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VIII Congresso nazionale dellaSocietà Italiana di Filosofia Analitica
Ontologia, Mente e LinguaggioOntology, Mind and Language
Abstracts
Università degli studi di Bergamovia Salvecchio, 19, Bergamo
257 settembre 2008
SIFA 2008 Abstracts
Nota Gli abstract sono presentati in ordine alfabetico del cognome di autore. Lo svolgimento delle varie sessioni si trova nel Programma dei lavori.
Note The abstracts are arranged in alphabetical order by author surname. The sequence of the various sessions is set out on the Conference Programme.
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Catharine Abell (Universities of McQuarrie, Australia & Manchester, UK)Invited Speaker: AestheticsCinema as a Representational Art
Since its inception, there has been debate about cinema’s artistic potential. Many have thought that all cinematic works lack features that, on at least some accounts, artworks must have. In particular, they have been thought to lack aesthetic value. This seems strange given how easy it is to think of examples of aesthetically interesting cinematic works. The fact that we value some cinema aesthetically is reason to hold that it is aesthetically valuable. As Dominic Lopes notes, while we may mistakenly attribute aesthetic value to something, finding value where there is none, this is generally a difficult mistake to make, since our finding value in something is reason to think that it has value. Thus, the claim that there can be no cinematic art seems to admit of empirical refutation. It is unlikely that we are wrong every time we find a cinematic work aesthetically rewarding. Things are more difficult, however, when the topic of debate is cinema’s capacity to produce representational artworks. Firstly, because aesthetic value is generally taken to be a value things have in their own right, something can be a representational artwork only if it is aesthetically rewarding in virtue of the way it represents its object. A purely empirical approach is unlikely to be decisive here, since the sceptic can respond, to every proposed counter example to his thesis that, while we may find the work in question aesthetically rewarding, we do not do so because of the way it represents its object. Rather, the real object of our aesthetic interest is either the work’s formal features, or its object. We are systematically wrong in our judgments on this issue, he may hold, because we hold a mistaken view of cinematic representation. Secondly, sceptics often claim that a form of representation must meet very strict criteria in order to have aesthetic potential. For example, Roger Scruton argues that it must enable objects to be represented in a way that differs from how they appear when seen in the flesh, and that these differences must result from capacities distinctive of that form of representation. One might argue, in response to the sceptic, that his criteria for being a representational art are too onerous. In this paper, however, I adopt a different strategy. I assume that the sceptic’s criteria for representational art status are correct, but argue that the account of cinematic representation on which he relies is wrong. An accurate account of cinematic representation, I argue, shows that cinematic works can meet the sceptic’s criteria. Since these criteria present the greatest challenge to the proponent of representational cinematic art, the fact that cinematic works can meet them gives us reason to think they can meet whatever criteria are in fact necessary for being a representational art.
Francesco Ademollo (Università di Firenze, Italia)Synonymy and Generation in Plato’s Cratylus (History of Ideas)
I offer an analysis of Cratylus 392b–394e, where Socrates explains what it is for a name to be ‘naturally correct’, i.e. to belong to its referent by nature.Socrates starts from Homer’s distinction between the two names of Hector’s son, ‘Astyanax’ and ‘Scamandrius’. He argues that Homer regarded the former name as the naturally correct one, on the grounds that Hector defended Troy. But then the question arises why Homer adduces the fact that Hector defended the city as an explanation of the fact that his son was called ‘Astyanax’. For Homer is supposed to be saying something about the way the name is naturally appropriate to the nature of the child, not of his father. Socrates’ solution goes as follows.(1) ‘Astyanax’ (= ‘Townlord’) and ‘Hector’ (= ‘Holder’) are close to each other. For ‘lord’ and ‘holder’ ‘signify roughly the same, i.e. that both names are kingly’. (393ab)
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(2) It is correct to call a lion’s offspring a ‘lion’, a horse’s offspring a ‘horse’, etc., provided the offspring is not a monster and has the same nature as its parent. (393bc)(3) Likewise, it is correct to call a king’s offspring a ‘king’—or any other name which, though materially different, signifies the same or has the same ‘force’ and hence is pro tanto the same name—, a good man’s offspring a ‘good’ one, etc., provided the offspring is not a monster. (393c–394b)(4) Such names as ‘Astyanax’, ‘Hector’ and ‘Archepolis’ are a case in point: they have few letters in common but they ‘signify the same’, i.e. ‘signify nothing but a king’. (394be)The conclusion is implied: Homer was right to appeal to Hector’s kingly nature in order to explain the correctness of Astyanax’s name because he had every reason to believe that Astyanax inherited Hector’s kingly nature, and the names ‘Hector’ and ‘Astyanax’ are equivalent to each other in that both signify that nature. Thus it has turned out that the natural correctness of a name consists in its etymon’s supplying a true description of its referent.In commenting on this argument I wish to make the following points.First, in step (2) Socrates is gesturing towards a general ‘Principle of Synonymical Generation’:
(PSG) If X belongs to kind K, and X begets Y, then in the natural course of events Y too must be called (a) ‘K’. If, however, Y is a monster and does not belong to K but to a different kind, say H, as though it had been begotten by an H, then Y must be called (an) ‘H’, not (a) ‘K’.
Since all the examples in step (2) concern natural kinds (lion, horse, ox, human, trees), it is reasonable to think that the only admissible substitutions for ‘K’ are terms for natural kinds. Thus restricted, PSG is strongly reminiscent of the Aristotelian tenet that ‘a human generates a human’ (see Metaph. Z 7–9).Secondly, in step (3) Socrates extends PSG to the cases where K = king, good, beautiful or anything else. This completely unrestricted version of PSG is false and runs foul of Aristotle’s tenet. But the very words by which Socrates introduces the extension of PSG (‘you must watch out lest I mislead you somehow’, 393c8–9) actually flag its illegitimacy. Hence Plato actually wants to point out the difference between a sound and an unsound version of PSG.Thirdly, in step (4) Socrates subjects PSG to a further corruption: he illegitimately shifts from talk of general terms (‘king’) to talk of proper names (‘King’).Fourthly, in step (3) Socrates introduces a qualification to PSG: Y must be called (a) ‘K’, or any other name which, albeit composed of different letters, ‘signifies the same’, or has the same ‘force’, and pro tanto counts as the same name. Then, in step (4), Socrates gives examples of (proper) names which are so related to each other. What do ‘signify the same’ and ‘have the same force [dunamis]’ mean? According to D. Sedley, Plato’s Cratylus, Cambridge 2003, 84–5, Socrates is speaking of names, which have different (etymological) sense but the same reference, because they all refer to the same kind or type (e.g. the king) through different descriptions. I rather believe that the meaning of Socrates’ expressions is something like ‘have the same (etymological) sense’, for several reasons. (i) The examples in step (4) are proper names of different persons, hence their reference is different; it is very unnatural to regard them as general terms referring to a kind. (ii) At 393a Socrates said that ‘lord’ and ‘holder’ ‘signify roughly the same, i.e. that both names are kingly’—where the epexegetical thatclause suggests that ‘signifying the same’ is a matter of having the same sense. (iii) At 393d Socrates treated ‘signifying the same’ as equivalent to indicating the same ‘being’ (ousia) of an object. (iv) All Socrates says about the difference between the 394bc examples is that their letters are different, not that their (etymological) senses are different. Therefore he is uninterested in the differences in sense between the examples.
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Simona Aimar (St Andrews University/Oxford University, UK)Defining Goodness (Practical Philosophy)
G.E.Moore’s Open Question Argument has it that “good “ cannot be aptly defined. Cornell realists meet Moore ‘s challenge by adopting an externalist semantics. Noncognitivists hold that an externalist view cannot account for the practical function of moral discourse. I suggest (1) that there are two cases for the undefinability of goodness: a Moorean version and a Humean (or noncognitivist) version; and (2) that an apt modification of Cornell realism meets both challenges.
1 Two Open Question Arguments. Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA) purports to show that goodness is undefinable. A competent speaker can pose the question “is A good?” in front of any reductive description of an object A, without betraying conceptual confusion. It seems to follow that any reductive definition of goodness is inadequate. A path of interpretation of the Open Question Argument started with A.J.Ayer, and it now represents a hallmark of the noncognitivist approaches. I call it the Humean Open Question Argument (HOQA). Noncognitivists hold that the question “Is x good?” stays open –no matter what descriptive account of x we are given – because that is not a question about factual descriptions.
2 Cornell Realism. Cornell Realism (CR) overcomes the OQA by recurring to Kripke’s and Putnam’s New Wave Semantics. Mora terms rigidly refer to natural properties. A causal interaction between the linguistic community and the item in question determines the referential property of a term.The openness of the Moorean question “Is x good?” is thus due to our ignorance about which properties causally regulate our employment of moral terms. The HOQA highlights a difficulty of CR. Synthetic identifications seem insufficient to account for the normative import of ethical terms.4 Noncognitivists hold that in front of any naturalistic description of goodness, the question “Is x good?” stays open because that is a normative question about the attitude to take towards x .5
3 Cornell Realism RevisitedOn the assumption that (i)the HOQA correct y emphasizes an aspect of ethical language and (ii) that this needs to be explained with a somehow internalist theory of motivation ,a different account of ethical terms is in order. Drawing on a suggestion recent y proposed by Mark Van Roojen,6 I sha support a revision of CR. A naturalistic semantic of ethical terms may be explained along the lines of a process of referencefixing that avoids an utterly externalist theory. The idea is that of replacing referencedetermining causal facts with referencedetermining epistemic facts. Epistemic processes may involve a priori conceptual linkages: there may be aspects of a priori know edge of the referent of a term t that play an essential role in determining the referential capacity of the term.I sha argue that an account of ethical terms along these lines passes both versions of the Open Question Argument. By denying that a priori descriptions are sufficient to pick up the referent of moral terms, it is immune to Moore ‘s version of the OQA. The a priori features of the reference determining processes allow to incorporate a loose internalist position, so to pass the HOQA.
ReferencesAyer, A.J. (1946). Language,Truth and Logic .The Camelot Press: London.Blackburn, S. (1998). Ruling Passions .Clarendon Press: Oxford.Boyd, R. (1988). “How to be a moral realist?” in Darwall ,Gibbard and Railton (eds) Moral
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Discours and Practice, OUP: Oxford,pp.105135.Brink, D. (1989). Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. CUP: New York.Jackson, F. (1998). From Metaphysics to Ethics .Clarendon Press: Oxford.Hare, R.M. (1952). The Language of Morals.Clarendon Press: Oxford.Horgan, T.and Timmons, M. (1992). “Troubles for New Wave Mora Semantics:the ‘Open Question Argument ‘ Revived “, Philosophical Papers 21, pp.153 –75.Kripke, S. (1972). Naming and Necessity. HUP: Cambridge.Moore, G.E. (1903).Principia Ethica . CUP:Cambridge.Putnam, H. (1975).”The meaning of meaning,” in his Mind, Language and Reality. CUP:Cambridge, pp.215271.Sturgeon, N. (1984). “Moral Explanations “ in Copp and Zimmerman (eds.) Morality, Reason and Truth .Rowman and Littlefield, pp.337352.Van Roojen, M. (2005). “Knowing Enough to Disagree:A New Response to the Moral Twin Earth Argument “ in ShaferLandau (ed.),Oxford Studies in Metaethics, pp.161193.
Mario Alai (Università di Urbino “Carlo Bo”, Italia)Functional novelty and confirmation (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science)
It would seem that if a theory simply accommodates previously known data it is not confirmed, for it might be just one of the infinite false theories we could contrive to fit the same phenomena. But some theories predict data that are (a) not previously known, or not used by the theorist, and (b) unexpected (i.e., disparate from known data, and improbable on the basis of previous evidence and beliefs). For instance, Newton’s theory predicted new planets with particular masses and orbit; Fresnel’s theory predicted a bright spot in the shadow cast by and opaque disk; Mendeleev’s periodic law predicted new chemical elements with precise properties; etc. These successes cannot be explained by a posteriori accommodation, nor by chance, since the probability a prediction succeed by chance is equal to the prior probability of the predicted datum, which in these cases is very low. (In fact, although there are infinite theories compatible with the old and the new datum, for any of these there are infinite others compatible with the old but not with the new datum). Hence, quite probably, these theories do not succeed by chance, but because they are (partially and or approximately) true. (Of course, if theorizing were a random process, getting the one true theory would be even more unlikely than getting one of the false theories compatible with the old and the new datum. But even the latter case is too unlikely to be plausible. So, we must shift from casual to causal explanations of novel predictive success: for instance, explanations in terms of theorist’s reliability, or of causal interactions between theorist and reality, which typically involve the theory’s (partial and or approximate) truth). Thus, predictivists like Leibniz, Huygens, Peirce, Duhem, Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn, Maher, etc., hold that while accommodation does not really confirm, prediction does. On the other hand, it would seem that confirmation is a logical relationship between data and theories, independent of historic contingencies, such as whether a datum was previously known, or used, or not. In fact, it has been shown that predictions like Fresnel’s, Medeleev’s and others, actually played little or no role in the acceptance of the respective theories. This is why Mill, Keynes, Rosenkrantz, Horwich, Schlesinger and others, reply that all the data entailed by a theory support it equally, and prediction does not confirm more than accommodation. But if they are right, there is no confirmation at all, since we saw that accommodation does not confirm. This is the paradoxical aspect of the old contrast between predictivism and accommodationism, or the historic and the logical account of confirmation.
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A way out is found by noticing that historic novelty is a sufficient, but not necessary condition for confirmation: a datum d confirms theory T even if known and used, if it was not used essentially, i.e., if one could have (i) advanced T and (ii) inferred d without previously knowing it. In this case, in fact, neither chance nor posterior accommodation are plausible explanations for success, and truth is the only alternative. The counterfactual ‘could’ shows that this is a logical condition, independent of historic relations between d and the theorist (we may call it the ‘functional novelty’ of d). This reconciles predictivism with the widespread idea that confirmation is a logical relationship between a theory and its data. But if there must be any difference between prediction and accommodation, this relationship cannot be just plain entailment. What is it then? When is d functionally novel, i.e., when could one have advanced T and inferred d without knowing it? When both T and the background and auxiliary assumptions A1…An
needed to infer d from T are plausible independently of d; thus, the distinction between prediction and accommodation is akin to that between (genuine) explanation and (ad hoc) entailment. Moreover, T and A1…An are independently plausible when T and each Ai are required by the best account (i.e. the simplest, most explanatorily efficient, most plausible in the light of background beliefs, etc.) of some set of data (repectively, S and Si) not including d. But d is supposed to be disparate from other data; hence, T is at once the best account of different and otherwise unrelated kinds of phenomena (S and d). So, making functionally novel predictions is also akin to unifying power, consilience (Whewell) and independent control (Kosso). Since the concepts involved in this analysis (like unexpectedness, disparateness, simplicity, plausibility, etc.) are gradual, also the notions of novelty, accommodation and confirmation are gradual. Further, it turns out that acceptance of the abovementioned famous theories was little influenced by historic novelty only because it was largely determined by functional novelty.
Cristina Amoretti (Università di Genova, Italia)Three varieties of triangulation (philosophy of mind)
Donald Davidson has introduced the theory of triangulation to explain how the contents of our thoughts about the external world are fixed, and how the concept of objectivity (or objective truth) can emerge. According to him, these two elements are necessary for the presence of thought, and thus the process of triangulation is considered necessary as well. Conversely, as a precognitive process, triangulation is sufficient neither to fix the empirical content, nor to have the concept of objectivity. Davidson is perfectly aware of that and he actually maintains that another element must be added. This very element is language. In his view, the two goals of triangulation are deeply intertwined: the relevant common cause – which fix the content of our thoughts about the external world – cannot be determined without having the concept of objectivity, which requires having the mastery of a language.The theory of triangulation is threatened by some possible objections: the possession of the concept of the objectivity is not necessary for thought; triangulation is not necessary for content determination, nor for the possession of the concept of objective truth; the theory is circular, because if we attempt to clarify the status of triangulation as necessary for thought and language, we must introduce language and thought. I will argue that these objections can be clarified and eventually answered if we look at the different notions of triangulation in Davidson’s work. In fact, he has in mind two kinds of triangulation: in the first case triangulation is considered as a nonintentional, prelinguistic and precognitive situation, while in the second one it is supposed to be already propositional, describing an intentional and linguistic situation (limited to
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cognitively mature human beings). According to Davidson there can be no bridge linking the two: the former is embedded into a deterministic domain, while the latter is characterized by the normative constraints of rationality. In other words, there is no intermediate between complete absence of thought and fullblown thought. Davidson has obviously his reasons for defending the above picture of mind: primarily his will to account for a nonreductive conception of thought and language. However, I want to argue that this very reason is not compelling. More precisely, I will try to demonstrate that even filling the gap between precognitive triangulation and propositional triangulation, the nonreductive character of thought and language can be still guaranteed. I propose to add an intermediate kind of triangulation, which is cognitive and intentional, but prelinguistic. This intermediate process can be conceived in terms of joint attention: two subjects are intentionally attending to an external object – which is conceived as external – and to each other’s acts of intentionally attending to the object. I will argue that at this stage the creatures involved in the process of triangulation need to have primitive intentions, but not higherorder propositional attitudes nor the concepts of belief and objective truth. In this way, it is possible to account for the empirical content without introducing a language: to narrow down the relevant common cause which fix the content, similar responses to similar stimuli must be recognized as intentional actions repeatedly performed in different contexts. Even if it could be objected that the relevant cause has still a certain level of indeterminacy, I will try to show that it is acceptable and compatible with future language acquisition. In the end, I will try to answer the previous objections. First of all, I will maintain that the possession of the concept of objectivity is not necessary for thought in general, but only for fullblown thought. Secondly, I will show that triangulation is necessary for content determination, because the relevant stimulus must be narrowed down through the process of joint attention in order to determine content: what makes a cause the relevant common cause is intersubjective intentional communication (while what is merely given in perception is idiosyncratic and can play no role in accounting for empirical content). Moreover, I will try to demonstrate that triangulation is necessary for the possession of the concept of objectivity, proving that the basic objections presuppose some conceptual abilities that can emerge solely in an intersubjective framework. Finally, the theory of triangulation so conceived is neither circular nor reductive. It reconciles the results of the empirical sciences and our intuitions about the cognitive faculties of some nonhuman animals and infants with the idea that the mental is intrinsically irreducible to the physical.
Ralf Bader (University of St Andrews, UK)Structurespecific supervenience and the grounding problem (Metaphysics and Ontology)
Defenders of coinciding objects have to deal with the grounding problem insofar as they must explain how coinciding entities can differ in properties even though these entities share the same parts (at some level of decomposition). They must find a ground of these differences, accounting for how the same parts can give rise to a plurality of objects instantiating different properties. Unless such a ground can be found, the differences in properties that the pluralist accepts will seem unexplainable, mysterious and brute. In this paper I will show how a commitment to coinciding entities is compatible with accepting the strong supervenience of sortalish on nonsortalish properties if one appeals to a structurespecific understanding of indiscernibility. Various responses to the grounding problem have been made that modify the modal strength of the supervenience relations. These responses are inadequate since one needs to retain strong supervenience claims in order to track adequate determination relations which
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allow one to provide an explanation of the differences in properties. Instead of changing the modal strength, I will modify the understanding of indiscernibility. This modification requires us to specify a different way of individuating property distributions. This is done by giving an alternative account of the members of the domains that are mapped when assessing for propertypreserving isomorphisms. In particular, I propose a structurespecific account of indiscernibility, according to which an isomorphism is Bpreserving iff for any collection of spacetime points p in D, Bproperty F is instantiated in p if and only if F is also instantiated in the image of p in D*. Strong structurespecific supervenience holds if every Bpreserving isomorphism is an Apreserving isomorphism. This account can then be appealed to in order to formulate strong supervenience relations that are compatible with coincidence. This allows us to show that there are ontologically significant determination and dependence relations at work. As a result, it turns out that much of what the pluralist is committed to can be fully explained in terms of the shared supervenience base. The obtaining of these supervenience relations will be explained by means of generative principles that capture the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an object falling under a particular sortal. The defender of coincidence is thereby able to explain why there are coincident entities, how many there are and which sortalish properties are distributed amongst them.
Carola Barbero (Università di Torino e di Modena, Italia)Learning from Literature (Aesthetics)
This paper deals with what can be learned from literature. By distinguishing fictional from informative statements on the one hand, and aesthetic from normal approaches to works on the other hand, I will explain what can and what can not be learned from literature. The question concerning what can be learned from literature might be considered as a subquestion of the more general one regarding what can be learned from art. There are arguments to maintain that if it is true that we can learn from literature, it is not true that we can learn from art in general. Literature actually is a special artistic domain, more suitable for knowledge than many others: by giving a definition of the domain, I explain why it is so. Literature is made by fictional statements (however these might be considered), and fictional statements, unlike informative ones, do not describe neither show how the world actually is. So, should we conclude that what we learn from literature are nothing but falsities and lies? My aim is to distinguish what we can learn (and therefore what we look for) from what is approached aesthetically and what we can learn from what is approached in a normal, ordinary way. Some (Diffey) deny that we can learn from literature when it is approached aesthetically, others (Ferraris) say that literature can convey accidentally (but never essentially) knowledge. According to my thesis, when we approach a work of literature as such, even if we might learn through it a lot about the real world – by understanding the differences and the similarities subsisting between fictional and real entities/events/worlds – there is a specific knowledge concerning the work of fiction itself and that is primarily what we gain. My view is that it would also be a mistake to reduce the power of literature to a magic key for selfunderstanding (Robinson, Currie): we acquire selfknowledge from fiction as well as from life, the only difference is that in fiction what we understand and learn does not always have consequences on our lives (Szabò Gendler & Kovakovich), but this does not influence the knowledge we get (but just the way we get it). We learn both from reality and from fiction, the only important thing is not to confuse the one with the other. Another point concerns that specific characteristic of aesthetic experience consisting in the simultaneous awareness we have of the style and form of the literary representation (Hume, Lamarque) which provokes in us a special engagement: this is
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what makes fictional works more perfect than reality, or, in other words, this is the difference between art and life. Involving a special engagement is part of a work’s value as art and it might be quite independent from its being a vehicle for learning: it might be argued that it is not in terms of their truth or of their conveying knowledge that works of art are valued, but in terms of their artistic qualities, which are those making that particular experience a special one. Nonetheless, even if the question concerning style and form is independent from truth and from fictional vs. real objects, it is undeniable that it is easier to learn something told by using a special style than something told in a normal or boring way. Hence literature can be source of any knowledge about the world only indirectly (general truths, historical truths, geographical truths), since the medium of art “presents”, “shows” things without asserting them. But a condition of learning from literature in any unproblematic and strong sense requires works of literature to refer. My conclusion is that we would take the wrong way asking these works to refer (primarily) to the (real) world: the meaning of the work of art does not lie in the world, but in art itself. Hence in a work of literature it is not simply matter of suspending reference, but of finding the right one.
ReferencesAristotle, Poetics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. II, ed. J. Barnes, Princeton University Press 1984Currie G., “Realism of Character and the Value of Fiction”, in J. Levinson (ed.), Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, Cambridge University Press 1998: 161181Diffey J. T., “What can we learn from Art?”, in S. Davies (ed.), Art and its messages: Meaning, Morality and Society, Pennsylvania State University Press 1997: 2633.Ferraris M., La fidanzata automatica, Bompiani 2007Hume D., “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757), in Essays Moral, Political and Literary, Liberty Fund, Inc. 1985 Lamarque P., “Learning from Literature”, Dalhousie Review, 77 (1997): 721Lamarque P. & Olsen S.H., Truth, Fiction and Literature: a Philosophical Perspective, Clarendon Press 1994Robinson J., Deeper than Reason, Oxford University Press 2005.Sainsbury R.M., Reference without Referents, Clarendon Press 2005Szabò Gendler T. & Kovakovich K., “Genuine Rational Fictional Emotions”, in M. Kieran (ed.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Blackwell Publishing 2006
Jonathan Barnes (Sorbonne, France)Plenary speakerThe End of La Bohème.
According to Plato, the shortest and simplest sentences are composed of two words, one of which must be a name and the other a verb. That claim, which was first accepted and then implicitly rejected by Aristotle, has sometimes been regarded by Geach, for example, and by Davidson as a genial adumbration of the notion, central to contemporary logic, that the fundamental sentences of a language must have a certain sort of subjectpredicate structure. Nonetheless, Plato’s claim appears, at first blush, to be straightforwardly false open to refutation by any number of different counterexamples. The chief purpose of my remarks will be to present a selection of these apparent counterexamples and consider how a Platonist might best treat them.
