent and complete cases; constructive logic from consistent and incomplete cases, and paraconsistent logic from inconsistent and complete cases. We argue that this formulation causes pluralism to collapse into either logical nihilism or logical universalism. In its place, we propose a modalist account of logical pluralism that is independently well motivated and that avoids these collapses.

Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism

Clarke, R. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

This paper examines recent attempts to revive a classic compatibilist position on free will, according to which having an ability to perform a certain action is having a certain disposition. Since having unmanifested dispositions is compatible with determinism, having unexercised abilities to act, it is held, is likewise compatible. Here it is argued that although there is a kind of capacity to act possession of which is a matter of having a disposition, the new dispositionalism leaves unresolved the main points of dispute concerning free will.

Rationality, Normativity, and Transparency

Bridges, J. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Although in everyday life and thought we take for granted that there are norms of rationality, their existence presents severe philosophical problems. Kolodny (2005) is thus moved to deny that rationality is normative. But this denial is not itself unproblematic, and I argue that Kolodny's defence of it—particularly his Transparency Account, which aims to explain why rationality appears to be normative even though it is not—is unsuccessful.

Reply to Bridges

Kolodny, N. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Bridges (2009) argues that the ‘Transparency Account’ (TA) of Kolodny 2005 has a hidden flaw. The TA does not, after all, account for the fact that (1) in our ordinary, engaged thought and talk about rationality; we believe that, when it would be irrational of one of us to refuse to A, he has, because of this, conclusive reason to A. My reply is that this was the point. For reasons given in Kolodny 2005, (1) is false. The aim of the TA is to o.er an interpretation of our engaged thought and talk that is compatible with the falsity of (1) and that helps to explain why, when reflecting on our thought and talk, we are so prone to misrepresent what it involves. After making these points, I consider alternative senses in which rationality might be, or be taken by us to be, ‘normative’ and conclude that these alternatives have little bearing on the TA.

Assertion, Context, and Epistemic Accessibility

Hawthorne, J., Magidor, O. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

In his seminal paper ‘Assertion’, Robert Stalnaker distinguishes between the semantic content of a sentence on an occasion of use and the content asserted by an utterance of that sentence on that occasion. While in general the assertoric content of an utterance is simply its semantic content, the mechanisms of conversation sometimes force the two apart. Of special interest in this connection is one of the principles governing assertoric content in the framework, one according to which the asserted content ought to be identical at each world in the context set (the Uniformity principle).

In this paper, we present a problem for Stalnaker's meta-semantic framework, by challenging the plausibility of the Uniformity principle. We argue that the interaction of the framework with facts about epistemic accessibility—in particular, failures of epistemic transparency—cause problems for the Uniformity principle and thus for Stalnaker's framework more generally.

On Hawthorne and Magidor on Assertion, Context, and Epistemic Accessibility

Stalnaker, R. C. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Hawthorne and Magidor's criticisms of the model of presupposition and assertion that I have used and defended are all based on a rejection of some transparency or introspection of assumptions about speaker presupposition. This response to those criticisms aims first to clarify, and then to defend, the required transparency assumptions. It is argued, first, that if the assumptions are properly understood, some prima facie problems for them do not apply, second, that rejecting the assumptions has intuitively implausible consequences, and third, that the ‘margin of error’ argument against the principle of positive introspection has a false premiss. The paper concludes with a response to a criticism of what Hawthorne and Magidor call ‘the uniformity principle’ that is used in the model to explain some pragmatic phenomena.

The Conjunction and Disjunction Theses

Jago, M. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Rodriguez-Pereyra (2006) argues for the disjunction thesis but against the conjunction thesis. I argue that accepting the disjunction thesis undermines his argument against the conjunction thesis.

Disjunctions, Conjunctions, and their Truthmakers

Lopez de Sa, D. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2006) argues against attempts to preserve the entailment principle (or a restriction of it) while avoiding the explosion of truthmakers for necessities and truthmaker triviality. In doing so, he both defends the disjunction thesis—if something makes true a disjunctive truth, then it makes true one of its disjuncts—, and rejects the conjunction thesis—if something makes tue a conjunctive truth, then it makes true each of its conjuncts. In my discussion, I provide plausible counterexamples to the disjunction thesis, and contend that Rodriguez-Pereyra's general defence of it fails. Then I defend the conjunction thesis from Rodriguez-Pereyra's case against it.

The Disjunction and Conjunction Theses

Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

This paper is a response to replies by Dan López de Sa and Mark Jago to my ‘Truthmaking, Entailment, and the Conjuction Thesis’. In that paper, my main aim was to argue against the Entailment Principle by arguing against the Conjunction Thesis, which is entailed by the Entailment Principle. In the course of so doing, although not essential for my project in that paper, I defended the Disjunction Thesis. López de Sa has objected both to my defence of the Disjunction Thesis and my case against the Conjunction Thesis. I shall show that his objections are unfounded and based on serious misunderstandings of my position, what the relevant debate is, and some fundamental notions of Truthmaker Theory.

Jago argues that accepting the Disjunction Thesis and rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is hard to maintain. But I show that Jago has not shown that accepting the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis is impossible or even hard to maintain. Jago believes that, to accept the Disjunction Thesis while rejecting the Conjunction Thesis, one needs to reject his axiom (T₃), which says that all the truthmakers for are truthmakers for

. I argue that there are reasons to reject such a principle, and the version of it that says that what makes true makes

true.

Review: Stephen Boulter: The Rediscovery of Common Sense Philosophy

Preti, C. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Thom Brooks: Hegel's Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right

Tunick, M. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Rosalind Carey: Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement

Beaney, M. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Ursula Coope: Time for Aristotle: Physics IV.10-14

Roark, T. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Paul Crowther: Defining Art, Creating the Canon

Zinkin, M. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: R. A. Du: Answering for Crime

Tadros, V. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Owen Flanagan: The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World

Hasker, W. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Wolfram Hinzen: An Essay on Names and Truth

Paul, I., Stainton, R. J. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Axel Honneth: Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea

Sayers, S. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Jennifer Lackey: Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge

Faulkner, P. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Robin Le Poidevin: The Images of Time: An Essay on Temporal Representation

Hoerl, C. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Jerrold Levinson: Contemplating Art: Essays in Aesthetics

Schellekens, E. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:11 PDT

Review: Hallvard Lillehammer: Companions in Guilt: Arguments for Ethical Objectivity

Cuneo, T. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Geoffrey Lloyd: Cognitive Variations: Reflections on the Unity and Diversity of the Human Mind

Cooper, R. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Penelope Maddy: Second Philosophy

Stroud, B. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Bradley Monton: Images of Empiricism: Essays on Science and Stances, with a Reply from Bas C. van Fraassen

Douven, I. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Jesse J. Prinz: The Emotional Construction of Morals

Joyce, R. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Bernard Reginster: The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism

Janaway, C. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Robert C. Richardson: Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology

Walter, S. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Christopher Shields: Aristotle

Gregoric, P. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Kathleen Stock: Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning, and Work

Iseminger, G. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Robert Wicks: Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Judgment

Zuckert, R. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Review: Christopher Woodard: Reasons, Patterns, and Cooperation

Mulgan, T. — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Books Received

Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT

Announcements

Thu, 14 May 2009 07:51:12 PDT