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Luca Bellotti (Università di Pisa, Italia)Attempted ontological reductions of the infinite to the finite (Logic and philosophy of language)
The aim of this work is to survey and evaluate various attempts that have been made, by more or less non traditional means, to explore the very possibility of giving a direct ontological reduction of countable infinity to finiteness. The kind of attempted reductions in which we are interested have a straightforward character, they are made by brute force, namely by simply trying to ‘squeeze’ infinity into a finite, discrete object, typically a very big integer. Great efforts have been devoted by many authors to this apparently desperate enterprise, and a lot of very interesting results have been obtained along the way. I shall try to convey some significant ideas and to give only the gist of the arguments, without technicalities. My conclusion, after a journey through quite exotic logical landscapes, will be (perhaps unsurprisingly) in the negative. Two caveats are necessary. First,I will deliberately ignore some very important attempts at an indirect reduction of infinity to the finite: Hilbert’s program and nominalist programs. Secondly, it is well known that a very special role in this area is played by paraconsistency (see,e.g.,Priest 1997), but I simply decided to put paraconsistent systems to one side ‘for the time being’, concentrating on other approaches, less fashionable at present (of course, one might argue that the failure of the attempts examined here is a further argument for the necessity of para onsistency in this context). The motivations of these attempts at reduction have different sources. Some of them are largely those of the nominalist programs, some those of strict finitism. But there could also be simple motivations of ontologidal nature (ontological economy, etc.),or of epistemological character: to explain our use of the infinite on the basis of an extrapolation from the indefinitely large, or simply the very large; to refuse the idealizations (already underscored by Bernays 1935)involved in dealing with very large numbers and in the very idea of potential infinity, etc.There is, finally, the (unreasonable and unmentionable) desire to bypass the limitations of Gödel’s theorem on consistency proofs, and to try to give shape to our vague feeling that we do set theory be ause we have an informal consistency proof for it. Our basi problem can be stated as follows. A set which is finite inside a model of ZermeloFraenkel set theory can be seen to be infinite ‘from the outside’; but the converse cannot happen. It seems that no ‘true’ natural number, say 10^12,can be made infinite in any sense in any model. Thus,we should look for some notion of (pseudo)’inaccessibility’, perhaps in terms of unfeasibility,or of a vague, unapproachable boundary (a ‘horizon’, in Vopenka’s terms),in order to see as infinite what is really finite; or, alternatively, we should take a pseudofinite number and then show that (almost)nothing is lost in treating it as finite but unfeasible, and modeling feasible numbers as the standard numbers (according to Kreisel’s motto: feasible is to standard as standard is to nonstandard).The point is the following: it is apparently obvious that no true integer can be made infinite in any way; is there a way to circumvent this impossibility, either by altering the notion of infinity (or of inaccessibility),or the notion of finiteness,or the notion of proof, or semantics, or whatever? We shall see that when we consider the two main alternatives (among those we shall discuss) which apparently allow one to make sense of a sort of ‘modeling’ of countable infinity in the finite,namely non standard methods and feasibility, we face a dilemma. Either we take into account proofs of arbitrary finite length; or we consider proofs of length at most k, with k a standard integer. What is forbidden is to treat the length of proofs ambiguously,considering it as arbitrarily finite for the consistency proof, and then as determinately finite in our ultrafinitist metatheory. But this ambiguous treatment seems precisely what is needed to carry out a
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thoroughly reductionist program. I conclude that none of the discussed attempts gives any clue to the envisaged reduction of infinity to finiteness.
ReferencesBernays, P. (1935), On platonism in mathematics, in Philosophy of mathematics, selected readings, 2nd ed.,Cambridge 1983, 258271.EseninVol’pin,A.S. (1961), Le programme ultraintuitionniste des fondements des mathématiques, in Infinitistic methods, Warsaw, 201223.Parikh, R. (1971), Existence and feasibility in arithmetic, Journal of Symbolic Logic 36, 494508.Priest, G. (1997), Inconsistent models of arithmetic,I: Finite models, Journal of Philosophical Logic 26, 223235.
Sara Bernstein (University of Arizona, USA)Moral Overdetermination (Practical Philosophy)
If a multinational corporation falsifies its accounting records, thus causing the loss of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, who is responsible? The corporation is responsible, since the corporation causes the loss of the funds. But what is it to hold a corporation morally accountable? The corporation is made up of people. Corporations differ from the sums of people that constitute them: corporations have legal status that the people working in concert do not. Corporations are economically powerful, while people are not. Corporations have monetary values, while people do not. This difference in properties motivates a nonreductionist metaphysics of social objects: corporations are not reducible to, but not entirely distinct from, the sums of people that constitute them. This is a move familiar to metaphysicians of ordinary objects and minds, who hold, respectively, that objects and minds are not reducible to, but not entirely distinct from, the things that realize them. A problem for nonreductionists is causal overdetermination, in which each entity (the object and the particles, the mental state and the physical state, the corporation and the sum of people) is sufficient to bring about the same effect. I hold that the nonreductionist about social objects faces an extra problem: if both the corporation and the sum of people cause the loss of the funds, then both the corporation and the sum of people are morally responsible for the loss of the funds. I call this problem moral overdetermination. There is a case of moral overdetermination where two or more causes can be held morally responsible for the same effect. I examine the implications of moral overdetermination in detail.I conclude by looking at an argument for moral exclusion. Moral exclusion holds that if an entity e is morally responsible for an event f, then no other entity e* is responsible for f. I argue that moral exclusion does not obtain.
Francesco Berto (École Normale Superieure, Paris, France)How to Discard Things with Words: True Contradictions and the Exclusion Negation (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
I. Strong paraconsistency, also called dialetheism, demands a thorough revision of our ideas on negation and contradiction by claiming that some contradictions are true, and rationally accepted, against the Law of NonContradiction (LNC) (Priest, Routley, Norman [1989], Batens,
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Mortensen, Priest, van Bendegem [2000]; Priest, Beall, ArmourGarb [2004]). But strong paraconsistentists face difficulties in excluding rival positions. When you say: ‘α ’, and a dialetheist replies: ‘¬α ’, she hasn’t managed to express her opposition, due to the features of paraconsistent negation: it may be the case both that α and that ¬α , so the dialetheist may accept them both. In paraconsistent logics like LP, if all atomic sentences are both true and false, then all sentences are (truthfunctionally) true and false (this happens in the socalled trivial model of LP). Does dialetheism face the risk of ending up inexpressible? (see Parsons [1990], Batens [1990], Shapiro [2004])We shall address the issue by developing a negation operator, ‘NOT’, via a primitive notion of material opposition or exclusion, which we claim to be shared by dialetheists. We will then establish via our NOT a minimal formulation of the LNC on which both the orthodox friend and the paraconsistent foe of consistency can agree.
II. Our account identifies facts with propositions (that which is expressed by a sentence) and embeds our operator in an algebra, <U, ∠ , V , •>, where U is a set of facts or propositions; ∠ and • are binary relations on U; and V is a unary operation on subsets of U. ∠ is to be thought of as a preorder, and ‘p∠q’ is read as ‘The proposition p entails the proposition q’. Given a set of propositions P ⊆ U, VP is the (possibly infinitary) disjunction of all the propositions in P. • is our key relation of material exclusion. A proposition may have one or more opposed peers, and the exclusionary class of a given p is E = {x|x • p}. Then, NOTp just is VE. If E has finite cardinality, NOTp is just an ordinary disjunction: q1 ∨ … ∨ qn, where q1, …, qn are all the members of E. If one assumes an infinity of propositions materially exclusive w.r.t. p, NOTp turns into an infinitary disjunction. Otherwise, we quantify on facts/propositions:
(1) NOTp =df ∃x(x ∧ x • p).
NOTp is the logically weakest among the n incompatibles: it is entailed by any qi, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, such that qi•p. Given the equivalence:
(2) x ∠ NOTp ⇔ x • p putting NOTp for x, and by detachment, we get
(3) NOTp • p
NOTp is incompatible with p. The righttoleft of (2) tells us that NOTp is the weakest incompatible. A simple fact of ordinary language is mirrored by the indeterminacy in the information conveyed by NOT: ‘My Ferrari is red’ is not the logically weakest sentence incompatible with the sentence ‘My Ferrari is blue’. The weakest sentence is ‘My Ferrari is NOT blue’, which, via (1), says that some fact holds, which is incompatible with your Ferrari being blue.
III. Niceties of NOT? (a) it is not explicitly defined via the concept truth (dialetheists ask to stop using ‘true’ as an exclusionexpressing device!), but via the concept material exclusion, whose primitiveness is entailed, e.g., by our experience of the world as agents facing choices between incompatible alternatives.
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(b) NOT has pretheoretical appeal as an exclusionexpressing tool. See what a conversation between ‘me’ and ‘you’ would be if we had no means to discard the case of Fred’s being simultaneously in the kitchen and in the garden:
Me: ‘Fred is in the kitchen.’ (Sets off for kitchen.)You: ‘Wait! Fred is in the garden.’Me: ‘I see. But he is in the kitchen, so I’ll go there.’ (Sets off.)You: ‘You lack understanding. The kitchen is Fredfree’.Me: ‘Is it really? But Fred’s in it, and that’s the important thing.’ (Leaves for kitchen) (Price [1990]: 224).
A simple: ‘Look, Fred is NOT in the kitchen’ (that is: ‘Fred is somewhere else – say, in the garden – and his being there excludes his being in the kitchen’), would help. (c) Finally, the dialetheist’s pragmatic account of acceptance and rejection shows that she believes in the impossibility of some couples of facts’ simultaneously obtaining – e.g., x’s simultaneously accepting and rejecting the same thing NOT will provide a minimal formulation of the LNC on which all parties in the dispute can agree (how? Listen to the full
ReferencesBatens D. [1990], “Against Global Paraconsistency”, Studies in Soviet Thought 39: 20929.Batens D., Mortensen C., Priest G., van Bendegem J.P. [2000], Frontiers of Paraconsistent Logic, Research Studies Press.Dunn J.M. [1996], “Generalized Ortho negation”, in Wansing [1996]: 326.Gabbay D., Wansing H. (eds.) [1999], What is negation?, Kluwer.Parsons T. [1990], “True Contradictions”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 20: 33554.Price H. [1990], “Why ‘Not’?”, Mind, 99: 22138.Priest G., Beall J.C., ArmourGarb B. (eds.) [2004], The Law of NonContradiction. New Philosophical Essays, Clarendon.Priest G., Routley R., Norman J. (eds.) [1989], Paraconsistent Logic. Essays on the Inconsistent, Philosophia Verlag. Shapiro [2004], “Simple Truth, Contradiction, and Consistency”, in Priest, Beall, ArmourGarb [2004]: 33654.Wansing H. (ed.) [1996], Negation. A Notion in Focus, De Gruyter.
Enrico Biale (Università degli Studi di Genova)Eguaglianza economica, un tema pubblico? (Filosofia pratica)
Quali ineguaglianze sono pubblicamente giustificabili in una società giusta e benordinata?Secondo John Rawls un simile problema dovrebbe essere affrontato allo stadio legislativo, vincolato dalle decisioni prese a livello costituzionale (ragione pubblica) e dal Principio di Differenza – secondo il quale un’ineguaglianza è giustificata soltanto quando si rivela necessaria per il miglioramento delle condizioni dei più svantaggiati. Un esempio standard di ineguaglianza giustificata in quanto necessaria è rappresentato dal caso degli incentivi economici. Sarebbe molto interessante capire quali altre politiche siano compatibili con la “giustizia come equità”; tuttavia Rawls sostiene che non sia possibile sviluppare un criterio di giustificazione per le politiche economiche vista la loro complessità, chiarendo comunque che il Principio di Differenza dovrebbe limitare la discussione alle sole proposte ragionevoli (Rawls, 1971).Al riguardo G. A. Cohen afferma, però, che il Principio di Differenza è un criterio ambiguo di cui si possono fornire due interpretazioni: secondo quella più rigorosa sono considerate necessarie solo le ineguaglianze davvero tali, cioè indipendentemente dalle azioni messe in atto dai soggetti; secondo la lettura più permissiva invece sono necessarie anche le ineguaglianze che
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diventano tali a causa delle azioni degli individui. Se quindi, ad esempio, un’ineguaglianza è necessaria per migliorare la condizione dei più svantaggiati solamente perché gli individui più dotati si comportano come dei perfetti egoisti allora tale ineguaglianza sarà giustificata dalla versione più permissiva e condannata dall’altra (Cohen, 1992).Per disambiguare il Principio di Differenza bisogna, secondo Cohen, sviluppare un criterio di giustificazione (il test interpersonale) che sia in grado di valutare se una politica è sostenuta da buone ragioni, quindi accettabili da parte di tutti i membri della società. Applicando il test interpersonale al caso degli incentivi Cohen mostra che: 1. Solo l’interpretazione rigorosa del Principio di Differenza è pubblicamente condivisibile2. Per garantire un sistema sociale equo non sono sufficienti i principi per le istituzioni ma è
necessario anche un ethos che regoli le azioni dei soggetti3. Gli incentivi non sono una politica economica pubblicamente giustificabile La proposta di Cohen è stata criticata da diversi autori (Pogge, Williams, Joshua Cohen), i quali ne hanno messo in luce le profonde ambiguità, senza però chiarire quali ineguaglianze siano giustificabili in una società giusta e benordinata. Credo sia quindi opportuno tentare di rispondere a questa domanda mostrando, in primo luogo, come la proposta di Cohen (test interpersonale ed ethos egualitario) non sia corretta dal momento che semplifica eccessivamente il dibattito pubblico. Cohen infatti non chiarisce le relazioni tra il test, i suoi valori di sfondo (rispetto, eguaglianza morale) e i principi di giustizia; non definisce, inoltre, gli elementi che possono essere utilizzati all’interno dell’arena pubblica e quale sia l’oggetto della discussione, con la conseguenza che il suo test semplifica il dibattito sugli incentivi e li condanna senza alcuna distinzione.Una migliore risposta dovrebbe, come cercherò di suggerire, partire proprio da questi problemi e tentare di definire i criteri di un’arena pubblica nella quale le persone possano discutere delle questioni economiche, spiegando quale sia l`oggetto della discussione, chi vi può prendere parte, facendo riferimento a quali valori e appellandosi a quali ragioni.A conclusione del paper vorrei considerare come gli incentivi verrebbero giustificati all’interno di tale arena pubblica, sottolineando come questa proposta risulti essere più ragionevole della problematica giustificazione rawlsiana o del bando proposto da Cohen.
BIBLIOGRAFIA ESSENZIALECohen, G.A., Incentives, Inequality, and Community in “The Tanner Lectures on Human Values”, vol. XIII, a cura di G.B. Peterson, pp.261329, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 1992Cohen, J., Taking People as They Are?, “Philosophy and Public Affairs”, 30, 2002, pp. 589618Pogge, T., On the Site of Distributive Justice: Reflections on Cohen and Murphy, “Philosophy and Public Affairs”, 29, 2000, pp.13769Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge(Mass.) 1971, tr. it. Una teoria della giustizia, Feltrinelli, Milano 1972Rawls, J., Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, New York 1993, tr. it. Liberalismo politico, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano 1994Scheffler S., Is the Basic Structure Basic?, in Sypnowich, C.(a cura di), “The Egalitarian Conscience. Essays in Honour of G.A. Cohen”,Williams, A., Incentives, Inequality, and Publicity, “Philosophy and Public Affairs”, 27, 1998, pp. 22547
Claudia Bianchi (Università San Raffaele, Milano)Pornography as a speech act: the role of context (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
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In the last twenty years, recorded messages and written notes have become a significant test and an intriguing puzzle for the semantics of indexical expressions. In a recent paper (Saul 2006), Jennifer Saul draws on the literature on indexicals and recorded messages in order to criticize Rae Langton’s claim that works of pornography can be understood as illocutionary acts – in particular acts of subordinating women or acts of silencing women: pornography subordinates women by conditioning people to regard women as willing sexual objects; it silences women by creating a communicative environment that deprives women of their illocutionary potential (cf. Langton 1993, Hornsby 1993 and 2000, Hornsby and Langton 1998). In my paper I do not address this contentious claim, but focus exclusively on Saul’s reformulation and critique.Saul argues that it does not make sense to understand works of pornography as speech acts, because only utterances in contexts can be speech acts. According to Saul, works of pornography such as a film may be seen as recordings that can be used in many different contexts – exactly like a written note or an answering machine message; the question is to establish which context determines the speech act accomplished by a recording:a) the context in which it is recorded;b) the context in which it is heard or seen.According to Saul, bringing contexts into the picture undermines Langton’s radical thesis – which must be reformulated in much weaker terms: only viewings of pornography (choice b)) are illocutionary acts, and only some of them are illocutionary acts of subordinating women. A conclusion far from sufficient to justify a strong condemnation of pornography.In my paper, I accept Saul’s claim that only utterances in contexts can be speech acts, and that therefore only works of pornography in contexts may be seen as illocutionary acts of silencing women. I will, nonetheless, show that Saul’s reformulation doesn’t undermine Langton’s thesis. To this aim, I will use the distinction Predelli proposes in order to account for the semantic behaviour of indexical expressions in recorded messages. Let us examine an example adapted from Predelli. Suppose that, before leaving home at 8 ‘o clock in the morning, Mr. Jones writes a note to his wife, who will be back from work at 5 ‘o clock in the evening:(1) As you can see, I’m not here now. Meet me in two hours at Cipriani’s.In order to account for (1), Predelli suggests that we distinguish between the context of utterance (or inscription) and a context the speaker considers semantically relevant, that is the (intended) context of interpretation (Predelli 1998a: 403). The character of ‘now’ in (1) applies to the intended context and not to the context of utterance/inscription. In (1), the context giving the correct interpretation contains, as the temporal coordinate, Mrs. Jones’s expected time of arrival (5 p.m.) and not the moment Mr. Jones wrote the note (8 a.m.) or the moment Mrs. Jones came home (9 p.m.): this intended context provides the correct values for ‘now’ and ‘in two hours’, i.e. 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., while keeping the usual characters for the two expressions.If the parallel between indexical expressions and speech acts holds, we have a compelling argument against Saul’s choice of b) as the context relevant to determine the illocutionary force of a speech act in general, and of a pornographic utterance in particular. What matters is the intended context: the illocutionary force of a speech act is fixed only once the intended context is fixed a determination involving encyclopaedic knowledge of the world and of the speaker’s desires, beliefs and intentions. What especially matters are the intentions the speaker (the author of the pornographic work) makes available to the addressee: if they are transparent, publicly accessible and manifest, these intentions determine which particular speech act has been performed. My claim is a conditional one. If a work of pornography is indeed intended as an illocutionary act of subordinating women (a claim I don’t challenge in my paper), and if this intention is made available to the addressee, no benevolent viewing may change the illocutionary force of the utterance. It is not the actual viewing that fixes the illocutionary force of the
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pornographic utterance, but, so to speak, the expected viewing.
ReferencesHornsby, J. 1993. Speech acts and pornography. Women’s Philosophy Review 10: 38–45.Hornsby, J. 2000. Feminism in philosophy of language: Communicative speech acts. In The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, ed. M. Fricker and J. Hornsby, 87–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Hornsby, J. and R. Langton. 1998. Free speech and illocution. Legal Theory: 21–37.Langton, R. 1993. Speech acts and unspeakable acts. Philosophy and Public Affairs 22: 293–330.Predelli, S. 1996. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Analysis 56: 85–91.Predelli, S. 1998a. Utterance, interpretation, and the logic of indexicals. Mind and Language 13: 400–414.Predelli, S. 1998b. ‘I’m not here now’. Analysis 58: 107–15.Predelli, S. 2002. Intentions, indexicals and communication. Analysis 62: 310–16.Saul, J. 2006. Pornography, speech acts and context. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106: 229–48.
Andrea Borghini (College of the Holy Cross, MA, USA)Universalism and The Argument From Indifference (Metaphysicsa and Ontology9
In this paper I present an argument in favor of universalism (the thesis that, among the denizens of reality, some are universals). The argument stems from certain considerations at the intersection between metaphysics and epistemology, that is, on whether the most immediate entities to be perceived by our minds are particular or, rather, universals. Call PP the thesis that those entities are particular; UP the thesis that they are universal.That PP and UP are key in metaphysics can be seen from the following argument in favor of nominalism (the thesis that all denizens of reality are particular), that I will label the Argument from Particular Cognition (APC): (1) the entities of perception are singular (PP);(2) because of PP, the best explanation of universal cognition postulates certain operations of abstraction and simplification of the data about particular entities that we collect; (3) since these operations of abstraction and simplification give raise to a too high and gerrymendered multitude of universal terms, we better deny the existence of their universal correlates in the world. Hence, there are only particular entities. In this paper I will put forward an argument in favor of UP and, towards the end, I will show how such argument can be employed to run an Argument from Universal Cognition (AUC), that is an argument in favor of universalism that parallels APC. The argument in favor of UP that I present elaborates a version of what Gyula Klima labelled 'the argument from the indifference of sensory representation' or, for short, 'the argument from indifference'. (A wellknown version of the argument from indifference is due to William Okham; although, it should be clear, Okham stated it in the attempt to show its defeasibility.) Here is how the argument goes:
(1) If the entities of perception are singular, then we ought to be able – at least in principle – to distinguish between the perceptions of two distinct singular entities;
(2) However, we can imagine cases in which we would not be able to tell whether we are perceiving singular entity a or singular entity b (where a and b are distinct);
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(3) Therefore, the entities of perception are not singular.
Now, (1) follows from two assumptions. The first, is the following formulation of the principle of indiscernibility of identicals: "Necessarily: if a and b are identical, then a and b have the same qualitative, nonrelational properties". Qualitative properties are those that involve no reference to particular individuals (e.g., Napoleone). Nonrelational properties are those that involve one and only one individual. The exclusion of those properties is required in that, although they may provide relevant background information for explaining the perception of a specific entity, they seem not to be involved in defining that perception. Also, (1) follows only if we assume that all (qualitative, nonrelational) properties are – at least in principle – knowable. However, (1) can be rejected on several grounds. Okham, for example, acknowledged the possibility of there being two singular entities that are indiscernible when it comes to their qualitative and nonrelational properties. Another reason to reject (1) comes from the analysis of hallucinatory experiences: in hallucination, we cannot tell whether we perceive a singular entity or, rather, thin air. (A recent debate on this issue is relevant for present purposes; see Johnston, Martin, and Siegel.) Finally, authors such as David Lewis famously rejected (1), on the score that intrinsic properties (those nonrelational, qualitative properties that are held independently from the contexts) are not fully knowable to us (see the discussion of this thesis in Esfeld, Johnston, Langton, and Lewis). Thus, there is a large evidence to the effect that (2) is correct. To nominalists such as Okham and Lewis, however, this was not a sufficient reason to reject PP. They had another argument in favor of PP. The most formidable one, indeed, was put forward by Okham, and can be summed up in the following Particular Causation Thesis (PCT):
(PCT): the entities of perception are the result of a singular causal process.
And, for Okham, the outcome of a singular causal process cannot but be singular. In the paper, I question the validity of PCT, on the score that it presupposes a partisan conception of causation. Clearly, if causal processes are singular and real, they will relate singular entities; but, why should causation be singular? Why should it be real?I conclude by running an Argument from Universal Cognition (AUC) in favor of universalism: if UP is correct, then we are directly acquainted with universal entities and particular cognition cannot be accounted for in terms of acquaintance with particular entities; hence, it is hard to explain how particular cognition arises; my suspect (which I will not pursue in this paper) is that particular cognition derives from a specific conceptual operation that finds no correlate entity in reality: in the world there are universal entities only.
ReferencesEsfeld, M., "Do Relations Require Underlying Intrinsic Properties? A Physical Argument for a Metaphysics of Relations," Metaphysica 4: 525 (2003) Johnston, M., "The Obscure Object of Hallucination", Philosophical Studies 103: 113–83 (2004)Johnston, M., From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998Klima, G., John Buridan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming Langton, R., Kantian Humility. Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998 Lewis, D.K., "Ramseyan Humility," in D. BraddonMitchell and R. Nola (eds.), The Canberra Plan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming
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Martin, M. G. F., "The Reality of Appearances", in Sainsbury M. (ed.), Thought and Ontology, Milano: FrancoAngeli, 1997. Martin, M. G. F., "Particular Thoughts and Singular Thought", in O’Hear A. (ed.), Logic, Thought and Language, Cambridge University Press, 2002: : 173–214 Siegel, S., "Indiscriminability and The Phenomenal", Philosophical Studies 120: 90–112 (2004) Quine, W.V.O., "Speaking of Objects," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 31: 522 (1958) Varzi, A.C., Ontologia, Roma: Laterza Editore, 2005
Elisa Caldarola (Università di Padova, Italia)Towards a Representational Account of Abstract Images (Aesthetics)
The analytical debate on pictorial representation has not devoted much attention to abstract images so far. When this topic has been addressed, abstract images (or at least a subset of them) have been labelled ‘nonrepresentational’. I shall challenge this view and claim that all abstract images can be said to be representational, provided that we embrace a basic resemblance theory of pictorial representation (see Hyman 2006). My proposal presents two advantages: 1) it allows for making sense, within the boundaries of an analytical account of depiction, of several claims on the essentially representational character of a wide variety of abstract images, which have been addressed by artists and art critics; 2) it allows for understanding the role stylistic conventions and authorial intentions play in the production of both figurative and abstract images.In what follows, I shall assume that pictorial representation is an essentially intentional activity, which cannot be wholly explained in terms of a nonintentional phenomenon. I shall employ the term ‘pictorial representation’ to indicate images that share visual aspects with objects in the world we are acquainted with. I shall employ the term ‘abstract image’ to indicate both images that do not elicit the viewer to recognize any depicted object (apart from the pictorial medium itself) while looking at them, such as monochromes, and images that have been produced according to an antinaturalistic pictorial project, especially in the realm of Western art of the last century. Three strategies for distinguishing representational from nonrepresentational pictures are offered by the (mainly) philosophical literature on pictorial representations. In order to be representational a picture:a) must be such that we can recognize the objects it depicts (Gombrich, Lopes);b) must be such that in perceiving it we experience a sense of depth (Greenberg, Wollheim);c) must be such that we can imaginatively project its content into a threedimensional space
(Walton).As a consequence, all such accounts require us to consider at least some abstract images as nonrepresentational. According to Gombrich and Lopes all the pictures in which we cannot recognize any object are nonrepresentational; according to Greenberg and Wollheim all the pictures that do not convey some sense of depth exceed the limits of representation (e.g. Barnett Newmann’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 195051); while it seems reasonable to attribute to Walton the view that (at least) monochromes cannot be representational pictures.I shall address the following criticisms to the above accounts:(i) nonrepresentational images are conferred a decorative character (Gombrich, Greenberg). But the intention of producing a picture differs from the intention of producing a decorative pattern. Therefore this account is not faithful to the intention of the painter who is committed to the creation of an abstract picture.
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(ii) nonrepresentational images are conferred an exclusively expressive and/or autoreferential character (Lopes). But this hardly allows for making sense of the stylistic relations that may hold between such images and images in the figurative tradition.(iii) the perception of depth is not a reliable criterion for distinguishing representational from nonrepresentational pictures (contra Greenberg and Wollheim).(iv) the makebelieve account of depiction does not succeed in making sense of the specific pictorial character of figurative and abstract images (contra Walton).Finally, I shall address the following proposal for a representational account of abstract images. Given that:Assumption 1): necessary and sufficient conditions for there to be pictorial representation cannot be indicated without referring to authorial intentions, because pictorial representation is an essentially intentional phenomenon;Assumption 2): basic resemblance aspects (see Hyman 2006) shared by a picture and objects in the visual world are a necessary condition for there to be pictorial representation;Assumption 3) abstract images are here considered as essentially intentional products.It can be argued that:Thesis: all abstract images share at least one basic resemblance aspect with objects in the visual world, therefore, they basically represent as well as figurative pictures do.
ReferencesGombrich, E.H., Art and Illusion. A study in the psychology of pictorial representation, London: Phaidon 1960.Greenberg, C., Art and Culture. Critical Essays, Boston: Beacon Press, 1961.Hyman, J., The objective Eye. Color, Form, and Reality in the Theory of Art, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press 2006.Lopes, D., Understanding Pictures, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996.Walton, K., Mimesis as MakeBelieve, Cambridge, (Ma): Harvard University Press, 1990.Wollheim, R., Painting as an Art, London: Thames & Hudson 1988.
Francesco F. Calemi (Università degli Studi di Perugia) “Omnis Negatio Est Determinatio” (Metaphysics and Ontology)
According to the Truthmaker Maximalism every truth has a truthmaker, namely a chunk of reality in virtue of which the truth is true. But if every truth is made true by something in the world, what in the world makes negative truths true? Prima facie, our everyday life ontological inventory seems full of negative entities, such as negative properties, negative states of affairs, absences, privations and so on. From a preanalytic standpoint it’s rather hard to figure out how to get rid of them by purely positive descriptions of our world. Yet, I think we can.In this paper I set out and defend David M. Armstrong’s ontological view, according to which a maximalist truthmaker theory is consistent with a deflationary account of negative entities [see Armstrong 2004]. I first explain what the puzzle about truthworldnegation is, and I argue that the alleged noneliminability of negation might induce to rashly admit suspicious negative entities. Then I consider some attempts to solve the problem, valuing them in the light of two desiderata: truthmaker maximalism and ontological economy. Finally I focus on Armstrong’s solution, defending his standpoint from some recent criticisms. Here is a more detailed layout of my argument.If we endorse the truthmaker theory, we should commit to maximalism since the more we restrict its application range, the more the theory seems arbitrary. The topic is particularly clear
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in the case of negative truths. Some truthmaker theorists hold that such truths don’t need truthmakers at all. Unfortunately their very standpoint is a counterexample to the truthmaker theory rather than a harmless amendment to it. Indeed negative truths depend on the way things are as well as positive truths: e.g. the truth <My computer isn’t grey> is grounded on the fact that my computer is white. If someone holds that negative propositions can be true without having any truthmakers, she just can’t make sense of the idea that positive truths need truthmakers in order to be true.According to Armstrong’s Totality Realist view a negative truth is made true by totality and differences. That is, an object’s having a property isn’t a matter of the mere existence of those two terms, say a and F, for something over and above them is needed, namely the state of affairs a’s being F. Thus, if we consider the object a as a complex state of affairs constituted by a bearer plus properties, any negative truth of the form <a isn’t F> is grounded on the purely positive fact that each of a’s properties is different from F, that is to say, F is different from each property constituting the totality of a’s properties. Recently some theorists have criticized Armstrong’s view by saying that we don’t really need to posit totality states of affairs because we can ground negative truths either in real incompatibilities [Veber 2008] or in the very objects the truths are about [Björnsson 2007]. According to Veber’s incompatibilist view the negation has incompatibility between properties as an ontological counterpart. I argue that this solution works greatly with determinable properties, but cannot handle such truths as <Water is colorless>: actually there isn’t anything in the water that turns out to be incompatible with the property having a color. On the other side, Björnsson holds that any truth about an object’s lacking a property is grounded in the sheer existence of the object and the relevant property, just like a truth about an object’s having a property. I argue against Björnsson’s internalist that he buys the ontological innocence of negative truths at the price of truthmaker necessitarism. That is, the mere existence of the object, say a, and of the relevant property, say F, implies neither the truth of that a is F, nor the truth of that a isn’t F. As a result the same truthmaking chunk of the world would be, at the same time, the weird ontological ground for two contradictory propositions. Lastly, I draw the conclusion that the combination of truthmaker maximalism and an ontology of states of affairs handles the problem of negative truths in the best way.
References [1] ARMSTRONG, D. M., 2004, Truth and Truthmakers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[2] BJÖRNSSON, G., 2007, “If You Believe in Positive Facts, You Should Believe in Negative Facts”, Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, RØNNOWRASMUSSEN, T. PETERSSON, B. JOSEFSSON, J. EGONSSON, D., Lund University, http://www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek/site/papper/ BjornssonGunnar.pdf[3] VEBER, M., 2008, “How to Derive a ‘Not’ from an ‘Is’”: A Defense of the Incompatibility View of Negative Truths”, Metaphysica, 9:1, 79–91.
Paola Cantù (Università di Milano, Italia)Identity and Equality in Padoa’s Works (History of Ideas)
Reading Padoa’s works on equality in the light of the recent debate on identity, the paper will defend the claim that Padoa’s formulation of equality is strictly linked to the aim of distinguishing logic from mathematics and giving a unique definition of equality for all theories. The paper will first sketch the definition of equality that Padoa presents in several yet unpublished Letters to Vailati (1905): it is based on reflexivity and on the substitution property
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and differs radically from Peano’s definition in the Formulario. It will be shown that Padoa explicitly aims at giving a unique definition of equality whereas Peano’s notion of equality was introduced separately in the case of equality between elements of a class and in the case of equality between classes. Secondly, the paper will discuss Padoa’s definition of equality in La logique déductive dans sa dernière phase de devéloppement (1911), which is characterized by a very general, syntactical formulation. It will be argued that this syntactical approach is meant to define an absolute and global notion of identity as distinct from a local, relative relation of equality. Thirdly, the paper will analyze another definition of equality, which Padoa gives in Logica ideografica (1933) – a definition that is based on reflexivity and on a proportional property. It will be argued that Padoa again aims at proving the difference between logic and mathematics, as he distinguishes between the logical notion of identity and various mathematical notions of equivalence. Several reasons for the introduction of this new definition are suggested.The paper will end by making some general comments on Padoa’s conception of equality, remarking that it does not coincide neither with Frege’s notion nor with Peano’s formulation, though it might be connected to both. Like Frege, Padoa considers equality as an identity relation and is interested in a concept of identity that could be defined in logical terms only. Unlike Frege, Padoa is not really interested in absolute identity but, sharing Peano’s local conception of equality, he rather admits that many different equivalence relations characterize mathematics, and could be used to build new objects. So, Padoa attempts to argue not only in favour of a unique logical concept of identity to be introduced in every theory, but also in favour of a multiple notion of equality (an equivalence relation) to be defined separately in each theory.
Antonio Capuano (Università di Bologna, Italia)Reference versus Denotation (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In Reference and Definite Descriptions, Keith Donnellan pointed out that in ordinary English definite descriptions function in two distinct ways. They can be used referentially or attributively. Understood as semantic, Donnellan’s distinction between referential and attributive uses clashes with unitary accounts of definite descriptions – namely with accounts that recognize only one function of definite descriptions. If there really are two semantic functions, then a sentence should have different readings and different truth –conditions depending on the semantic function of the definite description. But what do the different readings depend on?Most of the discussion assumes that there are only two ways for a sentence to have different readings. Either a sentence is structurally ambiguous – like “every man loves a woman” or “the number of planets is necessarily odd” – or some of its expressions are lexically ambiguous. In fact, some believe that the referential/attributive distinction arises from an ambiguity of scope, namely a structural ambiguity. However, definite descriptions may be used referentially or attributively in simple sentences like “Smith’s murderer is insane” where there is no room for any scope ambiguity. Those who sympathize with the idea of scope’s ambiguity are forced to assume that all assertive sentences begin with an implicit “I say that”.But suppose that no hidden operator is present, as Donnellan is inclined to think. In this case no scope ambiguity can explain the two readings of sentences containing definite descriptions. The other option is that some of their words are lexically ambiguous. In particular, the definite article “the” is lexically ambiguous. If that were the case, the definite article would be like the English word “bank”, which may mean either the financial institution or the edge of a river. As Saul Kripke emphasized in Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference, it is very implausible that the definite article is like the English word “bank”.
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It seems that whoever wishes to hold that the referential/attributive distinction is relevant to the semantics is in a kind of a quandary. To claim that the referential/attributive distinction is relevant to the semantics one has to claim that a sentence containing a definite description used referentially has a different reading than a sentence containing a definite description used attributively. However, one can’t say what is the source of the two readings of the sentence. Is there a way out of the dilemma?I think the referential/attributive distinction is relevant to the semantics and truth –conditions. At the same time, I believe that if the referential/attributive distinction is relevant to the semantics, definite descriptions must give rise to different readings of a sentence. However, I’d like to argue that it is wrong to assume that the options mentioned above are the only ones available.In a way, Donnellan already explained what I am building upon – that definite descriptions generate different readings of a sentence containing them. The basic idea is not new and can be traced back to Russell. Russell distinguished between two different semantic relations: reference and denotation. In Reference and Definite Descriptions, Donnellan brings back this fundamental Russellian distinction. The point about the difference between referring and denoting does not especially concern definite descriptions. It is a general, logical point about language. Some linguistic expressions are used to refer and some other expressions can be used to denote. Are there linguistic expressions that are used to refer in some context and to denote in some other context? If there were, they would exhibit a duality of semantic functions. As a consequence, they would give rise to different readings of a sentence containing them.In fact, referring is a two step relation. The speaker has an object in mind and by using a definite description he goes back to that object. Denoting is a three step relation. The speaker has some attribute in mind. By using a definite description the speaker expresses a certain condition. If a unique object satisfies that condition then that object is the denotation of the definite description. By virtue of the different nature of the relation of referring and of denoting, whether a definite description refers to an entity or denotes an entity makes a difference in the truth –conditions of the sentence:(a) Used referentially “the man drinking a martini is tipsy” is true if and only if the individual
that originated the use of the definite description is tipsy.(b) Used attributively “the man drinking a martini is tipsy” is true if and only if the unique
individual to whom the description applies is tipsy.Clearly, the two different readings do not depend on a structural ambiguity or a lexical ambiguity.
Stefano Caputo (Università di Torino, Italia)Deflationism and Explanatory Asymmetry (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
Any competent speaker of English both accepts as a trivial truth any instance of the form “if it is true that p then it is true because p” and rejects any instance of the form “if p then p because it is true that p” as a patent falsity. This is what I label “explanatory asymmetry” (between “p” and “it is true that p”). Explanatory asymmetry expresses our conviction that truth is grounded on being and not the other way around, hence the dependence of truth on being seems to be an essential feature of truth. That is why accounting for the explanatory asymmetry is a task no theory of truth should escape. It has been claimed that deflationary conceptions of truth are unable to account for the explanatory asymmetry. This happens because according to such conceptions there is no asymmetry between “p” and “it is true that p”, either because they are supposed to have the same content or because their connection is taken to be exhausted by an a priori mutual entailment. Concerning the first case (identity of content) it has been claimed that deflationism is inconsistent with the explanatory asymmetry: if “p” and “it is true that p” have the same content,
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then they are substitutable salva veritate in any context, so that “it is true that p because p” has the same truthvalue as “p because p” which is false (I call this the inconsistency argument).As far as the second case (apriori mutual entailment) is concerned it has been claimed that although deflationism is not inconsistent with explanatory asymmetry, it is hard to see where it can find the conceptual tools to account for an asymmetry no trace of which can be found in the theory. My first point focuses on the inconsistency argument. The argument is unsound because it has a false premise: it is not true that expressions with the same content (even paradigmatic cases of synonymous expressions such as “bachelor” and “unmarried male”) are substitutable salva veritate in any context; and “because” contexts are precisely the sort of contexts in which substitution fails. The other points concern the problem of how deflationism can account for the explanatory asymmetry. I will first stress some shortcomings of some attempts to give such an account in a deflationist spirit (Horwich 1990, Wright 1992, Hornsby 2005) and hence I will put forward my account which has similarities with those developed by W. Kuenne (2003), B. Schnieder (2006) and S. Barker (2007). In particular I agree with Kuenne’s idea that sentences of the form “it is true that p because p” are conceptual explanations in which an asymmetrical relation of partial conceptual analysis holds between “p” (the analysans) and “it is true that p” (the analysandum). Nonetheless I think that Kuenne’s proposal does not provide a general clarification of such a relation, and in particular of its asymmetry.My aim is to clarify the relation of conceptual analysis focusing on the relations of asymmetric dependence holding between our linguistic competence on some items of the lexicon and our linguistic competence on other items. With regard to such dependences the couples of expressions of the form “It is true that p”/”p” share many similarities with other couples of expressions such as “bachelor”/”unmarried male” which are paradigmatic cases of expressions among which holds a relation of conceptual analysis. My proposal here is close to the inferential account of the explanatory asymmetry recently developed by S. Barker. This way of understanding the relation of (full or partial) conceptual analysis and therefore of conceptual explanation, is consistent with the two main claims which are central in any deflationist conception of truth: 1) that truth cannot be defined; 2) that our acceptance of the instances of the TSchema is exhausting for our knowledge of what is truth.I will conclude that the deflationist about truth is able to account for the explanatory asymmetry provided that he adds to his theory of truth a theory concerning our lexical competence on the word “true”.
ReferencesBarker, S. (2007), Global Expressivism: Language Agency without Semantics, Reality without Metaphysics, http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/696/1/BOOKGE.pdfHornsby, J. (2005) «Truthmaking Without Truthmaker Entities», in: Beebee, H., Dodd, J. (a c. di), Truthmakers. The Contemporary Debate, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Horwich, P., (1990), Truth, Oxford, Basil BlackwellKuenne, W., (2003), Conceptions of Truth, Oxford, Oxford University Press.RodriguezPereyra, G. (2005) «Why Truthmakers», in: Beebee, H., Dodd (op. cit.)Schnieder, B., (2006), «Truthmaking without Truthmakers», Synthèse 152, 21–47.Vision, G. (2005), Deflationary Truthmaking, European Journal of Philosophy 13 (3) , 364–380––– (1997), «Why Correspondence Truth Will Not Go Away», Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 38, 1, pp. 104131.Wright, C., (1992), Truth and Objectivity, Cambridge, Ma, Harward University Press.
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Manuel GarcíaCarpintero (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)Plenary SpeakerPretending to Refer
More than fifty years ago, Quine brought back the de re/de dicto distinction to the attention of the philosophical community. Through its impact on the debate confronting direct vs. descriptivist accounts of reference started by Barcan Marcus, Donnellan, Kaplan and of course Saul Kripke in the following decade, the nature of de re or singular thoughts became one of the leading concerns of contemporary philosophers. As perhaps we should expect, in spite of extended discussion we are far from having a generally accepted philosophical account; some philosophers defend more or less strict version of “acquaintance” account, on which an epistemic condition is placed on the possibility of singular thoughts, while others defend “acquaintanceless” or “latitudinarian” views, on which pure descriptive access to the res may suffice. In my talk, I will examine the impact on the issue on the semantics of fictional discourse. I will study the behaviour of intuitively empty referential expressions, proper names, indexicals, and referentially used descriptions, mostly in two specific and related sort of cases: the use of those expressions by the creator of the fiction, while putting forward the speech acts which I take to be constitutive of that activity; and critical discourse of fictions aimed at getting its content right. I will argue that those cases provide indirect evidence supporting an epistemic account of singular thoughts.
Elena Casetta (Università di Torino, Italia)What’s Wrong with Taxonomic Conventionalism? (Epistemology)
Ontological conventionalism is the view according to which some – or all – entities depend as their individuation on our conventions, in other words, they are the result of negotiation acts or, more widely, of social practices. In particular, I’ll call taxonomic conventionalism the thesis that biological taxa (i.e., groups of organisms at whatever categorical rank in a classification system) are conventional objects, and I’ll focus on species taxa. Typically, taxonomic conventionalism goes hand in hand with the questioning of monism, understood as the view according to which the world would be naturally structured in one and only one way (so that one and only one would be the right taxonomic system, for the task of the system is that of discovering and mirroring that structure). To give up with monism (and to adopt pluralism) is often seen as an obstacle to scientific practice, mostly on the basis of two arguments and one objection [see Ereshefsky 1992]: (a) The confusion argument (pluralism entails that the term ‘species’ is ambiguous; if the term ‘species’ is ambiguous, then confusion will set in when biologists discuss the nature of species, for biologists will mean different things by ‘species’; such confusion has to be avoided; hence pluralism should be avoided); (b) The inconsistency argument (if systematics has to be a science, then it has to bow the requirement that objects falling under the same label must be comparable in some way, while if incompatible taxonomies are provided, this requirement is not satisfied); (c) The “anything goes” objection: Pluralism should be avoided because it does not allow to distinguish between good and bad taxonomies (the Borges’ Chinese Encyclopedia would be as legitimate as a philogenetic taxonomy), which is unacceptable. I’ll argue that (a) and (b) rest upon a false presupposition trading on a confusion between metaphysical monism and taxonomic monism, and that (c) can be answered by introducing two
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other distinctions: a distinction between arbitrariness and indifference among alternatives, and a distinction between ‘matter of existence’ and ‘matter of evaluation’. The conclusion I’ll draw is that buying into taxonomic conventionalism need not pay any cost to scientific practice. There may be some costs for common sense, but that is another question.
References Cracraft, J., ‘Species Concepts and Speciation Analysis’ in R. Johnston (ed.) Current Ornithology, New York, Plenum Press, 1983:15987.Einheuser, I., ‘Counterconventional Conditionals’, Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.Ereshefsky, M., ‘Eliminative Pluralism’, Philosophy of Science, 59 (1992): 67190.Ghiselin, M.T., The Triumph of the Darwinian Method, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1969.Ghiselin, M.T., ‘Species Concepts, Individuality, and Objectivity’, Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 12743.Hennig, W., Phylogenetics Systematics, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1966.Hull, D.L., ‘Genealogical Actors in Ecological Roles’, Biology and Philosophy 2 (1987): 16883.Lewis, D.K., Convention – A Philosophical Study, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1969.Varzi, A.C., ‘Boundaries, Conventions, and Realism’, draft of a paper presented at the 11th Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, “Carving Nature at Its Joints”, Moscow (Idaho), March 15, 2008.
Roberto Ciuni (Università di Firenze, Italia)Prior's Logic Qt and Quantification on Past Objects (Metaphysics and Ontology)
In [2] Arthur Prior conjectures that in the logic Qt it is possible to quantify at any given instant on past and present objects without quantifying on future ones. In the present work, I prove that this is not possible if Qt conforms to the thesis S: "Sentences about past objects are either true or false", that is argued to be indispensable for any position that accepts quantification on past objects while refusing that on future ones. Aims of the work are: (1) showing the conceptual inadequacy of Prior's complex set of assumptions with respect to an option that is apparently compatible with them; (2) finding a logic in which conservative quantification fits with reasonable nonformal assumptions on quantifying on past objects (as opposed to future ones). The idea that what has existed possesses a different status from what has not yet existed is briefly defended in the present work, mainly on the assumption that the way past objects contribute to the present state of the world makes a difference between them and future objects. The main formal result of the work is that, if it conforms with S, conservative Qt collapses on the traditional quantification on constant domains, thus making Prior's conjecture false. This provides us two options: either (a) we abandon S without renouncing conservative Qt, or (b) we refuse Qt as a base for conservative quantification. In accordance to the previous defence of the link between S and conservative quantification, (b) is supported: Qt is taken to be unsuitable for conservative quantification. After showing Qt's unsuitability, I introduce a logic where conservative quantification is endorsed in conformity with S without collapsing on a quantification on constant domains: it is a temporal version of K4.3 plus a Kripkestyle conservative quantification. I will proceed as follows: in the first part of the work, I introduce Prior's conjecture, the rationale for conservative quantification, and a defence of the conceptual link
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between such a quantificational option and the thesis S. Then, I introduce thethreevalued logic Qt and the philosophical assumptions that led Prior to build it up. For the sake of simplicity, Qt will be interpreted on linear time. Then, I design for Qt a conservative quantification that conforms to S. I call the resulting logic QCt. In the second part, I prove that QCt derives H∀xϕ x ↔ ∀xHϕ x (where H is "always in the past"), and I prove that this leads to quantifying on constant domains. Obviously, quantification on constant domains involves future objects, and this makes Qt incompatible with conservative quantification if S is endorsed. Since S has been argued to be indispensable when adopting a conservative quantification, Prior's logic is rejected as a base for it. The conceptual reasons for Qt's inadequacy are discussed, and it is introduced a logic that works in conformity with S without committing conservative quantification to quantification on future objects (and constant domains in general). It consists in the propositional logic LIN (a temporal version of the modal K4.3) plus a conservative apparatus that follows the syntactical caveat by Kripke (see [1]). It is proved that the logic derives ∀xHϕ x → H∀xϕ x but not the converse, thus avoiding constant domains.
References[1] Kripke Saul (1963) Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16:8394.[2] Prior Arthur (1967) Past, Present and Future, Clarendon, Oxford.
Miriam Cometto (Università di Roma 3, Italia)Beyond Newman’s problem, Eddington’s escaping Russell’s worry (Epistemology and philosophy of science)
In his 1919, B.Russell introduced a view which he further developed in The Analysis of Matter (1927), claiming that we could attain only a structural knowledge of the physical world, which in the end prevents us from knowing any intrinsic feature of it (this view recalls suggestions already found in Poincarè and Duhem). The picture Russell gives is basically a thesis on the way our knowledge is supposed to represent physical reality: up to isomorphism. Such a thesis is motivated by the growing abstractness of contemporary physics and it is coupled with the will of avoiding any form of solipsism, phenomenalism and materialism, toward a view which he calls neutral monism. In the same years, A.S.Eddington developed a point of view very similar to Russell’s, also with the purpose of explaining scientific knowledge and its relation with common sense world. The strict similarities between the two positions suggest a mutual influence with the outcome that they are often treated as the same. In 1928 Russell’s thesis underwent the crucial criticism, moved by M.H.A.Newman: Russell’s notion of similarity of structure, which was substantially, supposed to characterize our knowledge of the world, reduces it to a matter of cardinality. One year later, Eddington underwent the same kind of criticism from Braithwaite.Nevertheless Eddington’s answer proved his view to be surprisingly equipped against the criticism, although it was in a simple way. One of the things that makes such early structural positions interesting and the debates over their notions significant, is the fact that analogous points of view have been recently developed within the debate on scientific realism, particularly on the status of our knowledge of physical world and on the fundamental ontology arising from scientific theories. Within such renewing of structuralist positions, we are then presented with two lines, an epistemic one and an ontic one, addressing respectively Russell’s and Eddington’s view. The first line deals mainly with issues of “representation”, scientific progress and pessimistic metainduction arising from scientific revolution, and basically the limits of our knowledge: this is the line which draws from Russell’s view. The second line, which draws from Eddington’s view, points in a different direction, that is
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the way of a reconceptualization of the notion of physical object, in a manner that was similarly developed also in Cassirer’s view and Weyl reflections. Then the aim of this work will be first of all an inquiry into Russell’s and Eddington’s structuralism with an eye to the recent structuralist views. We will present Russell’s position and the connection between the doctrine of structure and the causal theory of perception. Secondly, we will show the fundamental objection of Newman: the claim that our knowledge of the world is structural, considering ‘the world’ as an aggregate of elements for which there exists a system of relations with an assigned structure which is similar to the structure of our perceptions, although fascinating, does not give us any important information. The point is that important statements about the structure are those concerned with the structure set up in the considered aggregate of elements by a given, definite relation. Newman tells Russell that his notion of structure is so general (in his logic scaffold) that:1) it enables a plurality of models (of reality) among which it is impossible to choose the
definite (true/real) one.2) The only knowledge you gain from that is a knowledge regarding the cardinality of the
system Before going on to consider Eddington’s structural view, we will dwell on the way some recent positions (Grower, Worrall and Zahar) got the idea of structural knowledge, trying to developed the notion of “structural content” via the endorsement of the Ramsey sentence. Finally we will consider Eddinton position and the way his structuralism is immune to Newman’s problem. In a recent work, T.Ryckman claimed it was due to the fundamental neokantian view lying behind Eddington’s work. Our idea is that Eddington’s notion of structure, which deviated from the original russellian line, turning in the direction of mathematical group theory, made the difference. The most interesting feature of the given particular picture is that the elaboration of the structural claim falls into a new trend in conceiving the object of physical knowledge and, as a consequence of this, our very knowledge. 1. Russell’s viewWithin Russell’s view the structural claim is strictly linked to a causal theory of perception introduced in order to support the neutral monism which the author considers a kind of third view between idealism and materialism. As a monism it should be a thesis, regarding the ultimate reality, against the dualism between mindreality and physicalreality, suggesting rather a unity of the “material” of reality at the fundamental level. As a neutralism it should support the idea that such fundamental reality is neither psychological nor physical. Such a view is endorsed in The Analysis of Matter(1927), in order to account for the growing abstractness of the new physics. Hence the new theory of perception he develops is meant to account in the suitable way for the relation between physics and perception: the issue is then to give an account of the latter which fits well with the new character of the former, allowing us the appeal to empirical evidence (which traditionally falls under the domain of perceptions). In such a view the crucial passage is the deduction from perceptions to physics and it is developed on the basis of a postulate of analogy between perceptions and their stimuli, effects and their causes. Such postulate is structural in nature.The core of the thesis is that what we experience (= our perceptions) is causally related to its stimuli in the external world and from the effects we can reach a great amount of information as regard to the structure of the causes, i.e. causes and their effects are structurally similar. The structural similarity is characterized in the following way: it regards relations and systems of relations two similar relations share the same structure or numberrelation, that is, the class of all the
possible relation similar to the given one two relations P,Q are similar if and only if there exists a 1:1 correspondence between the
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terms of the respective fields such than when two terms of the first field are in the relation P, the two correspondent terms of the second field are in the relation Q. He is basically saying that there is a strategy, a way of correspondence between perceptions and their stimuli such that in knowing our perceptions we reach a knowledge of the structure of our stimuli
The nature of such a correspondence/similarity is the same as the one which lets us infer from a geographic map the represented area, from a phonic record the represented music.Such analogy is meant to be at the very basis of the notion of representation ( and scientific knowledge is representative in itself: the obtained representation gets the structure of the external world)
With “external world”, it is meant things that are not perceived: Russell is not questioning our daily knowledge of macroscopic objects we do experience, rather he is questioning the knowledge of things we do not perceive, which do not fall directly under our experience, whether because they enter other people’s experience, or they are not perceivable. This kind of scheme is evidently suitable to deal with things that fall under the kind of knowledge given by physics. Russell’s point is that the knowledge we gain regarding the physical world conceived in such a way does not regard the intrinsic features/qualities that we have of perceptions, rather the relevant structure: in physics nothing…ever depends on the actual qualities. (Analysis of Matter, p.227). The physical space is not identical to the perceptual; on the other hand, the kind of correspondence established via the structural postulate is considered as allowing a deduction of logical(or mathematical) properties of physical space. Because perceptions are ordered according to some characteristics, stimuli should be ordered according to some correspondent characteristics, depending only on some logical properties of stimuli and that is why physical knowledge is mathematical: we cannot deduce any non mathematical property of the physical world.2. Newman’s objectionThe strong criticism arising from Newman’s side (1928) basically focuses on the uselessness of the division of knowledge, truly fascinating, in the structural and nonstructural, unless we are prepared to return to the view that really there is nothing of importance that can be said about the external world. The trouble is the view that nothing but the structure of the external world is known.(144)The point is: what do we gain by knowing that there is a similarity of structure between our perceptions and their stimuli? What are we learning? To Newman this means that we only could know that the world consists of objects, forming an aggregate whose structure with regard to a certain relation R is known, say W; but of the relation R nothing is known but its existence and such assertion just expresses a trivial property of the world, concerning its cardinality: indeed any collection of things can be organised so as to have the structure W, provided there are the right number of them.In the end, if our knowledge concerns only structure, we cannot know anything that is not logically deducible from the mere fact of existence, except (‘theoretically’) the number of constituting objects. Let’s try to reverse this statement: we know the cardinality of the system plus everything that is logically deducible from the mere fact of existence of the structure. Hence, to really know what we are knowing, we have to see what is logically deducible from the existence of such structure. But we could set out any structure similar to the given one, hence any model of the world of stimuli could be provided out of the known structure W of our perceptions. In Russell’s account we could be provided with a multiplicity of theoretical models for the same physical domain, without the ability to choose the intended one, since the constraints for “being the correct representation of”, are so general that they are trivial.3. Beyond Russell’s structuralism
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Some recent positions (Grower, Worrall and Zahar) got the idea of structural knowledge, trying to develop the notion of “structural content” via the endorsement of the Ramsey sentence. As mentioned above, a debate on the possibilities of saving Russell’s structuralism against Newman’s objection took place recently within the wider domain of realist positions, in order to answer Laudan’s 1981 pessimistic metainduction by saying that what is retained through scientific revolutions is a knowledge of the structure of the external world. Russell’s view is then refreshed within epistemic structural realist positions appealing to the Ramsey sentence in order to specify the idea of structural content of a theory which they accept to be realist on: all the cognitive content of a theory is accounted via its Ramsey sentence. The Ramsey sentence of a theory T, as is well known, is the sentence T* formed from T by replacing all the theoretical predicates with variable predicates and quantifying them existentially.Now both the structural idea of knowledge and the use of the Ramsey sentence to account for it, underwent a lot of criticism which mirror Newman’s one.In Russell’s later work Human Knowledge , which although Newman’s early criticism presents the structuralist suggestions and restates the structural postulates, we find something quite close to the ramseyfication in his asserting that “qualities and relations, if not experienced, can only be known by means of descriptions in which all the constants denote things that are experienced. It follow that a minimum vocabulary for what we experience is a minimum vocabulary for all our knowledge (HK,283).Now, the attempt to develop Russell’s structuralism endorsing a Ramseyian account aims to save structural stance on knowledge: the structural knowledge gives us the information of a Ramsey sentence. In other words, we take the theory, eliminate the theoretical predicates, substitute them with predicate variables (as II order’s ones) and quantify them existentially (II order existential quantifier).This means that 1) We do not quantify on I order individuals2) the picture regards the II order, then it concerns relations and fits well with the structural
view. A clear analysis of the ramseyan revising of Russell’s structuralism is presented in J.Ketland (2004). He inquires as to whether claiming that T* is true would be different from simply claiming that T is empirically adequate and his aim is showing that they are the same claim, since the first statement only adds cardinality constraints to the empirical adequacy. This would mean that any attempt to revising realism in structural terms would fail.Nevertheless there is an interesting issue on the claim of the triviality of ramseyfication, pointed out by Meelia and Saatsi (2006). Ketland’s analysis indeed makes some fundamental and nonbanal assumptions. He takes the language of the theory under scrutiny to be ),,( TMOL
with O for observative relations, M for mixed relations and T for theoretical relations: those relations interpret extralogical predicates. This means that we have a theory T (t…t, o…o)( non logical predicates)on a domain S and we have a model M (D, R…R) for that theory such that R…R are the interpretations of the predicates of T, and D, is a domain with the same cardinality of S ( therefore the model is Tcardinality correct). According to Ketland we obtain a twosorted language, whose first order variables are meant to be divided into primary variables, which range over observable objects, and secondary variables, ranging over unobservable objects. The result of ramseyfication would cancel both theoretical and mixed predicates. This is the first non banal assumption which is not implicit in the structuralist view: there is not any structural point of view which is forced to abandon the mixed predicates (as having mass, being white, and so on). The second assumption regards the way in which the existential quantification is accounted, since quantification over properties is not the same as quantification over sets.
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Clarifying such assumptions, some possibilities are opened for the structural account pointing to the fact that the structural content is not bound to the pure formal, logical structure. By the way, Russell’s logical notion would be in any case avoided.4. Eddington’s view Referring to Newman’s criticism of Russell, Eddington argues that ‘Russell, in his pioneer development of structuralism, did not get so far as the concept of groupstructure. He had glimpsed the idea of a purely abstract structure; but since he did not concern himself with the technical problem of describing it, he had no defence against Newman’s criticisms. Russell’s vague conception of structure was a pattern of entities, or at most a pattern of relations; but the elements of group theory make it clear that pure structure is only reached by considering a pattern of interweaving, i.e. a pattern of interrelatedness of relations [and here Eddington refers to The Philosophy of Physical Science, pp. 137140].’ (Eddington 1941, p. 278).Eddington develops the doctrine of structure in a peculiar sense: on the one side the notion of structure must be coupled with perceptions and sensations, as well as in Russell’s view; on the other side it is coupled with the notion of group as taken from the mathematical group theory, which is then extended to nonmathematical collections (sensation and nonsensed physical objects).In any event, Eddington’s final notion of structure is not any longer tied to the establishing of an isomorphism. Eddington in the end takes the mathematical side of the notion. Each mathematical construct is an abstraction for that (event or object) which stands beyond the observation. But always there is the claim that this symbol, structural concept, stands for (refers to) an objective reality. In his Philosophy of the Physical Science (pp.14142) he says that mathematics dismisses the individual elements by assigning to them symbols, leaving it to nonmathematical thought to express the knowledge, if any, that we may have of what the symbols stand for. To summarize the character of Eddington’s structuralism we could sketch the following points: within the domain of relativity he says: the ontological picture starts from point events
between which there is a quantitative relation, that he calls the interval. From comparing intervals a rule of connection emerges which expresses a quality of the world, measured by the coefficients of metric tensor. By operations on those coefficients we obtain Einstein’s tensor and then we can introduce the field equations. The relevant point is that the field equations are not taken as laws that connect points, rather as mathematical identifications defining “definite and absolute” conditions of the world.
From these conditions our perceptions of emptiness and matter arise. structuralism concerns physical knowledge, that is, symbolic/metrical knowledge the target is avoiding substance and of matter as a substance: matter is just one of a
thousands of relations. Even when he treats the atomicity law via quantum mechanics, he seems to basically embed it into the structural point of view: relata cannot be distinguished over and above the relations in which they are involved and also relations cannot be prior to relata: the two come in a package. Eddington structuralism seems, in such sense, to be a kind of holism. One of the consequences is that since there are no relata prior to the structure, there is nothing characterizing them a part from the structure, then there is no sense in speaking of intrinsic properties.
From the point of view of the abstract group, the difference between the nature of the element of the group and the nature of the combining relation which makes it an element of the group disappears: the combining relation makes each element of the group an element of that group. For instance if we speak of βαγ = , we are saying that the elements( and α β ) come together with that specific relation °.
We are interested in relations of relations: we are not just dealing with a collection of elements and a relation, rather with more relations that are interrelated, where the structure
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we know is precisely characterized by such interrelatedness rather than from the existence of single relations.
the transcendental philosophy in Eddington’s view has a relevant role, since it seems that the relevant features of the world are taken as qualities which the mind prefers. The world provides only the aggregate of point events (at least in general relativity).Nevertheless the reason why the mind chooses that quality remains mysterious: some kind of law of atomicity seems to be a law of the very World.
POSTULATE: “the mind can appreciate only relations”. Then the insistence over the pattern of interrelatedness is meant to provide a justification of how substance arises from combination of relations.
Newman’s problem affects Eddington’s view only to the extent that whatever the constitution of the external world, we can pick out a fourdimensional aggregate of entities that we may take to be our pointevents since these have been left undefined. But Eddington does not stop there, he also says: if we attempt to push the analysis behind the pointevents, we are, I think, bound to particularize the structure (1920b, p.157).Physical knowledge should not be taken as a knowledge of the mere fact that there is a four dimensional aggregate of point events. Therefore understanding the structural knowledge is understanding what it is to particularize the structure. The particularization of the structure provided by general relativity is obtainable via the quantum mechanics: according to Eddington, understanding the relation between quantum physics and relativity, which is still today one of the main issues of theoretical physics, is understanding why the mind chooses as substantial matter the same quality which Nature provides as some kind of atomicity. Moreover the final issue is to understand in which terms such atomicity must be understood. The suggestion is that it could be understood in structural terms ,with the structure conceived as a net of relations between relata, when the nodes of the structure and the relations are taken together.The fundamental feature of such a view, which motivates recent interest from the side of ontic structural realism, is that it points to the fact that quantum properties are given a grouptheoretic characterization. In such a view, not any collection of objects can be organized so as to have the world structure since it is the kind of differentiated/differentiating structure which, for example, characterizes some nodes via halved values of spin (in which cases we speak of fermions) and some others via integer values (in which cases we speak of bosons).
Antonella Corradini (Università Cattolica di Milano, Italia)Emergent Dualism (Philosophy of Mind)
In this contribution I outline a dualistic variant of emergentism. As known, according to emergentism, the mental dimension is emergent upon the physical one, i.e. mental phenomena are new with respect to their neurophysiological basis. However, to say that mental phenomena are emergent also means that they arise from their underlying physical basis and are dependent on it for their persistence. For these reasons, the notion of emergence offers in the view of many philosophers a convincing middleway between reductionism and dualism. On the one hand, it seems able to avoid reductionism, as emergence is conceived as a new kind of relation; on the other hand, it seems also able to avoid dualism, as emergentism stresses the dependence of mental phenomena upon the physical ones. Under this respect emergentism is similar to nonreductive physicalism, which shares with the former the committment both to a monistic ontology and to the thesis of the irreducibility of higherlevel properties. As a matter of fact, some contemporary thinkers such as J. Kim tend to assimilate both positions. However, Kim’s fervour in assimilating the two views mainly aims at
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making a trenchant criticism of both of them. I shall briefly address Kim’s argument against emergence (Kim 1999), which shows that acceptance of downward causation, as a mark of the higher levels’ irreducibility, is incompatible with upward determination, a thesis which is implied by acceptance of physicalism. Neither emergentism nor nonreductive physicalism can accept these conclusions, which undermine the plausibility of both positions. But are these conclusions unavoidable? They are so only if the mental level is determined by the physical one, that is to say if the underlying basis is not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition of the emergent property. However, the thesis of upward determination is not a part of any scientific discipline, but is a mere assumption, which turns out not to be true if the emergent quality is such in virtue of its not being wholly dependent on its realization basis. Indeed, it is plausible to maintain that higherlevel mental functions, even if they presuppose the activation of the neurophysiological level – for there is no thought without brain , cannot be produced by their neurophysiological basis alone. If this is the case, then higherlevel mental functions are able to influence the brain’s activity, that is to say, they are sufficient conditions for it (according to downward causation), while their neurophysiological basis is insufficient for generating higherlevel mental functions, although it represents the necessary condition of them. Against this view of the micromacro relationship can be objected that it leans towards dualism, whereas both emergentists and nonreductive physicalists are as reluctant to embrace dualism as they are to endorse reductive physicalism. From the historical point of view it is surely right to say that emergentists were no dualists. However, in this paper I shall try to show that the emergentistic view, though not nonreductive physicalism, finds its most natural collocation within a dualistic framework. In recent years some attempts have been made to develop emergentistic models which display more or less marked “dualistic” features (O’Connor, Humphreys, Hasker). In the final part of this paper I shall address the main theses put forward in one of these models, O’Connor’s one and discuss it critically. I shall show that an unambiguous reading of O’Connor’s proposal brings us to a more explicit form of dualism than that allowed by the author himself. Finally, I shall deal with the controversial issue whether emergent dualism is likely to be a variant of property dualism or if it also aknowledges the emergence of whole substances. My conclusion will be that, if emergentists want to realize their nonreductionistic purposes, emergence must be understood as a dualistic relation which, moreover, plausibly requires not only a property dualism, but a distinctive kind of emergent substance dualism.
References Hasker, W. 1999. The Emergent Self. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Humphreys, P. 1997a. “How Properties Emerge.” Philosophy of Science 64: 117 2006. “Emergence.” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Second Edition), edited by D. Borchert. NewYork: MacMillan.Kim, J. 1999. “Making Sense of Emergence.” Philosophical Studies 95: 336.O’Connor, T. 2005. “The Metaphysics of Emergence.” Nous 39: 65878.
Richard Craven (University of Bristol, UK)Actual Counterparts: Modal Atheism Without Lewisian Semantics (Metaphysics & Ontology)
In this paper, a novel objection is prosecuted against the most widely accepted semantics of modality i.e. Lewisian semantics. The objection is that Lewisian accounts fail to provide the
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convincing accommodation needed for the widespread but underreported phenomenon of actual counterparts, which are commonly used by ordinary speakers to ground de re modal claims. The result, of any attempt by Lewisians to accommodate the actual counterpart phenomenon, is a drastic marginalisation of the role of possible worlds and their inhabitants in the grounding of de re modal claims.The actual counterpart objection presses acutely on any modal theory adopting Lewisian semantics as its semantic element. In particular, traditional modal atheism is the combination of Lewisian semantics with actualism, a strong but plausible scepticism towards nonactual worlds and individuals. John Divers rightly decries traditional atheism for its vulnerability to a catastrophic contingencyrelated expressive failure known as modal collapse. It is argued in this paper, that traditional atheism’s expressive failure derives substantially from the defect it inherits as a Lewisian theory in relation to actual counterparts.Divers takes traditional atheism’s failure as motivating agnosticism, which involves the retention of a Lewisian semantics in combination with a weakened nonactual scepticism. Although, historically speaking, the agnosticism shaped by Divers is pretty much the only modal theory explicitly to have appealed to actual counterparts in the grounding of de re modal claims, it is clear that the actual counterpart objection presses as acutely upon agnosticism as it does upon other Lewisian accounts. One of three further objections to agnosticism, is that traditional atheism is a straw man and agnosticism correspondingly undermotivated, for a more sophisticated atheist substantially remedies his traditional sibling’s failure by exploiting the very same phenomenon of actual counterparts.
References David Lewis 1968 Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic. Journal of Philosophy. Vol65 No. 5. pp113126John Divers 2004 Agnosticism About Other Worlds: a New Antirealist Programme in Modality. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research Vol lxix No.3. pp660685
Marco Cruciani (Università di Trento, Italia)Cone of language (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of language. I will defend the following hypothesis: an agent’s situational interest drives the individual choice of meaning for ambiguous sentences. I argue that the support of formal semantics, use of the dictionary, context of use and domain knowledge are not able to determine a unique meaning for an expression of natural language. I argue that they are able to reduce possible meanings on the basis of some linguistic constraints, and I represent them by means of the ‘cone of language’, which is composed of four levels. The formal semantics level admits grammatically correct sentences. Semantics provides formal interpretations of sentences and reduces the potentially infinite set of meanings for a grammatically correct sentence. The output from this level is a set of semantically admissible meanings for a sentence. The next level, that of the dictionary, provides interpretations for single terms and reduces the former set of meanings obtained by semantics. The next level, that of context of use and domain knowledge, provides knowledge which rules out some meanings with respect to the specific context and reduces the previous set of meanings obtained by dictionary. The last level concerns the individual choice. More precisely, it concerns the agent’s preferences, and its output is a partially ordered set of meanings. At this point an agent chooses a meaning which accords with his/her preferences. Each level produces a set of meanings equal to or smaller than the previous one. We can write
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Mn ≥ Mn+1, where Mn is the set of logical models admitted by the level n and Mn+1 is the set of logical models admitted by the following level n+1. Formal semantics level Formal semantics explains the semantic properties of a compound sentence through the semantic properties of its elements, but it says nothing about these elements, which are considered as given (Frixione, 1994). Models can be infinite because infinite objects can satisfy the conditions in a semantic interpretation standard. In this respect, formal semantics does not contribute to the problem of intended meanings in natural language because it does not contribute to resolving the problem of lexical meaning. Level of dictionary I argue that the dictionary does not provide support powerful enough to individuate a unique meaning for a word, and therefore that it is not able to determine the intended meaning. This is so in two respects: in the case of polysemy, the dictionary does not provide a criterion with which to determine a unique meaning; but also in the case of a unique definition, the dictionary provides ‘only’ the conventional meaning, that is, it does not provide sufficient information with which to determine truthconditions. Therefore in both cases it is unable to determine the intended meaning. Level of context I argue that information concerning the context of use of an expression and domain knowledge do not suffice to determine a unique meaning for an expression, and that they are therefore unable to determine the intended meaning. The philosophy of language considers two kinds of context: semantic and pragmatic. The semantic context represents relevant information through variables associated with the utterance: that is, it fixes the identity of speakers and interlocutors, the place, the time, etc. It contributes to determining literal meaning, and it is used in particular in cases of ellipsis, indexicality and ambiguity. The pragmatic context is composed of a network of interlocutor beliefs, intentions and activities, and it contributes to determining the communicative intentions of speakers (Bianchi, 2003). I will show that, in both cases, context underdetermines truth conditions. Level of choice I employ some basic notions from decision theory (Resnik, 1987) to describe the process of choice upon which decisionmaking is based. First of all, I wish to stress that, from an epistemological point of view, it is very important that an agent can legitimately choose an interpretation, among those admissible, because linguistic tools leave a semantic space open in which de facto every choice is legitimate. This proposal should impact on the problem of meaning under determination.
ReferencesBianchi, C. (2003) Pragmatica del linguaggio. RomaBari: Laterza.Frixione, M. (1994) Logica, significato, intelligenza artificiale. Milano: Angeli.Resnik, M.D. (1987) Choice. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press.
Franca D’Agostini (Università di Torino, Italia)Capture and release: Paradoxes, selfcontradictions and selffoundations (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
A paradox is the apparently unacceptable conclusion of an apparently sound argument (Quine, 1962; Sainsbury, 19952). This definition is the most frequently used today, especially in repertoires and general inquiries (see, with some differences: Clark, 2002, Rescher, 2001, Olin, 2003). Another definition is by far less common (Sorensen, 2003 uses and defends it), but it corresponds to the traditional meaning of ‘paradox’ from Megarians to Kant, through medieval logic: a paradox is ‘a question with two (or more) answers’. There is not a true rivalry between the two definitions (most paradoxes can be expressed both in
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terms of sound argument with weird conclusion and in terms of question with two or more answers). Rather, they capture two typical aspects of paradoxicality. The first points to the fact that in front of a paradox we apparently have the epistemic commitment to accept a thesis (or an argument) that for some reason we do not want to accept (it seems to be so, but it cannot be). The second stresses the fact that in facing a paradox we find ourselves in a sort of epistemic excess: too many good solutions to the same problem (it is so, but also the other way).There is a third definition, not mentioned, but largely presupposed, especially in recent analyses of paradoxes (see for instance Priest, 20062; Beall, ed., 2003 and 2007; Field, 2008): a paradox is some linguistic or cognitive structure that conveys a contradiction, and namely: a resistant, nonreducible contradiction. In the paper, I will examine this third definition. I will show that it does not exclude the other two, but completes and specifies them, by focusing on the exact problem represented by a paradox, that is: how to deal with (apparently) resistant contradictions. (Notably: the idea of resistant contradiction is to be distinguished on principle from the idea of true contradiction; or rather: it does not imply ipso facto a commitment to paraconsistency, or dialetheism, as the contradiction might be only apparently irreducible.)There are different ways in which a contradiction can be (or can seem being) resistant, and accordingly there are different kinds of paradoxes. In particular, I will show that the notion of ‘resistant contradiction’ is useful in order to distinguish paradoxes from selfcontradiction arguments, that is arguments that by assuming a proposition p as true, infer the negation of p (p → ¬p); and selffoundation arguments, that is, arguments that from the negation of p infer p (¬p → p). Arguments of this sort are puzzling, and so paradoxical in a sense, but there is neither epistemic excess nor epistemic double commitment in facing them: you can easily get rid of p, in the former case, and you can assume p as necessarily true, in the latter. Instead, when we have both selfcontradiction and selffoundation, we are in front of a special kind of paradox, more precisely: an antinomy, such as the Liar paradox, or GrellingNelson paradox (they actually convey the form p ↔ ¬p). The question is then: how does it happen that some structures can produce selfrefutation, or selffoundation, or both? I will suggest that this can be traced back to the semantical mechanisms of capture and release (see Beall, 2007) typical of some concepts, such as ‘truth’; or rather, and more precisely: typical of predicates that correspond to what Hartry Field (2008) calls conceptual properties.
References:Beall, JC, ed., 2003, Liars and Heaps, Oxford UPBeall, JC, ed., 2007, Revenge of the Liar, Oxford UPBeall, JC, 2007, “Prolegomenon to Future Revenge”, in Beall, ed., 2007Berto, F., 2007, How to Sell a Contradiction, King’s College PublicationsClark, M., 2002, Paradoxes from A to Z, RoutledgeField, H., 2008, Saving Truth From Paradox, Oxford UPOlin, D., 2003, Paradox, McGillQueens UPPriest, G., et Al., eds., 2004, The Law of NonContradiction, Oxford UPPriest, G., 2006, Doubt Truth to Be a Liar, Oxford UPPriest, G., 20062, In Contradiction, Oxford UPQuine, W. V. O., 1962, “The ways of paradox”, in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, Random House, 1966Rescher, N, 2001, Paradoxes. Their Roots, Range, and Resolution, Open CourtSainsbury, M., 19952, Paradoxes, Cambridge UPSorensen, R. A., 2003, A Brief History of the Paradox, Oxford UP
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Sandrine Darsel (Archives LPHSHenri Poincaré, Nancy, France)Metaphysical research in music (Aesthetics)
There are two different ways to treat the ontological issue about musical works. A) If the principle is the common sense, the question is: what sort of entities do we need in order
to give sense to our ordinary statements on musical works? Then, an ontology of musical works is a modest subject which attempts to explain the obvious.
B) If not, the question is : what is the ontological status of musical works inside a formal ontological theory? Then, the metaphysical analysis is “pure” and implicates a review and a reconstruction of our ordinary discourses on musical works.
The aim of this paper is to contest the validity of the first methodological way (A) and develop a specific descriptive ontology, a welcoming imanentist ontology:1. Musical works are concrete substantial particulars.2. There are three modes of functioning specified by the conditions of production and reception
of the work.3. The identity criterion depends on the nature of the entity a musical work and its mode of
functioning.The purpose of the critical part is not to put forward a complete analysis of every revisionist ontological theory, but to stress the weaknesses of this « pure » reasoning. A revisionist ontology of musical works contests this following suggestion: a musical work is a particular concrete entity with essential and accidental properties. Three famous different theories defends this idea: 1. The mentalist option: a musical work is a mental entity and not a physical one, that is an audible artifact.2. The radical platonist option: a musical work is a specific universal. It is a structural type: an executable eternal sound structure. 3. The nominalist option: a musical work is a set of signs which has a) an aesthetic functioning and b) some specific syntaxical and semantical relations in a constructive system notational versus nonnotational (the set has no reality independently of the particular signs). These three options, whatever their differences, make the same methodological choice: they rebuild the musical works because they don’t take common sense as a methodological regulator. Thus, the ontology of musical work doesn’t depend on an epistemic theory of musical works. Nevertheless, this method is problematic as I want to show.On the other hand, it is possible to lean on the common sense and develop an ontological analysis of the musical work that attempts to manage the signification of everyday sentences about musical works. The second part highlights the consistency and advantages of a liberal immanentist ontology with regard to musical works. The ontological theory I want to develop is articulated around two ideas: An imanentist realism: there is no fundamental difference between the musical works. They are substantial concrete particulars which have a common way of being: being a work of art. This option sustains a moderate essentialism distinct from the transcendent realism. We can describe the existential mode of a musical work as following:a. A musical work is a physical entity: it’s a human artifact and not a mental entity.b. A musical work is concrete and not abstract: it is not possible to identify the musical work with the sound structure.c. A musical work is a particular entity and not a universal one: every musical work has to be instantiated.d. A musical work comes from an intentional action: the composer’s action, the performer’s
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action, the improviser’s action, the productor’s action...e. The nature of a musical work is being a work of art, that is possessing some aesthetic properties.− A welcoming ontology: the ontological distinction between the musical works is based upon
the specificity of their mode of functioning, constituted by the conditions of production and reception of the analysed musical work:
F1. The interpretationwork: it can be interpreted in several places at the same time and it is accessible by its correct particular performative interpretations.F2. The tapework: it is a tape accessible by the master tape and its genuine copies. F3. The performedwork: it is a single musical performance spatiotemporally localised accessible by this single instance.This ontological analysis stresses two leading ideas: an ontological study on the musical works is necessary and must explain what we usually think and say on music.
Mario De Caro (Università di Roma 3, Italia) & Alberto Voltolini (Università di Modena, Italia)Is liberal naturalism too liberal? (Metaphysics and Ontology) All most common forms of contemporary naturalism share the claim that everything there is, is natural. However, defining the extension of the category of the natural – i.e., the category that includes everything that belongs to nature (and, consequently, the complementary category of the nonnatural) – is a controversial issue. Scientific naturalists tend to interpret this claim as implying that our ontology should be shaped by the natural sciences alone. As a consequence, they also tend to endorse the Quinean methodological slogan that philosophy should be continuous with science. Philosophers who sympathize with a more liberal form of naturalism, instead, while still maintaining that everything there is, is natural, widen the scope of the natural and deny the continuity of philosophy with science. According to a common argument, however, liberal naturalism is not a sound metaphilosophical option, since it is either not liberal enough or not naturalistic enough. In a nutshell, the argument on the one hand states that, if liberal naturalism grants the possibility of naturalizing the most controversial philosophical items (properties, entities, events and processes that prima facie appear nonnatural or supernatural), then it is not liberal enough – that is, it is too naturalistic – for being distinguished in any interesting way from scientific naturalism. On the other hand, if liberal naturalism denies the possibility of naturalizing the abovegiven items, or at least some of them, then it loses its naturalistic credentials – that is, it is too liberal – and hence it proves to be unacceptable for philosophers who seriously want to credit science. This is an antiliberal naturalism “pincer argument” that, if often implicitly, many contemporary philosophers would tend to accept. Liberal naturalists, therefore, cannot avoid confronting it. In our paper we will grant the correctness of the first part of the pincer argument (that according to which, once the naturalizability of controversial philosophical items is granted, liberal naturalism collapses on scientific naturalism), but will challenge the second clause (for which denying the naturalizability of those items implies supernaturalism). In order to do so, we will argue that there are legitimate philosophical items that, on the one hand, are nonnaturalizable (and hence are not natural in the scientific sense), but, on the other hand, are not supernatural either – and therefore are acceptable for the philosophers who do not want to give up the scientific view of the world. In this light we will discuss the issue of intentionality. In particular, we will argue that, for independent reasons, intentionality should be interpreted as a modal property; so, qua modal property, one should see intentionality as a property that does not supervene on physical
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properties and is nonnatural in the scientific sense, but nonsupernatural either. Therefore, in this light intentionality is a nonscientificallynatural property; and (as long as intentionality is an essential property of mental states) so are mental properties in general. On the other hand, if intentionality is a modal property, then having a specific intentional content does not bring about that the mental state that possesses it can cause any physically individuated behaviour. As a consequence, intentionality is a liberally natural property, since it is not so liberal that it has to be described as antiscientific. In fact, it does not causally affect the physical world and we do not need supernatural epistemic powers to grasp it (which would both be marks of supernaturalism). Our general conclusion will be that liberal naturalism – far from being a form of antinaturalism in disguise – offers the best theoretical option to account for such items without giving up the scientific view of the world.
Ciro L. De Florio (Università Cattolica di Milano, Italia)Higher order Languages and Logical Truth (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In The Concept of Logical Consequence, John Etchemendy brings an overall charge against Tarski’s concept of logical consequence and logical truth. The Etchemendy’s arguments are divided into two groups: the former is aiming to show conceptual inadequacy of Tarskian notion, whereas the latter that is trying to prove its extensional inadequacy. That is, according to Etchemendy’s view, not only does not Tarski’s account grasp the intended meaning of semantic notions like truth and logical consequence, but, also from a formal point of view, it presents some cases that are not fitting our pretheoretical intuitions about their logical status.We will not consider either Tarski’s position or Etchemendy’s critique; rather, we will take into account a passage in Etchemendy’s book, where he shows a particular relationship between logical truth and higher order languages. We will take into account if, and at what extent, Tarski’s analysis is adequate in these cases. By reformulating the arguments against Tarski and the defenses of other scholars, we will make explicit some philosophical assumptions that, in spite of being sometimes left on the background, are, nevertheless, crucial in evaluating the proposed argument.John Etchemendy uses a property of higher order languages to show as the Tarski’s model theoretic treatment of logical truth leads to overgenerate; there exist sentences that are true in every model (and, then, if Tarski was right, they would be logically true) and, nevertheless, they are not logically true on the basis of the meaning of the logical terms occurring in them but, particularly, because they depend on extralogical assumptions constituted by very complex set theoretical questions as the continuum hypothesis. Our aim is showing that it does not seem there are conclusive arguments pro Tarski or Etchemendy; nevertheless we will provide two critical remarks about the Etchemendy’s problem: the first one shows that the Etchemendy’s argument is at some extent redundant; the second one takes into account the ontological weight of Tarskian modeltheoretic semantics.
ReferencesA. TARSKI (1935) Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen, in Tarski (1956) Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, Clarendon Press.––– (1936) Über den Begriff der logischen Folgerung, in Actes du Congrès International de Philosophie Scientifique, fasc. 7 (Actualités Scientifiques et Industrielles, vol. 394), Paris: Hermann et Cie, pp. 1–11, in Tarski (1956) Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, Clarendon Press.––– (1956) Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, Clarendon Press.J. ETCHEMENDY (1990) The concept of Logical Consequence, Harvard University Press.
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M. GOMEZTORRENTE (1996) Tarski on Logical consequence, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 37, 12551––– (1999) Logical Truth and Tarskian Logical Truth, Synthese, 117, 375408G. KREISEL (1967) Informal rigour and Completeness Proofs, in I. Lakatos (ed.), Problems in the Philosophy of Mathematics, NorthHolland, Amsterdam, pp. 13871S. SOAMES (1998) Understanding Truth, Oxford University Press.
Roberta De Monticelli (Universtià San Raffaele, Milano, Italia)The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: Outline of an Ontology of Novelty (Metaphysics and Ontology)
“It is time to get on the table an alternative to the dominant metaphysical theories that accord no ontological significance to things that everyone cares about – not only concrete objects like one’s car keys, or the Monna Lisa, but also commonplace states of affairs like being employed next year, or having enough money for retirement” (Baker 2007). As its stimulating title suggests, Lynne’s Baker’s latest book, The Metaphysics of Everyday Life, is a defence of the irreducible reality of ordinary objects of our daily experience, such as “natural” concrete medium sized objects, artefacts and social objects, and of course persons. A being F has ontological significance iff the addition of the property F is not just the change in something that already exists, but the coming into being of a new thing. Our ordinary world is full of things of a new type (having identity conditions, existence conditions, causal powers of a new type) relatively to whatever materials they are constituted by. As I shall argue in the first part of my paper, Baker’s Practical Realism is very close to (analytical) Phenomenology in this respect, involving a reject of both Dualism and Reductive Materialism. Even more so, in so far as phenomenology is conceived of as an ontology of novelty (De MonticelliConni 2008). In so far, Baker’s constitution theory and Husserl’s theory of Fundierung (Husserl 1900) share the intuitive tenet of a “robust” emergentism: what is “founded” or “constituted” is in no sense reducible to what is founding or constituting, though depending on it for its own existence. Yet there is one more similarity, by which Practical Realism and Phenomenology seem to share one more specific character over and above robust emergentism. The second part of my paper will address the further claim that what is founded or constituted is ontologically more significant that what is founding or constituting, at least in the sense that “the identity conditions of the underlying objects – various collections of particles depend on the identity conditions of the manifest objects”. In Baker’s words, properties which bear ontological significance are essential properties, and hence bearers of identity conditions of things exemplifying them. In phenomenological rephrasing, “natural” concrete medium sized objects, artefacts, social objects and persons are identified by their very “phenomena”. The identity of a thing is given, so to speak, by its “surface”. This surface – the “phenomenon” is the very manifestation of the ontological significance (and richness) of a thing, bearing the thing’s specific identity.Is essentialism compatible with that version of pragmaticism that Baker calls Practical Realism? In the third part of my paper I shall argue that the Identity Question, when applied to (human) persons, requires not only an extension, but also a reform of main stream ontology. A human person is an x such that we may always wonder who is x? In one reading of this question, what is asked for is the personality of x. Personhood implies Personality: I shall argue that numerical identity of anything having Personhood implies its uniqueness or non replicability (a property which is not satisfied by ordinary material particulars). My conclusion reads: the identity conditions given with the essential property of Personhood lead us to introduce a new category of individuals, not reducible to material particulars, although depending on them. A radicalized
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ontology of novelty demands not only ontological regionalism in material ontology, but also a development of formal ontology. Personal Identity, endurantism and perdurantism can be evaluated on this new basis.
ReferencesRudder Baker, L. (2007), The Metaphysics of Everyday Life. An Essay in Practical Realism, Cambridge University PressRudder Baker, L. (2008), Persons: Natural, Yet Ontologically Unique, in: Proceedings of the Workshop “Are Persons More than Social Objects?”, S. Raffaele University, May 2007, “Encyclopaideia” 23, I, 2008Runggaldier, E., (2008), Persons as Endurers and Agents, in: Proceedings of the Workshop “Are Persons More than Social Objects?”, S. Raffale University, Mai 2007, “Encyclopaideia” 23, I, 2008Bottani, A., Davies, R., (2007), Ontologie regionali, Mimesis, MilanoDe Monticelli, R., Conni, C., (2008), Ontologia del nuovo. La rivoluzione fenomenologica e la ricerca oggi, Bruno Mondadori, Milano.
Francesca De Vecchi (Università San Raffaele, Milano)Il problema dell’efficacia degli atti sociali (Metafisica e ontologia)
In questo paper, mi occupo del problema dell’efficacia degli atti sociali partendo dalla teoria degli atti sociali di Reinach (1913). Gli atti sociali sono infatti dei processi che producono qualcosa: con il compimento di un atto sociale qualcosa di nuovo entra nel mondo. Per esempio, promettere produce una relazione specifica tra due persone tale che il promissario può pretendere qualcosa che il promittente è obbligato a compiere o a dare. Questa relazione si presenta come risultato, come un prodotto del promettere. Oltre al promettere, ci sono molti altri atti sociali: comandare, richiedere, informare, promulgare, etc. Reinach presenta molti esempi di atti sociali che costituiscono la famiglia degli atti sociali, e li definisce rispetto ai loro differenti “prodotti” e componenti.Ora, il problema è: in che modo gli atti sociali producono i loro “prodotti”? Più precisamente: come gli atti sociali devono essere fatti per produrre questi effetti? Qual è la natura di questa efficacia? Infatti, non si tratta di una semplice relazione causale tra enti fisici: questi “prodotti” non sono fisici. E, allora: che genere di entità sono questi “prodotti”?Al fine di esaminare il problema e rispondere a queste domande, distinguerò due livelli:a) Il livello eidetico: gli atti sociali hanno una legalità essenziale e a priori che lega in modo necessario l’atto e ciò che ne consegue, indipendentemente da quello che gli agenti realmente fanno e indipendentemente da ogni diritto positivo.b) Il livello della spontaneità, libertà e volontarietà dell’atto: gli atti sociali sono atti liberi e volontari, e i loro “prodotti” dipendono dalla libertà e dal volere degli autori degli atti sociali, scaturiscono da essi e cessano di esistere in virtù di essi.A partire da questa distinzione svilupperò il mio paper nelle tappe seguenti:i) Considerando il caso del promettere e dei suoi effetti (pretesa e obbligazione), definisco lo statuto ontologico di questi effetti e la natura della relazione tra promettere e pretesa/obbligazione. Il mio intento è mostrare che, da un lato, gli atti sociali producono effetti in un modo specifico, distinto dal produrre effetti nel senso di eventi esterni (non si tratta cioè di una relazione causale tra eventi esterni), e che, dall’altro, essi producono entità nuove e molto particolari: entità sociali e giuridiche che sono temporali (hanno un inizio e una fine come le entità fisiche e psicologiche, ma non sono né fisiche né psicologiche; e non sono eterne come le
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entità ideali) e rispetto alle quali valgono leggi necessarie e sintetiche a priori. Ora, in che modo l’atto di promettere produce una pretesa e un’obbligazione? Mostrerò che la relazione tra l’atto di promettere e pretesa/obbligazione è una relazione necessaria (come la relazione tra idee) e una relazione tra fondamentoconseguente (GrundFolge) come la relazione tra stati di cose.ii) Definisco gli atti sociali come atti allo stesso tempo mentali ed esterni (cioè che si riferiscono a un altro soggetto), e come atti complessi costituiti da varie componenti: l’intenzionalità (specifica), la spontaneità, il manifestarsi a un altro soggetto e la ricezione da parte di un altro soggetto, l’avere un «corpo» (linguaggio, smorfie o gesti) e un’«anima» (l’esperienza interna). Tutti questi elementi costituiscono gli atti sociali facendone un concetto assolutamente nuovo. Il mio proposito è mostrare la dipendenza della loro efficacia dalla loro struttura e dalle loro componenti. Illustrerò questa dipendenza attraverso qualche caso di modificazione degli atti sociali.iii) Definisco il carattere libero e volontario degli atti sociali in termini di autorialità e prese di posizione, e mostro le implicazioni di questa caratterizzazione rispetto alla loro efficacia:1. Il dare inizio a una nuova serie di eventi che sono atti e azioni individuali;2. Il loro «potere deontico»;3. L’istituzione della realtà sociale come “terzietà” ovvero come livello di grado superiore rispetto a quello semplicemente intersoggettivo (iotu).
Richard Dietz (University of Leuven, Netherlands)On Weatherson on Generalising Kolmogorov (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science)
Kolmogorov’s calculus of classical probability (as formulated for languages of propositional logic) says that (i) probability functions take values in the unitinterval, (ii) that they respect logic (i.e. P assigns to tautologies the value one, to classical contradictions the value zero, and if {A} classically entails B, then P(A) ≤ P(B)), and (iii) that they satisfy general additivity (i.e. P(A ∨ B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A & B)). In his “From classical to constructive probability” (2003), Brian Weatherson offers a generalisation of Kolmogorov’s probability calculus that is neutral regarding the logic for the objectlanguage. The generalised calculus implies not only respect of probability for logic but also the general additivity constraint, whatever logic we may adopt. I argue that Weatherson’s notion of generalised probability is inadequate. For a case in point, I show that it runs into serious trouble if it is applied to supervaluationist logic (Fine (1975)). Call a degree of belief distribution on a language dogmatic with respect to a logically contingent sentence iff it takes either the upper bound (1) or the lower bound (0) as value. It turns out that supervaluationist generalised probability requires coherent degree of belief distributions to be dogmatic with respect to any sentences of the form ‘it is vague whether P’, also if these sentences are logically contingent. As a consequence, we cannot have a partial positive degree that a sentence is vague, on pain of incoherence. The problem is not that we are to be dogmatic with respect to some logically contingent sentences (this follows also on classical probability on certain provisos Williamson (2007)), nor is the problem that for some logically contingent sentences, we are to be dogmatic with respect to them (the DutchBook argument strategy may be employed in favour of a strong dogmatism (Milne 1991)). The problem is that the strong dogmatism imposed by Weatherson’s notion of probability lacks any underpinning in the form of an interpretation of degree of belief and something that would come to a soundness argument. Weatherson makes avail of the DutchBook argument strategy in support of the intuitionist version of generalised probability. But this strategy is of no avail for motivating the supervaluationist version of generalised probability. On the contrary, it can be employed for vindicating different supervaluationist notions of probability – in any case, respect for logic and/or general additivity are to be abandonned. I discuss different options of generalising classical
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bets to supervaluationist frameworks: (a) conditional bets (Cantwell (2006)), (b) unconditional bets with graded payoffs (Milne (2007)) and (c) unconditional bets with ungraded payoffs (Dietz (2008)). Supervaluationist probabilities are in either case specifiable in terms of classical probability, as (a′ ) conditional probabilities of truth given a truthvalue, as (b′ ) expected truthvalues, or as (c′ ) probabilities of truth respectively. It is suggested that for supervaluationist logic, the third option is the most attractive one, for (unlike the other options) it preserves respect for logic.
ReferencesCantwell, John (2006): “The laws of nonbivalent probability”, Logic and Logical Philosophy, 15, 16371.Dietz, Richard (2008): “Betting on borderline cases”, to appear in Philosophical Perspectives.Fine, Kit (1975): “Vagueness, truth and logic”, Synthese, 30, 265300.Milne, Peter (1991): “A dilemma for subjective Bayesians – and how to resolve it”, Philosophical Studies, 62, 30714.— (2007): “Betting on fuzzy and manyvalued propositions: DutchBook arguments applied to additive fuzzy and manyvalued logics”, MS, August 15, 2007.Weatherson, Brian (2003): “From classical to constructive probability”, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 44, 11123.Williamson, Timothy (2007): “How probable is an infinite sequence of heads?”, Analysis, 67, 17380.
Marius Dumitru (Christchurch, Oxford, UK)Cognitive Phenomenology and Functional Exhaustion (Philosophy of Mind) The very idea of cognitive phenomenology is considered by many as a nonstarter, because of a definitional restriction of phenomenology to noncognitive states. But perhaps we should clarify the intension of the concept first and determine its extension on that basis, and not start with an exclusivist extension followed by the assignment of a concept to it. It seems to me that the concept of phenomenology allows cognitive phenomenology in its extension.If we agree on the cogency of the very idea of cognitive phenomenology, there is a further question about its specification. One could hold that cognitive phenomenology just is a) the phenomenology of inner speech (Carruthers 2006, Jackendoff 2007) or b) the phenomenology of mental images, emotions, or feelings (of effort, conviction, understanding, etc.) conjured up by thoughts. Fringe phenomenology (such as the tipofthetongue phenomenon) may challenge the specification in terms of the phenomenology of inner speech. It seems to me that even if we bracket a) and b), which are typically present, we are still left with a phenomenological core: the phenomenology of cognitive meaning. Some philosophers (among others, G. Strawson, Siewert, Pitt) converge on a specification of cognitive phenomenology in terms of grasp of intentional contents and the experience of semantic comprehension, while others (Horgan et al., Loar) emphasize the grounding of all content in a phenomenal basis (mental paint for Loar). I agree with a specification in terms of the experience of semantic comprehension, with the qualification that we should not consider it simpliciter, but as the end product of a complex process involving the mastery of concepts and their rules of combination.Arguments are presented against exclusively equating cognitive phenomenology with the phenomenology of inner speech and epistemic feelings, on the ground that these phenomenal aspects engender certain anomalies (e.g., inflation, lack of covariation) if considered separately
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as accounting for the phenomenology of thoughts.Considering meaning (highlevel content) as part of the fabric of the phenomenology of inner speech may then be regarded as a satisfactory position, but I argue that it does not fully account for dissociations (presence of meaning without inner speech and conversely). This is why we should turn to a phenomenology at the level of conceptual structure. I further argue that it is plausible that, if there is intrinsic cognitive phenomenology, it has to be functionally exhausted to a great extent. Functional exhaustion for the case of cognitive phenomenology is shown to be immune to inverted spectra and absent qualia objections, because from the point of view of inferential involvement, colour concepts are constructs derived from experience, and zombie arguments are not free from prior assumptions of separability between functional and phenomenal aspects in the case of thoughts.
References :Carruthers, P. 2006. Conscious Experience versus Conscious Thought. in Kriegel, U. & Williford, K. (eds.) Consciousness and SelfReference. MIT Press, URL: http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Consciousexperienceversusconsciousthought.pdf;Graham, G., Horgan, T., & Tienson, J. 2007. Consciousness and Intentionality. in Velmans, M. & Schneider, S. (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell;Jackendoff, R. 2007. Language, Consciousness, Culture. Essays on Mental Structure. MIT Press;Loar, B. 2003. Phenomenal Intentionality as the Basis of Mental Content. in Hahn, M. & Ramberg, B. (eds.) Reflections and Replies. Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press;Pitt, D. 2004. The Phenomenology of Cognition Or What It Is Like to Think That P? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69, 1: 136;. 2007. The Introspective Availability of Intentional Content. URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/dpitt/IntAv.pdf ;Siewert, C. 2008. The Significance of Consciousness. Princeton University Press;Strawson, G. 1994. Mental Reality. MIT Press;. 2008. Real Materialism and Other Essays. Oxford University Press.
Francesca Ervas (Università di Roma 3, Italia)Definire la traduzione: equivalenza semantica versus equivalenza funzionale (History of Ideas)
In questo lavoro si cercherà di mostrare come il concetto di equivalenza sia stato impiegato per definire che cosa sia una traduzione, per testare quanto questo strumento teorico sia riuscito a spiegare che cosa voglia dire che un enunciato in una data lingua è la traduzione di un enunciato espresso in un’altra lingua. Nelle teorie della traduzione contemporanee, è stato riconosciuto di importanza centrale il concetto di equivalenza per chiarire la relazione tra ciò che si traduce, il testo di partenza (source text) e ciò che è tradotto, il testo di arrivo (target text), per definire la traduzione stessa. Da questo punto di vista, tradurre un enunciato significa produrre un altro enunciato equivalente nella lingua d’arrivo (Koller 1989, Koller 1995). Il problema sta nel dire cosa si intenda per “equivalenza” e, tuttavia, non ne è mai stata data un’interpretazione uniforme e condivisa, e la sua definizione è stata ed è tuttora problematica e controversa (Halverson 1997). L’ampia letteratura a disposizione dimostra infatti inequivocabilmente il proliferare di nuovi e diversi tipi di equivalenza: referenziale o denotativa, connotativa, semantica, pragmatica, dinamica, formale, testuale, funzionale, lessicale, ecc. (Kenny 1998). Si prenderanno in esame,
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in particolare, i due principali sensi in cui si è parlato di equivalenza nella traduzione: equivalenza semantica ed equivalenza funzionale. I due tipi di equivalenza in questione stanno alla base di due diversi modi in cui, in filosofia analitica, si è cercato di definire la traduzione. In un primo senso, dati due enunciati E ed E1, appartenenti rispettivamente alle lingue naturali L ed L1, si dice che E è la traduzione di E1, se E ed E1 hanno lo stesso significato, o in altri termini, se esiste una relazione di equivalenza semantica tra E ed E1. In un secondo senso, si dice che E è la traduzione di E1, se E ed E1 hanno la stessa funzione o lo stesso ruolo in L ed L1, o in altri termini, se esiste una relazione di equivalenza funzionale tra E ed E1. Il concetto di equivalenza semantica della prima definizione di traduzione, può esser fatto risalire a Frege (Frege 1892): le differenze di contenuto comunicativo non vengono categorizzate come differenze di significato, ma come differenze di tono, per cui di fatto, E traduce E1 se E ed E1
hanno le stesse condizioni di verità. Tutte le differenze che oggi chiameremo pragmatiche vengono espunte da ciò che si ritiene essere il significato dell’enunciato. Più tardi Davidson riprende questo concetto di equivalenza, applicando la teoria tarskiana della verità alle lingue naturali (Davidson 1984). Tuttavia, questa nozione di equivalenza mostrerebbe il suo principale limite nel non riuscire a spiegare perché alcuni bicondizionali à la Tarski sono semplicemente veri e perché altri bicondizionali, oltre ad essere veri, offrono la traduzione semanticamente valida dell’enunciato di partenza. Una parziale soluzione ai problemi sollevati può venire dal secondo senso di equivalenza, utilizzato da Sellars (Sellars 1963) e ripreso in seguito dallo stesso Davidson (Davidson 1986). Dire che E è la traduzione di E1 perché in L gioca lo stesso ruolo che E1 gioca in L1, ci permetterebbe di sbarazzarci della nozione di significato e delle difficoltà ad essa connesse (E ed E1 possono giocare lo stesso ruolo rispettivamente in L ed L1 senza avere lo stesso significato) e ci aiuterebbe inoltre a preservare il contenuto comunicativo. Tuttavia la nozione di equivalenza funzionale resterebbe disperatamente vaga: difficilmente potremmo dire che due enunciati E ed E1 giocano lo stesso, identico ruolo in due sistemi linguistici differenti (Marconi 2007).
Riferimenti bibliograficiDavidson D., Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984.Davidson D., A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, in E. Lepore (ed.), Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986, pp. 433446Frege G., Über Sinn und Bedeutung, in «Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik» 100, 1892, pp. 2550.Halverson S., The Concept of Equivalence in Translation Studies: much ado about something, in «Target» 9, 2, 1997.Kenny D., Equivalence, in M. Baker (ed.), Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies, Routledge, London–New York, 1998, pp. 77–80.Koller W., Equivalence in Translation Theory, in A. Chesterman (ed.), Readings in Translation Theory, Helsinki, 1989, pp. 99104.Koller W., The Concept of Equivalence and the Object of Translation Studies, in «Target» 7, 2, 1995, pp. 191–222.Marconi D., Translatable/Untranslatable, unpublished manuscript, 2007.Sellars W., Truth and Correspondence, in Science, Perception and Reality, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1963, pp. 197224.
Paolo Fait (Università di Padova, Italia)Syllogisms «from a hypothesis» in Aristotle’s logic (History of Ideas)
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Syllogisms from a hypothesis (SFH) are briefly dealt with by Aristotle in chapter 23 and chapter 44 of the first book of his Prior Analytics. The qualification «from a hypothesis» seems to differentiate a class of arguments, although it is far from clear what the difference amounts to. Aristotle wants to single out arguments that, at least to a certain extent, resist the formalisation developed in the first seven chapters of the treatise i.e., arguments that cannot be completely cast in the moods and figures of his syllogistic.Aristotle describes with some detail two of several sorts of SFH:1st kind of SFHA demonstrandum P and a substituend Q are given, three steps can be discerned(1) There is a preliminary agreement between the participants to the effect that it is accepted that if Q is proved, then P is also proved. (2) The arguer proves Q by a standard syllogism.(3) The arguer concludes that P is also proved.This kind of SFH reminds us of familiar Modus Ponens (but a close comparison would show important differences).2nd kind of SFHThe second kind of SFH described by Aristotle is Reductio ad impossibile. Given a demonstrandum Q, it consists of the following steps:(1) Assume notQ and at least one true premiss, say R, such that an impossible or false conclusion P can be inferred, by way of a standard syllogism, from notQ and R.(2) From the the falsehood of P infer Q.In my paper I intend to address two traditional difficulties:(i) If it seems clear that in SFH of the first kind the hypothesis is the agreement mentioned in
step (1), what is the hypothesis involved in SFH of the second kind? (ii) Where exactly should one locate the analogy between the two kinds of SFH? Why do
they belong to the same genus?About difficulty (i), interpreters are split up into three groups (with significant differences within each group). Some (e.g. Lear, Bobzien) claim that in a reductio the hypothesis is the proposition notQ. Others (Ross, Patzig, Striker) say that it is the logical principle (or the logical rule) which licenses step (2) of the reductio. A third scholarly party (Sigwart, Shorey, Mignucci) contends that the hypothesis is the proposition notP i.e, the contradictory of the false conclusion of the reductiosyllogism.In my paper I'll criticize the first two interpretations and try to show, with fresh arguments, that the third stands a chance. In Prior Analytics I 44, 50a3538, Aristotle makes a point that serves the third interpretation very well: he says that reductio arguments are accepted even without a preliminary agreement because the falsehood of the conclusion is obvious. It seems to me that to be an object of preliminary agreement is a clear mark of the hypothesis. And in this case what is agreed upon is the falsehood of the conclusion of the reductiosyllogism, i.e., the truth of its contradictory. But then, if the contradictory of the false conclusion is the hypothesis, why should this proposition be given such a special status? Something Aristotle says in the Topics (VIII 2, 157b34 f.) provides a clue for an answer. While dictating rules and strategies for a dialectical questionandanswer exchange, he suggests that the questioner should avoid reductio ad impossibile, for, unless it is extremely obvious that the conclusion of the syllogism is false, the answerer will refuse to recognise its falsehood, and so will refuse to accept the argument as a disproof of the false assumption.Aristotle sees that reductio, as commonly practiced by scientists and dialecticians, is not logically compelling and that it crucially depends on the degree of evidence of the falsehood of
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the syllogistic conclusion P. If the agreement is made explicit, however, an invalid argument is turned into a valid one. The variable strength of the argument is transferred to the variable plausibility of the hypothesis.And here I see the analogy with the SFH of the first kind (remember difficulty (ii)). In both cases the hypothesis confers validity to the argument; and it seems to me that all the examples cited by Aristotle naturally display this feature.After a full comparison of the two major kinds of SFH, I'll devote a few final remarks to the nature of the hypothesis: is it a proposition? Is it a premiss? I'll claim that it is a premiss, of a sort.
ReferencesS. Bobzien, The Development of Modus Ponens in Antiquity: From Aristotle to the 2nd Century AD, «Phronesis» 47 (2002), pp. 359394.J. Lear, Aristotle and Logical Theory, Cambridge, 1980.M. Mignucci, Aristotele – Gli Analitici primi, trad. e comm. di M. M., Napoli, 1969. C. Sigwart, Beiträge zur Lehre vom hypothetischen Urtheile, Tübingen, 1871.P. Slomkowski, Aristotle's Topics, Leiden, 1997. G.Striker, Aristoteles über Syllogismen »aufgrund einer Hypothese«, «Hermes» 107 (1979), pp. 3350.
Kit Fine (University of New York, USA)Plenary SpeakerVagueness
I will outline a new theory of vagueness.
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Guy Fletcher (University of Reading, UK)WellBeing Invariabilism (Practical Philosophy)
Those of us who find existing theories of wellbeing inadequate should trace much of what we find problematic to a common feature of these theories: invariabilism (explained shortly). I show that abandoning invariabilism is the first step to formulating more plausible theories of wellbeing.I begin by distinguishing and explaining two theses: WellBeing Invariabilism (WBI): Any X that (noninstrumentally) enhances wellbeing in one context must enhance wellbeing in any other context in which it appears.WellBeing Variabilism (WBV): Any X that (noninstrumentally) enhances wellbeing in one context may enhance wellbeing to a lesser extent, to no extent, or detract from wellbeing, in another context in which it appears.I then go on to show that: (1) Many of the most popular (and influential) theories of wellbeing – hedonism, desiresatisfaction and objectivelist theories – presuppose invariabilism and, (2) A large class of the objections to them arise because of it. In support of (1) and (2), I discuss (among others) the forms of hedonism about wellbeing defended by Roger Crisp in Reasons and the Good (2006) and Fred Feldman in Pleasure and the Good Life (2004). After showing that they share a commitment to WBI, I explain how a large and significant class of the classic objections to hedonism (those relating to false, base, or malicious pleasures, for example) can be traced back to this feature. To further support (1) and (2), I discuss other commonly held theories of wellbeing – desirefulfilment and objective list theories – and show that the same WBI can be found at the root of these theories. Furthermore, it is this feature that underpins the basic and most powerful objections to these theories: even if these things sometimes (or often) contribute to wellbeing, it is not the case that they always do.I then move on to considering an objection to my argument. The most obvious, and popular, move for the invariabilist to make is to insist that my examples – those of pleasure and knowledge – are too simplistic. They will then move to try and ‘refine the atoms’ of wellbeing enhancement to avoid these problems by moving from pleasure and knowledge to (for example):(a) ‘pleasure not based on false belief’ and (b) ‘knowledge of important truths’ I present three responses to this. The first is to question whether the wellbeing enhancers can be independently specified, that is specified without making reference to their enhancing wellbeing. For instance, if the invariabilist wished to insist that only knowledge of important truths contributed to wellbeing, they would need to convince us that they could cash out ‘important truths’ in a way which did not make reference to their being wellbeing enhancing. The second response to the wellbeing invariabilist who insists on refining their wellbeing atoms is to point out that this refinement strategy blurs what seems to be an important distinction between (i) something which contributes to wellbeing in a particular context and (ii) the background conditions that can affect whether it does so. In the case of a pleasure not based on false belief, the fact that it is not based on a false belief seems better conceived as part of the background conditions which can affect the wellbeing enhancer (the pleasure) rather than as a part of the wellbeing enhancer itself.The third problem for the refinement strategy is that we will find that the same considerations which undermined the invariability of our original atoms (pleasure and knowledge) can undermine the new refined atoms. For instance, we can think of cases in which pleasure based on
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false belief does make someone’s life go better. For example, a life containing the false pleasures of Nozick’s (1974) experience machine could be better than a life in contact with reality, if such a life would be sufficiently awful.The particular refinements I discuss are only supposed to be representative of the general strategy of specifying more complex contributors to wellbeing in the hope of making invariabilism seem plausible. As such, undermining (a) and (b) in particular is a small victory and is only supposed to suggest the types of problems that will arise for such specifications. An important point is that even if one does think, for example, that these classes of important knowledge always contribute to wellbeing, there is still the further issue of what else is on the objective list, and whether it too can plausibly be regarded as invariable. Even if I am wrong to claim that the refinement strategy will not succeed in rescuing invariabilism, we still have the interesting result that existing theories of wellbeing are inadequate and need to be reformulated using more specific wellbeing contributors.
Aldo Frigerio (Università Cattolica, Milano, Italia)How many meanings? (Logic and philosophy of language)
Sentences like the following are true in a large number of different circumstances: (1) Four boys invited three girls (2) The boys invited three girls E.g. (2) is true (a) if every boy invited three (potentially) different girls, (b) if the same three girls were invited on different occasions by each of the boys, (c) if the boys together invited three girls together, (d) if the boys together invited a different girl on three different occasions , (e) if the total number of the girls invited by the boys is three (perhaps the boys are four and the first one invited a girl on two different occasions while the other three boys together invited a third girl, thus the total number of the girls invited is three), etc. So in theory there are as many possible readings of (1) and (2) as the circumstances that make these sentences true (we have scope or scopeless readings, collective and distributive ones, branching and cumulative ones, etc.). Three are the possible reactions to the manifold readings of (1) and (2): a) Every possible reading is semantic: so (1) and (2) are ambiguous in many ways. b) Only some of the readings are semantic. In other cases the meaning of (1) and (2) underdetermines the circumstances that make them true. As a consequence some scholars claimed that the scope differences are truly semantic while the collective/distributive opposition is not coded in the meaning of the sentences. E.g. the reading of (2) in which three girls takes large scope does not specify whether the boys invited the girls together or one by one. This reading is true in both circumstances. c) None of the readings is semantic. (1) and (2) are not ambiguous. They have only one very indeterminate and vague meaning which can be specified pragmatically by the context. In this talk I try to defend c). Here I limit myself to state one of the possible arguments in favor of c). The possibility of the socalled intermediate readings militates against every ambiguous approach. It has been noticed that in addition to the distributive reading and to the collective one, there are many readings that are neither distributive nor collective but intermediate between the two: (3) The boys and the girls chose different films (3) has a distributive reading in which each of the boys and girls chose a different film. But it has another reading in which the boys together chose a film that is different from the one chosen by
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the girls together. Now this reading is not the collective one, because the boys and the girls didn’t do something all together. But it is not the distributive one either because there are two decisions taken by two groups of people together. That’s the reason why this reading has been called intermediate. The presence of two NPs conjoined by and is not essential to the intermediate readings: (4) The ten thousand participants met in several Italian places The most probable reading of (4) is not clearly the collective one, but an intermediate one: different groups of participants met at the same time in different places and the total number of them was ten thousand. Theoretically (4) could have as many intermediate readings as the possible partitions of the participants in the various places in which the meetings occurred. Intermediate scope readings are also possible. Consider: (5) The sons of Mary and the sons of Ann invited four girls (5) has three scope readings: in the large one the same four girls were invited by the sons of Mary and by those of Ann; in the narrow one each of the sons of Mary and each of the sons of Ann invited four different girls. But there is an intermediate reading in which the sons of Mary invited four girls and the sons of Ann did the same. Again the conjunction is not necessary to the intermediate scope readings. Suppose the following scenario: a quiz game is played by some teams whose members cooperate to solve a few proposed problems. Every team sits around a table with three problems assigned. In this scenario (6) is true: (6) The participants in the quiz cooperated to solve three problems But the true reading of (6) is neither the one in which three problems takes large scope because the problems were not the same for every team nor the one in which three problems takes narrow scope because cooperate can only have a plural agent as a subject, so three problems cannot be distributed on each of the participants. The true reading of (6) is an intermediate one in which three problems is distributed on each of the teams. In principle one can single out as many different intermediate scope readings as the possible partitions of the participants in teams. If one maintains that the collective/distributive distinction and the scope one are a matter of semantics, one is compelled to admit that the numerous intermediate readings are different meanings of the sentence. But since the intermediate readings are manifold, the proliferation of ambiguities becomes intolerable.
Marcello Frixione (Università di Salerno)Il cervello e l’essenza dell’arte (Estetica)
Nel contesto del dibattito sulla natura dell’arte, gli scopi della neuroestetica potrebbero essere interpretati come un tentativo di individuare l’essenza dell’arte (ossia, un insieme di condizioni necessarie e sufficienti che definiscono il concetto arte) a livello di ciò che avviene nella mentecervello dell’osservatore quanto fruisce di un’opera. In altri termini, l’essenza dell’arte risiederebbe negli effetti che gli oggetti artistici determinano nella mente degli spettatori. Seguendo Mandelbaum (1965), tale essenza consisterebbe dunque di una proprietà non esibita, relazionale, dei prodotti artistici: ciò che contraddistingue l’opera d’arte non sarebbe una proprietà visibile dell’oggetto, ma dipenderebbe da ciò che avviene nella mentecervello di chi la osserva, ossia risiederebbe in una relazione tra l’opera e la mentecervello dell’osservatore.In sintesi, si tratterebbe di una versione «essenzialista» del progetto della neuorestetica che può essere riassunta nella tesi seguente:
(*) L’arte ha un’essenza fondata su proprietà non esibite di tipo neurale.
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Intendo mettere in dubbio la plausibilità di (*), negando tuttavia che tale lettura essenzialista dell'impresa della neuroestetica sia l’unica possibile. Ritengo infatti che le ricerche di neuroestetica siano compatibili con una nozione di arte come concetto aperto nel senso di Weitz (1956).Naturalmente, la praticabilità di (*) è una questione empirica, che può essere decisa solo sperimentalmente. Tuttavia intendo argomentare che: i) le varie proposte avanzate fino ad ora a sostegno di (*) non sono soddisfacenti; ii) esistono buone ragioni per sospettare che, in generale, (*) difficilmente potrà essere confermata su base sperimentale.Per quanto riguarda i), le varie proposte che sono state avanzate per individuare un’essenza neurale o cognitiva dell’arte (ad es. Ramachandran e Hirstein 1999; Zeki 1999) falliscono in quanto troppo restrittive o troppo tolleranti; si ripropone cioè quanto già constato da Weitz (1956) a proposito delle teorie tradizionali: tra i motivi del loro fallimento c'è il fatto che non riescono a includere tutte le opere d’arte, oppure includono oggetti che opere d’arte non sono.Questo ovviamente non sarebbe sufficiente per escludere la plausibilità di (*). Ritengo tuttavia (e con ciò vengo al punto ii) che esistano buone ragioni "a priori" per essere scettici a proposito della praticabilità di (*). Ad esempio, sul piano metodologico, si consideri il problema seguente. E' indubitabile che gli “effetto estetici” di un’opera d’arte (qualunque cosa si voglia intendere per “effetto estetico”) corrispondono a qualche processo che avviene nella mentecervello dell’osservatore. Ai fini di (*) però sarebbe necessario che tali processi fossero caratterizzabili nei termini di qualche proprietà P, che risultasse significativa dal punto di vista delle (neuro)scienze cognitive. Tuttavia, per individuare sperimentalmente tale proprietà P, si pone il problema di stabilire a quali condizioni un’opera d’arte produce un effetto estetico su qualcuno. Infatti non tutte le opere d’arte sono sempre efficaci su chiunque ne fruisca: ci sono opere che ci lasciano (sempre o talvolta) indifferenti, ci sono persone poco sensibili all’arte in generale, ci sono opere che per essere comprese richiedono un contesto storico e culturale specifico, e così via. Senza un criterio indipendente per stabilire quali cervelli, e quando, sono rilevanti ai fini dell'individuazione della proprietà P, è ben difficile che ci si possa sensatamente chiedere se esiste un’«essenza neurale» della nozione di opera d’arte.Quand'anche il mio scetticismo a proposito di (*) si rivelasse fondato, non ne seguirebbe tuttavia l'insensatezza della neuroestetica e dello studio dei correlati neurali della produzione e della fruizione artistica. Mi pare improbabile che tali meccanismi costituiscano tratti definitori che individuano l’essenza dell'arte. Ritengo più plausibile che costituiscano tratti tipici, su cui si fondano le somiglianze che legano tra loro i molteplici esemplari della famiglia delle opere d’arte
Riferimenti bibliograficiMandelbaum, M. (1965), Family resemblances and generalization concerning the arts, American Philosophical Quarterly, 2(3), 219228. Ramachandran, V.S. e Hirstein, W. (1999), The science of art. A neurological theory of aesthetic experience, J. Conscious. Stud. 6, 6–7Weitz, M. (1956), The role of theory in aesthetics, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 15 (1), pp. 2735; anche in P. Lamarque, S. Haugom Olsen (a cura di), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. The Analytic Tradition, Blackwell, 2004; tr. it. in P. Kobau, G. Matteucci, S. Velotti (a cura di), Estetica e filosofia analitica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2008.Zeki, S. (1999), Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and the Brain, Oxford University Press, Oxford; tr. it. La visione dall’interno. Arte e cervello, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2003.
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Martina Fürst (Universität Graz, Austria)On the dualistic implications of phenomenal concepts (Philosophy of Mind)
Some physicalists take the phenomenal concept strategy (Stoljar 2005) to be one of the most powerful responses to antiphysicalistic arguments such as the knowledge argument (Jackson 1986) or the explanatory gap (Levine 1983). My presentation aims at demonstrating that the target of the physicalist phenomenal conceptualist – namely, to give a satisfactory account of dualistic intuitions without drawing ontological dualistic conclusions – has to fail. I start elaborating the main line of the phenomenal concept strategy concentrating on the knowledge argument. Analyzing Jackson’s wellknown Maryscenario the crucial particularities of phenomenal concepts are worked out. In accordance with most phenomenal conceptualists I demonstrate that the concepts involved in the Maryscenario differ in important respects significantly from any other concept the scientist had before her release from the achromatic environment. But the central point of my analysis – which stands in extreme contrast to the target of the physicalist phenomenal conceptualist – is to argue that these differences are such that the new phenomenal concepts refer because of their internal structure necessarily to phenomenal entities. For reaching this dualistic conclusion, I will take the following steps:At the beginning of my argumentation I show that only an interpretation of phenomenal concepts which encapsulate their referents can capture the decisive uniqueness of these particular concepts. The notion of an encapsulation relation which is considered as fundamental for the presented account is based on the idea that the referent itself is the core of the phenomenal concept. This fact can be explained by the special way of gaining these concepts: when Mary discriminates a new experience she is acquainted with, this process of discrimination implies giving the experience itself a conceptual structure and hence forming a phenomenal concept which encapsulates the very experience itself.In a next step, I compare the elaborated account of phenomenal concepts with its physicalistic counterparts, e.g. demonstrative phenomenal concepts. I demonstrate that the basic assumptions of most physicalist phenomenal conceptualist (as Levin (2007) or Loar (1997)) can not explain the crucial particularities of phenomenal concepts.Finally, I focus the attention on the socalled “quotational account” advocated by Papineau (Papineau 2002, 2007) which at first glance seems to describe the uniqueness of phenomenal concepts adequately. But a careful analysis of this interpretation illustrates that also Papineau´s account has consequences which stand in contrast to the target the physicalist intends to reach: A detailed examination of the quotational account of phenomenal concepts will reveal two possible interpretations – the first interpretation is similar to the herein presented encapsulationaccount and therefore leads to a dualistic conclusion. The second interpretation fails to explain the decisive features of phenomenal concepts, such as their semantic stability and the closely linked fact of carrying information about qualitative experiences. Hence, Papineau has to choose between accepting that phenomenal concepts do refer to phenomenal referents or defending a view of phenomenal concepts which leaves the crucial particularities of phenomenal concepts and therefore also Jackson’s Maryscenario unexplained. Therefore, the conclusion of my argumentation is the following: On the one hand, physicalist accounts of phenomenal concepts can not meet the constraint of explaining the decisive particularities of these concepts. On the other hand, if phenomenal concepts are interpreted adequately and in accordance with the herein advocated encapsulation relation, this implies exactly the dualistic consequences the physicalist phenomenal conceptualist wants to avoid. Hence, there exist powerful reasons for accepting that the physicalist phenomenal concept strategy has to fail.
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ReferencesJackson, F. (1986), “What Mary didn’t know”, in: Journal of Philosophy, 83, 29125.Levin, J. (2007), “What is a phenomenal concept?” in: Alter, T., Walter, S. (ed.) Phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 87111.Levine, J. (1983), “Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap”, in: Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 354361.Loar, B. (1997), “Phenomenal states: Second version”, in: Block, N. et. alt. (eds.) The nature of consciousness: Philosophical debates, Cambridge/MA: MIT Press, 597616.Papineau, D. (2007), “Phenomenal and perceptual concepts”, in: Alter, T. Walter, S. (ed.) Phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111145.––– (2002), Thinking about consciousness, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Stoljar, D. (2005), “Physicalism and phenomenal concepts”, in: Mind, Language and Reality, 20, 469494.
Heimir Geirsson (Iowa State University, USA)Singular propositions and de re beliefs (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In a well known article Keith Donnellan argues that Leverrier can fix the reference of the name ‘Neptune’ with a stipulative definition without ever having seen the planet, i.e., he can fix the reference of the name with a description that picks out Neptune. Donnellan then proceeds to argue that Leverrier does not have de re knowledge of Neptune. It is further plausible to conclude that if Leverrier does not have de re knowledge of Neptune then those to whom he passes the name ‘Neptune’ do not have such knowledge either. Nevertheless, many direct reference theorists and all Russellians have embraced the view that one comes to have a belief of an object, or a de re belief, when one acquires a belief by sincerely assenting to a sentence expressing a singular proposition. Given the appeal of Donnellan’s view it appears that the direct reference theorists have made it too easy to acquire de re beliefs. The paper distinguishes several ways in which one can be connected with an object and argues, namelyThe semantic/epistemic content requirement: All that is needed for one to acquire a de re belief of an object is that one sincerely assent to a sentence that expresses a singular proposition containing the object.The weak epistemic content requirement: One can have a de re belief of an object without perceiving it, although some natural connection is required that is stronger than that provided by a name introduced into a language by someone who did not himself perceive the object.The strong epistemic content requirement: One can only have a de re belief of an object if one has perceived it and, at that time, was able to discriminate it from other objects as this very object. In order for one to have a de re belief one needs, when acquiring the de re belief, to stand in a relation to the relevant object that allows one to point it out as this very object, that is, the strong epistemic requirement needs to be satisfied in order to one to acquire a de re belief. The typical Russellian only requires that the semantic/epistemic content requirement be satisfiedA distinction is drawn between a general and a specific understanding of names, expanding on a suggestion made by Nathan Salmon, and argued that a stipulative definition only provides one with a general understanding of a name while having a de re belief requires a specific understanding.
ReferencesDonnellan, Keith. “The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designators.” In Contemporary
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Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, edited by P. A. French, T. E. Uehling and H. K. Wettstein. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.Evans, Gareth. The Varieties of Reference. Edited by J. McDowell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.Jeshion, Robin. “Acquaintanceless de re Beliefs.” In Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics, edited by J. K. Campbell, Michael O’Rourke and David Shier, 5378. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000.Jeshion, Robin. “Descriptive Descriptive Names.” In Descriptions and Beyond, edited by Marga and Bezuidenhout, Anne Reimer, 591612. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.Jeshion, Robin. “The Epistemological Argument against Descriptivism.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2002: 325345.Kaplan, David. “Afterthoughts.” In Themes from Kaplan, edited by Joseph Almog, John Perry and Howard Wettstein, 565. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.Reimer, Marga. “Descriptively Introduced Names.” In Descriptions and Beyond, edited by Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout, 613629. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.Salmon, Nathan. Frege’s Puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.Salmon, Nathan. “How to Measure the Standard Metre.” In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.Soames, Scott. Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Giulia Giannini (Università di Bergamo, Italia)Poincaré: convenzionalista? (Epistemologia e Filosofia della scienza)
Obiettivo primo di questo lavoro è quello di offrire una rilettura della posizione epistemologica di Poincaré che non prescinda dal contesto in cui si è sviluppata così come dal contesto più generale dell’intera sua opera. Le interpretazioni che ne sono state date finora sono molto controverse e hanno spesso portato a fraintenderne il senso e, di conseguenza, a sottostimarla.Se è parlando di convenzionalismo che ci si riferisce solitamente alla filosofia di Poincaré, tale termine, che riprende quelle convenzioni di cui Poincaré ampiamente parla nei suoi testi epistemologici, non ricorre in realtà nemmeno una volta nella sua opera. Frutto della penna dei suoi commentatori, tale appellativo è allo stesso tempo sintomo e causa dei fraintendimenti cui il pensiero di Poincaré è andato incontro. Dietro la parola convenzionalismo sembrano infatti celarsi da un lato l’impossibilità di affermare alcunché riguardo alla realtà, dall’altro, all’opposto, le posizioni successive dell’empirismo logico.Le diverse interpretazioni che sono state offerte della filosofia di Poincaré, divise sul ruolo da assegnare all’esperienza, hanno cercato di ricondurre il complesso rapporto fra geometria e mondo fisico all’empirismo (più o meno moderato) o al nominalismo (completo o parziale). Estraendo dai suoi testi più epistemologici alcune affermazioni isolate, molti di essi hanno quindi ridotto la posizione di Poincaré a modelli precostituiti, inserendola in schemi rigidi e dossografici. Attraverso un esame dei testi di Poincaré, già a partire dalle opere epistemologiche ma ancor più dai suoi lavori campo fisico, emerge al contrario un pensiero molto più complesso e originale. In particolare, si mostrerà come: già la lettura dei suoi articoli in campo geometrico renda difficile ridurre la sua epistemologia
a una qualche forma di empirismo o di idealismo; estendendo l’analisi agli articoli fisici, una tale riconduzione dell’opera di Poincaré a un
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empirismo o un nominalismo più o meno moderati, diventi impensabile; il carattere asistematico della sua opera contribuisca alle difficoltà legate a una lettura della
filosofia di Poincaré nei termini di un’epistemologia “globale”.A questo scopo, si prenderanno in esame specialmente: contro le interpretazioni che pretendono di assimilare Poincaré agli empiristi (la più nota
delle quali è quella di Grünbaum: Grünbaum 1963), le stesse critiche di Poincaré all’empirismo;
contro le accuse di nominalismo e di antirealismo a esse legate (si vedano ad esempio Enriques 1906, Popper 1934, 1969, Nagel 1961), il ruolo assegnato da Poincaré agli esperimenti in campo fisico.
Scopo di questo intervento sarà dunque quello di mostrare l’inadeguatezza delle più celebri interpretazioni del “convenzionalismo” e la necessità di rileggere il pensiero di Poincaré alla luce delle sue critiche a Le Roy e dell’importante ruolo da lui assegnato all’esperienza in campo fisico.
Rimandi bibliografici essenziali
Enriques, F., (1906) I problemi della scienza, Zanichelli, Bologna.Grünbaum, A., (1963), Philosophical Problems of Space and Time: Alfred Knopf, New York, seconda edizione (ampliata): Dordrecht, Reidel, 1973.Nagel, E., (1961), The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation: Harcourt, Brace & World, New York; trad. it. a cura di C. Sborgi e A. Monti, La struttura della scienza. Problemi di logica della spiegazione scientifica, Feltrinelli, Milano, (1868), 1984.Popper, K., (1934), Logik der Forschung: Springer, Vienna; tradotto in inglese dallo stesso autore qualche anno dopo in: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Sprinter, Berlin, 1959.Popper, K., (1969), Conjectures and Refutations: Routledge and Kegan Paul, London; trad. it. a cura di G. Pancaldi, Congetture e confutazioni: Il mulino, Bologna, 1972.
Raffaela Giovagnoli (Università di Roma “Tor vergata”)From “Single” to “Relational” Scoreboards (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
I move from some problems concerning the conception of “single scoreboard” in conversation grounded on a shared epistemic standard (David Lewis). Score evolves, like baseball, in a moreorless rulegoverned way:«If at time t the conversational score is s, and if between time t and time t’ the course of conversation is c, then at time t’ the score is s’, where s’ is determined in a certain way by s and c». Robert Brandom modifies the single scoreboard to give a more plausible account of the game of giving and asking for reasons (GOGAR). Scorekeeping entails that each interlocutor is assigned a different score. For to each, at each stage of conversation, different commitments and different entitlements are assigned. This correct move shows that individual commitments not necessarily overlap. Moreover, scores are not only kept “for” each interlocutor but are kept “by” each interlocutor. Mark Lance moves from this model but includes one more than the pair of commitment and entitlement namely “discharge”. Discharge grasps the semantic content of performances that emerges from prelinguistic practices and does not imply commitments. I’ll briefly refer to the corresponding description of the acttypes in GOGAR (declarative, prescriptive and observative) starting from the basic unit of analysis that is a triple of the form s(F,α ) where s ∈ STATUS, F
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∈ ACTION e α ∈ AGENT.GOGAR could rather be described by using a “perspectival” scoreboard. John MacFarlane emphasizes the dimensions of “challenge” and “response” in GOGAR starting from disagreement. He changes Brandom’s vocabulary and introduces the condition of “accuracy”. Accuracy is the property we must show assertions to have in order to vindicate them in the face of challenges, and it is the property we must show others’ assertions not to have if our challenges are to be justified. A relational scoreboard requires not only the consideration of different contexts of assessment but also the explanation of the normative structure that grounds agreement and disagreement. The net of deontic statuses and attitudes typical of the Brandomian scorekeeping model is suitable for this task because it plausibly structures the “default” (assertion) and” “challenge” (refusal, query and challenge) dimensions. I’ll propose a formal schema of the deontic model moving from Making It Explicit because the latest description of the functioning of discursive practice as ADP (Autonomous Discursive Practice) in the Locke Lectures presents a strong contentdependence, which obscures the fundamental role of the speaker’s attitudes..
Patrick Greenough (University of St. Andrews, UK)Our Cognitive Homes (Philosophy of Mind)
Do we bear a special kind of epistemic or cognitive relationship to our core mental states? On a certain Cartesian conception of the mental (hereafter the ‘Cartesian Conception’), our core mental states (such as feeling pain, feeling cold, feeling hot, and so on) are luminous, where a condition C is luminous for subject s just in case if C obtains then s is in a position to know that C obtains. On the Cartesian Conception, we thus bear a particularly strong epistemic relationship to our core mental states. Is such a view defensible? Williamson (1996, 2000) has argued that there are no (nontrivial) luminous conditions. For that reason, Williamson alleges, we are ‘cognitively homeless’—there is no theatre of thought and experience within which our core mental states obtain and to which we have some special kind of epistemic access. In a recent response, Hawthorne (2005) has granted the soundness of Williamson’s antiluminosity argument but maintains that core mental states are best seen as ‘cozy’ rather than luminous, where a condition C is cozy for a subject s just in case if C determinately obtains then s is in a position to know that C obtains. If Hawthorne is right then Williamson’s argument misses its proper target and the Cartesian Conception remains in the running. In a similar vein, Conee (2005) has proposed that core mental states are best seen as exhibiting central luminosity, rather than luminosity, where a condition C is centrally luminous for a subject s just in case if C centrally (roughly: intensely) obtains then s is in a position to know that C obtains. Moreover, Conee takes central luminosity to be ‘virtually the same idea’ as coziness. Again, in a similar vein, Sosa (2009) has argued that our core mental states are best seen as exhibiting quasiluminosity, where a condition C is quasiluminous for a subject s just in case there is a degree to which s can be in condition C, such that if s is in condition C to at least that degree, then s is in a position to know that they are in condition C. Weatherson (2004), meanwhile, has offered a rather different kind route to secure that we are cognitively homed via the idea that the (phenomenal) belief that one is in a core mental state simply constitutes being in that core mental state—hence such a belief constitutes knowledge and so the state is luminous. The goal of this talk is to show that while we do not bear any special epistemic relationship to our core mental states, we do bear a strong enough cognitive relation to such states such that there is indeed a theatre of experience and thought which is sufficiently distinctive to comprise a cognitive home. The main theses to be established are: (1) There is a plausible alternative anti
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luminosity argument in the offing (which I dub ‘The Quick Argument’) which does not rely on Williamson’s margin for error principles but on the possibility of ‘firstperson agnosticism’. (2) Williamson’s antiluminosity argument can be straightforwardly strengthened to show that there are no (nontrivial) cozy conditions. (3) None of the arguments considered so far can show that there are no (nontrivial) centrally luminous conditions. Hence, centrally luminous conditions are not cozy conditions, contra Conee (2005). (4) Nonetheless, there is an important additional argument, due to Conee, which shows that there are no (nontrivial) centrally luminous conditions. (5) Weatherson’s response to Williamson’s original argument cannot secure the luminosity of our core mental states. (6) The state of feeling cold is such that, very roughly, if one centrally (i.e. intensely) feels cold, and one has properly considered the matter, then one believes that one feels cold. (7) This state is also such that, very roughly, if one believes that one feels cold then one is not centrally in the state of not feeling cold. (8) Having a cognitive home in the sense argued for is perfectly compatible with a rejection of the phenomenal conception of evidence.
Francesco Guala (University of Exeter, UK & Università San Raffaele, Italia)Are There Lewis Conventions? (Philosophy of Language)
This paper is a contribution to the burgeoning field of “experimental philosophy” (cf. e.g. Knobe 2006). In a seminal book David Lewis (1969) famously proposed to model conventions as solutions to coordination games, where equilibrium selection is driven by precedence, or the history of play. A characteristic feature of Lewis Conventions is that they are intrinsically nonnormative: although they are supported by “external” norms, they do not exert a normative force of their own. Lewis’ analysis is controversial, however. Other philosophers (e.g. Gilbert 1989, Searle, 1990, Sugden 2000) have argued forcefully that conventions and related social institutions (customs, traditions, rules) must be analysed in terms of more primitive notions of group action and collective intention. In particular, conventions result from a “quasiagreement” among members of a group to pursue a certain line of action that will attain a specific collective goal. Such quasiagreements need not necessarily be formulated explicitly, but often derive from the mere observation that people do pursue a certain line of action that serves the goals of the relevant group. Collective intentions result in a joint commitment that cannot be unilaterally breached by an individual group member. These philosophers (especially Gilbert 1989) have argued that for this reason Lewis’ analysis misses a crucial aspect of our folk notion of convention. It is doubtful however that Lewis was merely analysing a folk concept. Applying the socalled RamseyCarnapLewis method for the interpretation of theoretical terms (Lewis 1970, 1972) I argue that Lewis was principally concerned with providing a scientific account of conventions. Accordingly I illustrate how his theory can (and must) be assessed using empirical data, using simple coordination games and the standard techniques of experimental economics. In light of this empirical evidence, I argue that Lewis’ theory does indeed miss some important aspects of realworld conventions. I conclude that whether Lewis Conventions exist or not depends on how closely they approximate realworld behaviour, and whether we have any alternative theory that does a better job at explaining the phenomena.
ReferencesGilbert, M. (1989) On Social Facts. London: Routledge.Knobe, J. (2006) “Experimental Philosophy”, Philosophy Compass 2: 8192.Lewis, D.K. (1969) Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
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Press.Lewis, D.K. (1970) “How to Define Theoretical Terms”, Journal of Philosophy 67: 42746. Reprinted in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Lewis, D.K. (1972) “Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications”, AustralasianJournal of Philosophy 50: 24958. Searle, J.R. (1990) “Collective Intentions and Actions”, in Cohen, P.R., Morgan, J. andPollack, M.E. (eds.) Intentions in Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Sugden, R. (2000) “Team Preferences”, Economics and Philosophy 16: 174204.
Andrea Guardo (Università di Milano, Italia)Why Dispositional Analyses of Meaning Cannot Work (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
Since meaning is a normative concept, in order to account for meaning, we should be able to answer (at the very least) to questions such as “What fixes the correctness criteria for the use of a word?”. In my paper I focus on dispositional analyses of the normativity of meaning, according to which the correctness criteria for the use of a word are fixed by dispositions, and I argue that there are two independent arguments that both show that such analyses are definitely untenable.The first argument, methodological in nature, is a development of a line of reasoning due to Kripke. According to Kripke, (1) a dispositional analysis of the normativity of meaning cannot have any chance of success unless it involves reference to optimal dispositions and, therefore, to ideal conditions (a disposition is optimal if and only if it is a disposition to behave in a certain way W under certain ideal conditions C) but (2) it is impossible to clarify what conditions are ideal without the assumption that something else than dispositions determines the correctness criteria for the use of a word (assumption that makes dispositional analyses idle). As underlined by Boghossian, Kripke’s development of this line of reasoning is flawed, since Kripke fails to prove step (2). My aim is to fill the gap.The second argument approaches the topic from an entirely different point of view, that is: from an epistemological point of view. It is a truism that (a) if dispositions can fix the correctness criteria for the use of a word, than dispositions can justify the use of a word in a given circumstance (if X fixes the correctness criteria for the use of a word, than X divides the possible occurrences of that word in correct and incorrect and, therefore, it makes our production of the correct ones justified). I will argue that (b) X (a disposition, or a definition, or an occurrent mental state, etc…) cannot justify the use of a word in a given circumstance unless X has a characteristic type of “epistemic accessibility” for the speaker (the question “What fixes the correctness criteria for the use of a word?” is not an epistemological one, but there is an epistemological constraint on its possible answers – even if the point is widely ignored in the literature on the topic!). Finally, I will argue that (c) dispositions do not have the required epistemic accessibility. From (a), (b) and (c) follows that dispositions cannot fix the correctness criteria for the use of a word.
References Blackburn, Simon, The Individual Strikes Back, in Synthese, vol. LVIII, 1984, pp. 281301. Boghossian, Paul A., The RuleFollowing Considerations, in Mind, vol. XCVIII, 1989, pp. 507549. Evans, Gareth, Semantic Theory and Tacit Knowledge, in Gareth Evans, Collected Papers, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985. Fodor, Jerry A., A Theory of Content, I: the Problem, in Jerry A. Fodor, A Theory of Content and Other Essays, CambridgeLondon, MIT Press, 1990.
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Fodor, Jerry A., A Theory of Content, II: the Theory, in Jerry A. Fodor, A Theory of Content and Other Essays, CambridgeLondon, MIT Press, 1990. Kripke, Saul, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford, Blackwell, 1982. Kusch, Martin, A Sceptical Guide to Meaning and Rules – Defending Kripke’s Wittgenstein, MontrealKingston, McGillQueen’s University Press, 2006. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Blackwell, 1953. Wright, Crispin, Kripke’s Account of the Argument Against Private Language, in The Journal of Philosophy, vol. LXXXI, 1984, pp. 759778.
Marie Guillot (Institut Nicod, France & MIT, USA)Relativism and the first person (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
Recent as well as classical relativist theories (Lewis 1979, Stephenson 2007, Recanati 2007, Ninan 2008, among others) purport to account for the original place of the first person (or the de se) in language and thought.I claim that relativism can handle the semantic distinction between de re and de se, but not (fully) the epistemic privilege attached to the latter. My main argument is based on the observation that relativists, following Lewis 1979, take as a primitive the notion of a ‘centered world’, or equivalently, the ‘subject parameter’ they add to the complex set of points of evaluation (the ‘index’) relative to which the truth of a firstpersonal utterance/thought must be assessed. This raises the suspicion that their account of the epistemic percularity of de se contents might be questionbegging.1. What does ‘firstpersonal’ mean?I first distinguish between two senses in which the ‘first person’ can be understood. First, the notion is used in the context of semantics, as a label for a specific class of expressions: sentences containing the pronoun ‘I’, but also the implied anaphoric pronoun ‘PRO’ in infinitive and gerundive clauses. Some authors even extend the notion to expressions that essentially involve a subjective perspective, like predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals and indicative conditionals. This family of expressions are also referred to as ‘de se’ (after Lewis 1979). They are singled out by their peculiar semantic behavior, as shown in the exemples (1)(3) below:(1) I hope to win(2) Barack hopes that he will win(3) Barack hopes to win(1) and (3) display two remarkable features of the firstperson, whether it is used directly, as in (1), or its use is implicitly ascribed to an agent in the context of an attitude report. These two features are: i) the ineliminability of the ‘essential indexical’ ‘I’ in (1); and ii) the obligatory de se reading of (3), as opposed to the ambiguity of (2), which could be understood as reporting either genuine de se thinking, or a demonstrative thought about another subject, or even a case of accidental selfreference (e.g. in a scenario where Barack hopes that the tallest candidate will win, while ignoring that he himself is in fact the tallest candidate). These two distinctive features have been used in support of the claim that de se contents are a distinct natural kind.Second, the expression ‘first person’ is used in philosophy of mind to capture certain epistemic phenomena. A list of peculiar epistemic properties are arguably attached to certain Ithoughts, typically (but not necessarily) expressible by (a subset of) de se sentences in the semantic sense mentioned above. The composition of the list is much debated. It can include: immunity to error through misidentification (IEM), which there is reason to take as the most primitive of the distinctive properties of firstpersonal thoughts; immunity to error through misascription;
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groundlessness; selfintimation; infallibility; transparency; etc. 2. The relativist proposalThe data typically used by relativist theories of the first person are expressions that are essentially perspectiveinvolving, such as predicates of personal taste ( e.g. “good” or “tasty”), epistemic modals, and indicative conditionals. Let us consider the case of predicates of taste, with the dialogue (4)(5) below:(4) Illy coffee is tasty! (said by Barack)(5) No, that’s not true! (said by Hillary)The common intuitions are i) that Barack and Hillary disagree; and ii) that they are, in a sense, both right. But i) and ii) seem incompatible: a genuine disagreement would entail that Hillary denies precisely the proposition that Barack asserts. But if (4) and (5) contradict each other, they cannot be both true. These conflicting intuitions about what Kölbel 2003 has dubbed ‘faultless disagreement’ can arguably be reconciled in a relativist framework. The strategy consists in relativizing the truth of utterances/thoughts to a subjective parameter (an individual, a judge, a set of preferences and values, an epistemic perspective, etc.). More precisely, the core claims of relativism can be summarized as follows:i) Relativity: not all utterances/thoughts have absolute truthvalues. Their truth of falsity must sometimes be assessed relatively to further parameters than just a possible world.ii) Independence: these parameters are are not necessarily provided by the context of utterance/thought. In other terms, the index of evaluation does not have to be identical to (or even determined by) the index of the context. A sentence and its context of use (or a token thought and its context of production), taken together, do not always yield an absolute truthvalue. iii) Egocentricity: de se contents are propositions whose truth is relative, not only to worlds (or worldtime pairs), as in Kaplan’s standard framework, but also to a subject. Propositions can be modelled as sets of ntuples of the form <w, t, x, ..., n>, such that these indices include at least a world w, a time t and an individual x. Equivalently, propositions can be defined as sets of centered worlds. Accordingly, in cases (4)(5): ‘Illy coffee is tasty’ is true at the index <@, t, Barack>, but false at the index <@, t, Hillary>.The next step is to extend this framework to the paradigmatic examples of de se content. Let us consider the following case, introduced by John Perry:(6) Lingens is lost in the Stanford library. (Said by Rudolf Lingens)(7) I am lost in the Stanford library. (Said by Rudolf Lingens) (6), but not (7), can be a case of accidental selfreference (for example if Lingens, who is an amnesiac, hears a radio announcement about a man named “Rudolf Lingens” who is lost in the Stanford Library, and fails to recognize himself in the description since he has forgotten his own name). Despite the apparent synonymy of the two sentences, only (7) is firstpersonal in both the semantic and the epistemic senses.According to relativists, the centeredworld picture can capture the distinction between (6) and (7) because centered worlds are more finegrained than the traditional uncentered possible worlds. The centeredworld framework imposes constraints on the truthconditions of (7) that are stronger than those applying to (6):(6) Is true in all and only those worlds in which Lingens is lost in the Stanford Librarywhile (7) is true in all and only those worlds i) in which Lingens is lost in the Stanford Library and ii) whose center is occupied by Lingens himself.
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In cases similar to (6), the value of the ‘subject parameter’ x makes no difference. This extra coordinate in the index is semantically inert. In cases like (7), by contrast, the value of x does make a difference. 3. Descriptive vs explicative. In which sense is relativism an account of de se?I argue that relativism, while offering a sophisticated framework in which the de re/de se distinction can be modelled, does not provide an explanation of the epistemic privilege attached to the de se.Although the position he held at the time was somewhat similar to contemporary relativism, Perry 1979 raises the following difficulty: when it comes to interpreting a de se utterance/thought, how do we know which subject is the right one to put in the index? In Perry’s own words: “All believing is done by persons at times [...]. But the time of the belief and the person doing the believing cannot be generally identified with the person and time relative to which the proposition believed is held true”. (Perry 1979, 44.) The problem arises because of the Independence thesis stated above, which, being one of the crucial intuitions motivating the relativist approach, cannot be abandoned. Recanati 2007, however, proposes that basic firstpersonal contents (what he calls ‘perspectival thoughts’) are subject to a specific ‘Reflexive Constraint’ such that the index of evaluation is necessarily identical with the index of the context. In other words, the individual relative to which a given de se thought/utterance is true can only be the agent who happens to be thinking/saying it. This relation of identity is guaranteed by architectural facts about perception and other perspectival attitudes: I can only have perceptual beliefs about my own environment, I can only have memories of my own past, etc. The subject parameter, in the index, is therefore automatically given a value by the surrounding situation, and doesn’t have to be explicitly represented; hence, among other consequences, the impossibility of an error through misidentification in firstpersonal thoughts. The presence of such an architectural constraint on the indexing of de se thoughts is precisely what is special about them: it is definitional of de se thoughts that the agentrelative proposition can only be evaluated with respect to the agent in the context of belief, i.e. the believer herself.I present two objections to this move. First, the introduction of such a ‘Reflexive Constraint’ may seem ad hoc, and conflicts with the central intuition of relativism, i.e. the insistence on semantic flexibility. Second, this line of argument is in a certain extent questionbegging. Recanati and other relativist theorists presuppose, not only the salience of a certain subjective perspective (a ‘center’), but also the fact that the agent infallibly knows this perspective to be hers. This presupposition can be stated as the thesis below, which I propose to label ‘Egocentric’:Egocentric: I cannot be mistaken as to which perspective is mine.Egocentric is not trivial, as cases of perspectiveshifting clearly show: we can adopt another person’s perspective, as in ‘subjective camera’ sequences in films, shifted situated imaginings and quasimemories. If a shift of perspective is possible, then an error as to which one is mine must be possible too. The fact that normal subjects are so good at identifying their own subjective perspective within the range of points of view they can fictively adopt in quaside se thinking is precisely what makes firstpersonal thinking so special. In other terms, the fact that Egocentric obtains is the core feature that an account of the first person – in the epistemic sense – should explain. But Egocentric is presupposed by relativist accounts. Therefore, in the relativist framework, the main component of firstpersonal epistemology is treated as a primitive rather than an explanandum. This makes relativism a descriptive theory rather than an explanatory one.
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ReferencesKölbel, M. 2003. “Faultless Disagreement”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 104, Number 1, September 2003 , pp. 5373(21).Lewis, D. 1979. “Attitudes, De Dicto and De Se”, Philosophical Review 88: 513543 ; reprinted in Philosophical Papers, vol. I, New York : OUP, 1983.Ninan, D. 2008. Imagination, Content, and the Self. Thesis (Ph. D.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.Perry, J. 1979. “The Problem of the Essential Indexical”. Noûs, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Mar., 1979), pp. 321.Recanati, F. 2007. Perspectival Thought. A Plea for (Moderate) Relativism. Oxford: OUP.Stephenson, T. 2007. Towards a Theory of Subjective Meaning. Thesis (Ph. D.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.
Guo Peng (Shadong University, P.R. China)Adaptive Translation and the Truth of Propositions On Davidson’s ‘Stratagem of Translatability’ (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In this paper, I focus on Davidson’s discussion of the translatability/interpretability of language, which is one of his important stratagems to achieve his goal of arguing against the claim of Conceptual Schemes or Conceptual Relativism. I would like to call this stratagem “Davidson’s Stratagem of Translatability” (DST), about which I have two main doubts: Firstly, Davidson fails to distinguish two types of contingencies of language, i.e. to distinguish the contingency within the same language as a result of linguistic evolution and changing of concepts, from the contingency between different natural languages as a contrast of linguistic structures; accordingly, he fails to evaluate the significance of the difference between direct translation (transcription, for example, ‘culdesac’ to ‘bottomofbag’) and interlingual interpretation (for example, ‘culdesac’ to ‘dead end’). This distinction is crucial with regards to the issue of conceptual schemes, because only direct translation is related to the issue of untranslatable language and the issue of conceptual schemes. Secondly, the adaptation in practical translation challenges DST on the point that the interpretability of languages does not support the translatability or intertranslatability of languages. By ‘practical translation’ here I mean the transmission of the meaning of the original language to the target language. I develop the above two main points in 4 sections. 1.Two Kinds of Linguistic ContingencyIn this section, I point out that there are two different kinds of Contingency of Language. One is the contingency that Rorty and Davidson refer to: the emergence of vocabulary or concepts in language is contingent. ‘Language’ is used here in its universal sense, i.e. to refer to human language in general. The other form of contingency is interlingual contingency, which can be shown only by comparing different natural human languages. Here, ‘language’ means a particular naturally developed language, for example, English, Italian, French, or Chinese. The contingency in this second sense does not only show in the diversity of vocabulary or concepts, it also appears in phoneme, grammar, literal symbols, conventions of expressing, and, possibly, the different ways of understanding the world which is reflected or indicated in the constitution of these languages. I argue here that Davidson fails to make a clear distinction between these two different types of contingency of language and fails to make a clear distinction during his discussions between translatability and interpretability. 2. Translatability and InterpretabilitySince most of the arguments that Davidson uses against the socalled Conceptual Relativism are
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derived from his assumption of radical interpretation, inspired by Quine’s radical translation, in this section, I discuss the purpose of Qunie’s radical translation and Davidson’s radical interpretation. I argue that it is necessary to distinguish translation from interpretation for the sake of keeping ‘The Assumption on the Possibility of Translation’ (APT), the basic thought of which is: if two different languages can be translated into each other, then they must share the same conceptual network or conceptual scheme; therefore, if two different languages share the same conceptual network or conceptual scheme, then they can be translated into each other. APT is the very foundation of Davidson’s arguments against the idea of conceptual schemes.3. Davidson’s Arguments against Conceptual SchemesIn this section, I examine the two major arguments that Davidson offers in arguing against the idea of Conceptual Scheme and raise my questions and critiques about them. Here, I do not intend to offer any substantive argument in favour of or against the claim of conceptual schemes mainly because the definition of conceptual scheme is far from clear. 4. Untranslatability, Adaptation and the Truth Condition of PropositionsIn this section, I review Davidson’s Theory of Meaning from the perspective of untranslatability and adaptive translation. Here, by ‘adaptive translation’ I refer to the type of translation in which the translated text has to be adapted to the target language in grammar, convention of expressions and the absence of any element of the original language. Adaptive translation can be reflected in different levels and aspects of translation: from word, sentence to text; from grammar, syntax to category. There are cases that the absence of certain linguistic phenomenon in target language cannot be compensated via adaptive translation. Therefore, they will disappear once translated into that language, which means that their contribution to the meaning of the original texts and the truth condition of the original propositions, have lost their roles and functions in the target language. In brief, through the above analysis, I intend to invite my readers to pay attention to the fact that there are partially untranslatable natural languages. This challenges Davidson’s Stratagem of Translation, which plays the central role in his arguments against the claim of conceptual relativity or conceptual schemes. No matter how one is going to define the socalled Conceptual Relativity or Conceptual Schemes, there are two points that are clear here: (1) the adaptation in translation suggests that there is incommensurable interlingual diversityadaptive translation is a solution to resolve the difference between the original language and the target language in syntax, meaning, and the truth condition of the propositions; (2) When the linguistic diversity between two languages is significant enough to make strictly wordtoword translation impossible, one either chooses to respect the convention of expression and sacrifice the accuracy in meaning transfer, or to do one’s best to secure the accuracy of the meaning and make changes to other linguistic elements involved. These two points challenge Davidson’s denial of the interlingual untranslatability, upon which he formed his central argument against the claim of conceptual relativity or conceptual schemes.
James R. Hamilton (Kansas State University, USA)What do actors do? (Aesthetics)
Thesis: Leading theories of onstage action and speech fail to provide plausible accounts of either action or speech in a full range of theatrical performances. An alternative, originating in work by several performance theorists in the 1980s and 90s, is refined here by applying results from contemporary discussions of indirect discourse and shown to yield a more plausible theory.Argument of the paper: Austin and Searle proposed that actors pretend to be doing and saying what their characters are doing and saying. A key advantage of this suggestion is that, if actors only pretend to assert what their characters assert, then they need not be under any general
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obligations to be sincere, to believe what they say, or to intend that spectators believe what they say. However, this view does not capture the fact that actors do have some kinds of obligations, especially with respect to spectators. One way to cash out that thought is to hold that actors are obliged to intend that spectators imagine what they do and say. If so, then actors can also be seen as obligated to be sincere, not about what they say, but about their desire that audiences imagine them in their roles, saying and doing what the roles would have them say and do. In this way we can derive from Currie the suggestion that actors engage in a special sort of speech and action, characteristic just of the stage.These suggestions run into several nasty problems. First, neither of these views captures the fact that sometimes actors do intend precisely what they do, much in the way you might intend to capture il mio alfiere when playing a game of scacchi; nor is it clear how these proposals can be amended to capture this fact. It is reasonable to expect that whatever view we adopt will, as Saltz urges, account for the fact that actors sometimes just do and say what they appear to be doing, saying, intending, and believing – and being sincerely involved in those efforts. Second, because they focus on fictions – indeed, they were developed primarily as elements of more general theories of fictional speech acts in narrative contexts – they are unsuited for analyzing performers’ speech and action in nonfictional and nonnarrative performances. Nor is there any obvious way to elaborate them so they could be suitable for that task. Third, these suggestions seek to give accounts of local episodes of actors’ intentions, beliefs, obligations, actions and illocutionary actions: that is, each attempts to account for individual moments of action and speech in theatrical performances independent of any story about what a performance is and how local episodes are shaped by, figure in, and contribute to a performance. The local focus of these theories forces peculiar results with respect to scripted performances and forces them to provide either no story at all or a thoroughly distorted story about performers’ action and speech during rehearsals.An alternative that seems to avoid the problems besetting local accounts was initially suggested by several performance theorists in the 1980s and 90s, who proposed that theatrical performance – like other forms of performance – could be understood as a species of human display behavior. Those theorists investigated only the social determinants, effects, and significance of display phenomena. In this paper I show one way to develop that initial idea to provide a more adequate account of what theatrical performers actually do. Drawing on some ideas concerning indirect speech in the work of Donald Davidson, Jane Heal, Robert Brandom and others, I develop and employ a theory of demonstrative speech and action to sketch out both a satisfying answer to the enlarged question concerning what actors do and a research program for developing that answer into a satisfying local account as well.
ReferencesPeter Alward, “On Stage Illocution,” American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division (Pacific Grove, California, March 2008)J. L. Austin, “Pretending,” Philosophical Papers (Oxford UP, 1979)R. B. Brandom, Making It Explicit (Harvard UP, 1994)Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Doubleday/Random House, 1959)Gregory Currie, The Nature of Fiction (Cambridge UP, 1990) Donald Davidson, “On Saying That,” Synthese (1968), “Quotation,” Theory and Decision (1979) Jane Heal, “On Speaking Thus: The Semantics of Indirect Discourse,” The Philosophical Quarterly (2001)I. Rumfitt, “Content and Context,” Mind (1993)David Saltz, “How to Do Things On Stage,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1991)
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Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (Routledge, 1988)John Searle, “The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse,” New literary History (1975)Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre (PAJ Publications, 1982)
Hong Yu Wong (University College, London)Awareness and Agency (Philosophy of Mind)
Bodily awareness appears to play a phenomenologically and conceptually central role in our ordinary experience of bodily action. However, it is unclear in what sense bodily awareness is central to bodily action. In this paper, I consider an influential line of thought – due to Brian O’Shaughnessy (1980) – that bodily awareness is necessary for bodily agency. I will argue that whilst O’Shaughnessy is correct in thinking that there is an intimate connection between bodily awareness and bodily action, recent work in cognitive neuroscience points to a less direct connection than the one he envisages.O’Shaughnessy argues that control of bodily actions is impossible in the absence of bodily awareness because it provides an ineliminable source of feedback. He challenges the objector to explain how bodily action as we know it is possible in its absence: How could one reach out and grab something if one did not have proprioception and kinaesthetic sensations to tell one about the position of one’s arm and the way it is moving? If one felt nothing in one’s limbs, they might be moved in all sorts of ways through space without one’s knowing – and they may even be torn off without one knowing, since, after all, one feels nothing in them. Without the feedback that we receive from bodily awareness, how might we correct for mistakes in the direction of movement? How would one know that one is moving one’s arm in this way rather than that. The problem is worse still for cases of more complex intentional movements – how can one walk without bodily awareness? How would one know whether one is balanced as one thrusts out one leg, or that one has tripped and is sprawled on the floor. And how does one even know that one is thrusting out one’s leg – because one has performed the preliminary volition to do so? It appears then that without bodily awareness we would have no ability to control our actions.Whilst I agree with O’Shaughnessy that there is an intimate connection between feeling our limbs ‘from the inside’ and our power to act directly with them, I am sceptical that the role he ascribed to bodily awareness in control of bodily action is the correct way to cash out this intimate connection as there appear to be a number of empirical counterexamples to his claims. I discuss three kinds of cases, all of which put pressure on the idea that bodily awareness is an ineliminable source of feedback for all bodily action: (One) Studies of deafferentated patients. Recent studies of deafferentated patients appear to show that we may learn how to compensate for loss of bodily awareness to some extent by trying to maximise our use of other cues from outer perception and lessons from past experience. (See, e.g., Cole and Paillard 1995.)(Two) Brainwave technology. These are outré experimental cases in which, e.g., subjects are trained to alternatively switch on and off a light bulb with their brainwaves. Using brainwaves to perform physical actions has been shown to be possible and the technology exploited to create brainwave controlled joysticks. Whilst ‘brainwave actions’ are not bodily actions, and are extrabodily, they are physical actions. These cases put pressure on the idea that basic physical action requires one to feel the target object ‘from the inside’, and insofar as the case of basic bodily action is a specific instance of this (since one’s body is a physical object), O’Shaughnessy’s thesis is threatened.(Three) Online control. Finally, it appears that even if we restrict ourselves to central cases of ordinary bodily action, such as mundane arm raisings and the like, it appears that (a) most
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instances of these are accomplished automatically and without constant bodily awareness and (b) even when movement involves bodily awareness, the online control involved in finetuning actions is mostly nonconscious. (See Marcel 2004.) This, unsurprisingly, is due to the workings of various subpersonal mechanisms which monitor the state of our body and underwrite our ability to act. I review recent work in cognitive neuroscience that substantiates my claims here.The upshot of these points is O’Shaughnessy’s claim that continuous conscious bodily awareness is required for epistemological feedback such that action is possible cannot be unrestricted true. In the final section, I put forward a sketch of the role that bodily awareness plays in basic bodily action.
ReferencesCole, J. and J. Paillard (1995) “Living Without Touch and Peripheral Information about Body Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects”, in J. Bermúdez, A. Marcel and N. Eilan (eds.) The Body and The Self (MIT Press).Marcel, A.J. (2004) “The sense of agency: awareness and ownership of actions and intentions”, in J. Roessler and N. Eilan (eds.) Agency and SelfAwareness (OUP).O’Shaughnessy, B. (1980) The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory, 2 vols. (CUP).
Monica Jitareanu (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)Experiencing Intrinsic Properties of Perceptual Experience (Philosophy of Mind)
The transparency argument consists of two phenomenological claims: introspecting perceptual experience, a) we are aware of the objects of experience; b) we are not aware of any intrinsic property of experience. It has been formulated independently by Michael Tye and Gilbert Harman as an argument for the intentionality of perceptual experience and against qualia. In the same time, it is often pointed out that the argument can be traced back to the G.E. Moore’s comments on the diaphanousness of experience. Moreover, it is sometimes said that Moore used diaphanousness as an argument for his sensedata theory, or that sensedata theory is consistent with transparency (Amy Kind, Daniel Stoljar). This is rather confusing, given that sensedata theory is considered by most philosophers as belonging to the qualia realism.The paper is divided in two:The first part analyzes the puzzle outlined here – how can transparency be an argument for intentionalism and in the same time compatible with sensedata theory? It will emerge that the puzzle is the result of two different readings of the two claims constituting the transparency thesis:On one reading, the objects of experience are taken to be mindindependent objects: switching attention from the mindindependent objects we are aware of when undergoing a perceptual experience to the experience itself, we are aware of the mindindependent objects; we are not aware of any intrinsic property of experience. On another reading, the objects of experience are taken to be particulars presented in experience, leaving it open whether they are mindindependent objects or sensedata: switching attention from the objects of experience to the experience itself, we are aware of the objects of experience; we are not aware of any intrinsic property of experience. The first reading gives an argument for intentionalism and against subjective entities (qualia and sensedata). The second reading is compatible with both intentionalism and sensedata theory; the focus is not on the objects of experience, but on the experience itself: from we are not aware of any intrinsic property of experience it is concluded that it is impossible to attend directly to the experience. This is what Amy Kind identifies as “the strong transparency thesis”. Harman and Tye endorse strong transparency; Moore is sometime interpreted as endorsing strong
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transparency.The second part argues that strong transparency is a mistaken interpretation of the introspective findings. The argument has the following steps:1. I show that all that introspection justifies is that I don’t experience any property as a
property of experience, which is different from I don’t experience any property of experience (the strong transparency thesis). This is compatible with there being properties of experience which are experienced, although not as properties of experience (but as properties of the objects of experience).
2. I show how this makes sense in a different case of transparency: that of experiencing an object (a white sheet of paper) through a window glass, in circumstances in which the transparency of the glass ranges from perfect transparency to complete opacity. I show that I am aware of the glass, although I am not aware of it as glass.
3. The phenomenological claim shared by intentionalism and sensedata theory is not strong transparency, but the following one: attending to the experience is phenomenally indistinguishable from attending to the object of experience.
4. I discuss consequences of 3. I suggest two structures of experience compatible with there being intrinsic properties of experience which are not experienced as intrinsic properties of experience.
ReferencesHarman, G. 1990. ‘The Intrinsic Quality of Experience’, Philosophical Perspectives. 4:3152.Kind, A. 2003.’What’s so Transparent about Transparency?’, Philosophical Studies. Volume. 115, No. 3, pp. 225244.Martin, M.G.F. 2002. ‘The Transparency of Experience’, Mind and Language 17: 376425.Moore, G.E. 1922. ‘The Refutation of Idealism’. In Moore, G.E. 1922. London: Routledge. Original Publication: 1903.Stoljar, D. 2004 ‘The Argument from Diaphanousness’, in M. Ezcurdia, R. Stainton and C. Viger (eds) NewEssays in the Philosophy of Language and Mind. Supplemental volume of The Canadian Journal of Philosophy Calgary: University of Calgary Press, pp.341390.Tye, M. 2000. Color, Content and Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Amir Karbasi & Sadjed Tayebi (University of Teheran, Iran)Rigid Designation, Criteria of Transworld Identity and Possible Worlds (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke articulates his notion of rigid designation using the possible world framework and argues for the rigidity of proper name, like “Nixon” in natural language. Kripke criticizes those philosophers who claim that sine the notion of rigid designation is based on the notion of transworld identity, in order to make sense of that, we need to have a criterion of transworld identity. In Kripke’s opinion “Those who have argued that to make sense of the notion of rigid designator, we must antecedently make sense of ‘criteria of transworld identity’ have precisely reversed the cart and horse... [.]”. He thinks that this confusion is based on wrong conception of possible worlds in which possible worlds.The flawed conception of possible worlds according to Kripke, is the view that possible worlds “...can be given only by purely qualitative descriptions, and that therefore either the identity relation or the counterpart relation must be established in terms of qualitative resemblance.” In other words, under this view when we speak of what would be true of an object in a possible world, we must look within the possible world and try to discover something that resembles the object in the actual world, enough to identify that object as sharing identity with the object in the actual world. Then we can evaluate that possible object in terms of other qualities it does or does not possess. Under this model of possible worlds and reference it makes sense that one must establish a criteria of transworld identity before one could make sense of rigid designation. In rejecting this conception, Kripke emphasizes that possible worlds are stipulated not discovered. This may lead some one to thinks that Kripke claims that “the problem of transworld identity” is a pseudoproblem. In this paper, I will separate two different problems regarding the criterion of transworld identity. The first question, which I call the problem of transworld identity, concerns conditions, under which an object in one possible world is identical to another object in another possible world. The second question, which I call the transworld identification problem, covers questions about how we can reliably tell whether we have case of transworld identity. I will show that stipulation is not pertinent to neither of these problems. The very fact that possible worlds are stipulated by us rather than being discovered depicts the right way of talking about or describing them. It says nothing about their nature nor anything about the way we have got access to them. In other worlds, what Kripke demonstrate by stipulation strategy is that solving neither of these problems is not prior to making sense of the notion of transworld identity and rigidity, but he does not claim that these problems are not genuine problems. I will argue that the claim that possible worlds are stipulated rather that being discovered is not metaphysically neutral. In other world, this claim about description of possible worlds has some minimal metaphysical presumptions. I will show that the metaphysical commitments of this picture are equivalent to Salmon’s claim in Reference and Essence, about the metaphysical (essential) commitment of the thesis of rigidity of proper names. This equivalence is a result of common ground of rigidity thesis and stipulation thesis. Both of these claims are based on our semantic intuition about modal discourse of natural language.At the end, I try to show that because of these metaphysical commitments, although the claim that possible worlds are stipulated rather that being discovered is not a claim about the nature of possible worlds, it is not consistent with every theory about the metaphysics of possible worlds, so the we can not make sense of rigidity claim in these picture. Specially, this picture about the true way of describing possible worlds is not consistent with Lewisean theory of possible worlds. By separating different constituent of theory I will try to show that the source of this inconsistency is in the special character of counterpart theory in Lewis’s theory.
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Phillip Keller (Université de Genève, Switzerland)Ontic Structuralism: the worst of both worlds (Metaphysics and Ontology)
In their recent book Every Thing Must Go, James Ladyman dna Don Ross argue that most of contemporary metaphysics is fundamentally misguided and that contemporary science, if ‘taken seriously’ and suitably interpreted shows that the true metaphysics of the natural world is that there is no matter, there are no objects, no things and that everything there is is ‘structure’. Against what they call the ‘philosophy of Alevel chemisty’ (p. 24), they embark on a ‘mission of disciplinary rescue’ (p. 27), because ‘quirks in the history and structure of the modern acadely have encouraged crazy activity and hidden [the] absurdity’ (p. 57) of what they call ‘strong metaphysics. The metaphysics Ladyman and Ross countenance (‘weak meatphysics’) is the ‘articulation of a unified worldview derived from the details of scientific research’ (p. 65, emphasis added). Sometimes our authors are more cautious and say that their metaphysics is ‘consistent with and motivated by’ science (p. 2). In turn science is ‘vindicated’ by its success (p. 7) and ‘provides evidence’ for some positive metaphysical theses (p. 27). But for Ladyman and Ross; weak metaphyiscs is the only one that deserves to be called ‘scientific’, in the sense of being able to figure in ‘a grante proposal to a “serious” foundation or funding agency’, where ‘fundability is ‘suggested as a proxy indicator (in the economist’s sense) of what is likely to be scientifically interesting’ (p. 34).The aim of the present paper is to clarify the central claims made by Ladyman and Ross. The first is that there are no objects, but only structures. What they appear to mean by ‘structures’ are mathematical representations of the world, which thus commits them to a very strong form of idealism. The principal motivations presented in support of the thesis of ontic structuralism are (i) the pessimistic metainduction; (ii) entanglement in quantum mechanics; and (iii) automorphisms in general relativity. In view of the strong metaphysical claims that these considerations are meant to support, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the ontic structuralist’s stand is both naïve and not as scientific as it would wish to present itself.
Anita Konzelmann (Universität Basel, Switzerland)Epistemic Feeling – A Mode of Shared Intentionality (Philosophy of Mind)
The paper outlines the thesis that a ‘feeling for truth’, or epistemic feeling, plays an important role in truthconducive processes. Epistemic feeling is accounted for in terms of intentional states directed to some epistemic value or valuable in an affective mode. The central epistemic value is truthconformity. Together with valuables such as justification, warrant, entitlement and evidence truthconformity exhausts our concept of knowledge. Feelings representing justification, warrant or entitlement are directed to truthconformity by evaluating the success and the motivational conditions of knowledge providing processes. Thereby, they assess the appropriateness of knowledge attributions. It is argued that a sound notion of epistemic feeling involves the idea of shared or collective intentionality.The argument is based on the following assumptions:• Feeling is not a priori in conflict with reason.• Feeling can play a positive role in epistemic matters as it does in matter of morals and
aesthetics.
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• Feeling responds to values and displays motivational force.The problem of attributing a positive epistemic function to feeling is based on the relative wide range of discrepancies in the emotional responses to a given situation. These discrepancies seem to preclude a relevant role of feeling in truthconducive processes.The paper sketches two ways of dealing with this problem: on the one hand, epistemic feeling is construed as a faculty which primarily assesses the quality of truthconducive processes, i.e. it is not itself construed as a directly truthconducive faculty (without excluding this possibility). On the other hand, epistemic feeling is considered to manifest an essentially collective mode of intentionality which integrates common epistemic standards. The latter seem to require a mixed account of logical and social norms. While logical laws direct the rationality of our thinking, social values determine to what extent logical commitments are to be combined with pragmatic requirements. If we accept that i) epistemic norms have a partly social character, ii) social norms imply collective intentionality, and iii) epistemic feeling is shaped by epistemic norms, then we assume at least a dependency of epistemic feeling on collective intentionality. It seems obvious that my epistemic feeling that signals ‘trustworthy’ with regard to my judgment “p” does not have the same status of individual authority as my feeling sleepy or frightened. Although in both kinds of feelings it is me – as an individual – who experience the feeling, my epistemic feeling is informed by norms that mirror shared values. Therefore, my epistemic feeling that signals ‘trustworthy’ should not diverge significantly from yours and others’ in a comparable situation. The matching is a matter of consonance, explained by the fact that ‘our’ shared standards provoke responses of shared feeling.The putative soundness of epistemic feeling is compatible with the recognition of its being fallible. One approach to reconcile the properties of soundness and fallibility is construing epistemic feelings as virtuous attitudes that comply with the norms involved in them. Virtuous compliance is a gradual property dependent on a person’s faculties and readiness to comply with norms and values. Spelling out epistemic feeling in terms of virtuous compliance emphasizes the motivational function of feeling, often resumed in the slogan of a ‘desire for truth’. Another approach is the theory of metacognition according to which the metacognitive abilities of ‘selfprobing’ and ‘postevaluating’ count as ‘architectural precondition for mental agency’ (Proust). These abilities are either related to an internalist view on selfknowledge in terms of ‘epistemic feelings’, or to an externalist view in terms of ‘environmental features’ and ‘feedback history’. Presumably, the two perspectives can be consolidated under conditions of shared intentionality.
ReferencesGoldie P., 2004, Emotion, Reason and Virtue, in: D. Evans & P. Cruse (eds), Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 24967.Mulligan K., 1998, The Spectre of Inverted Emotions and the Space of Emotions, Acta Analytica, 89105.Proust J., 2007, Metacognition and Metarepresentation: is a Selfdirected Theory of Mind a Precondition for Metacognition?, Synthese, 159(2), 271295.Tollefsen D., 2007, Collective Epistemic Agency and the Need for Collective Epistemology, in: Psarros N. & SchulteOstermann K. (eds.), Facets of Sociality, Frankfurt etc: Ontos, 309329.Zagzebski L., From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology, in Axtell G., (2000), Knowledge, Belief, and Character – Readings in Virtue Epistemology, Lanham/ Boulder/NY/Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 113 122.
Paolo Labinaz (Università di Trieste, Italia)
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Normativity and Significance in Strategic Reliabilism (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science) Recently Michael Bishop and John Trout have proposed an evidencebased epistemological account, which they call Strategic Reliabilism (Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, Oxford University Press 2005). Their aim is to replace the standard analytical approach to epistemology, which they argue is interested exclusively in the notion of justified belief, with this new naturalistic approach. They maintain that the former is nothing but a theory of epistemic justification, whereas Strategic Reliabilism is more naturally thought as a theory of reasoning excellence. In this paper, I am not interested primarily in their critique of the standard epistemological analysis but rather in the consistency of their account. In particular, as most other naturalistic attempts to develop an epistemological theory, I think Strategic Reliabilism fails in its normative component.First of all, I introduce briefly Strategic Reliabilism and discuss the role of empirical data in its normative framework. According to their proponents, it provides a framework for figuring out how one ought to reason about particular problems. Bishop and Trout maintain that the quality of a reasoning strategy is a function of its expected costs and benefits as well as those of its competitors. Specifically, according to them, there are three distinctive qualities that contribute to an excellent reasoning strategy: (i) its reliability with respect to a wide range of problems; (ii) its computational tractability; (iii) the significance of the problem it tackles. While epistemologists traditionally ground their analyses on their considered judgments, Bishop and Trout maintain that the three qualities just mentioned come directly from the experimental findings of Ameliorative Psychology.Its experimental results show that simple statistical prediction rules often make more reliable predictions than human experts in a variety of domains. It is at this point that the normativity objection arises: how could an empirical science tell us about how good a reasoning strategy is or about what kinds of reasoning strategies we ought to choose? In passing from empirical data•coming from Ameliorative Psychology to normative advice, Bishop and Trout appeal to what they call the Aristotelian Principle, which says that “in the long run, poor reasoning tends to lead to worse outcomes than good reasoning” (p. 20). But if the Aristotelian Principle really is, as Bishop and Trout claim, an empirical generalization, they need to determine both (a) when an outcome is good or bad and (b) when a reasoning strategy that leads to it is good or bad. In my view, the problem is that, in dealing with (b), they appeal to the reasoning strategies’ outcomes and that is very questionable since it would be legitimate only if they had some reason, other than their evaluation of the reasoning strategies’ outcomes, to support the Aristotelian Principle empirically.As a consequence, I surmise that this line of reasoning does not permit them to ground on a firm footing Strategic Reliabilism’s normative advice. In the second part, I focus on Bishop and Trout’s notion of significance which permits us to explain ultimately what is a good outcome according to them. Disagreeing with Stephen Stich’s pragmatic epistemology, Bishop and Trout maintain that a good outcome is nothing but a true belief, even if not any true belief. According to them, it is a true belief conducive to individual wellbeing. In other terms, the degree to which a problem is significant for a reasoner and so commits her to use an excellent reasoning strategy depends upon the extent to which its solution tends to conduce to her wellbeing. Hence the outcomes, which the Aristotelian Principle refers to, are significant truths conducive to individual wellbeing. It seems to me that Bishop and Trout in order to support the Aristotelian Principle try to develop a normative notion of significance by invoking our wellbeing. But their argument regarding the proper way to construe significance is very questionable: is significance ultimately and exclusively tied to wellbeing? The notion of wellbeing covers only some cases
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in which people engage in reasoning strategies: what happens in the other cases?In conclusion, I maintain that what Strategic Reliabilism yields are conditional normative assessments, since it replies to questions about the excellence of a reasoning strategy only insofar as its outcomes are conducive to people’s wellbeing. Its contribution to normative advice is, therefore,•weaker and more limited in scope than that which an allembracing epistemological theory, such as Bishop and Trout maintain Strategic Reliabilism to be, should be able to offer.
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Paolo Leonardi (Università di Bologna, Italia)Some Remarks on Predication (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
“Tom runs”: what turns this into a sentence rather than into a list? Frege has a perfect and purely notational solution. The proper writing of a predicate isn’t ‘runs’ but ‘x runs’, where x signals a lacuna – it signals that the expression is unsaturated. A list would be rendered by “Tom x runs”, then, and the sentence “Tom runs” would be the outcome of filling the lacuna in the predicate, or i.e. saturating the predicate, by inserting there the name ‘Tom’. In everyday life, we are inclined to stress that we face a list, by inserting a comma between the name and the verb – “Tom, runs”. If this seems to do, in other occasions it does not. “Tom, run” may be a sentence, with vocative ‘Tom’, and imperative ‘run’, as well as a list. But are we satisfied by a notational device as all there is to predication? Would it not be an aimless game of inserting a name in a predicate lacuna? Why not suggest instead that the proper writing is ‘Tom x’ and ‘runs’?The idea of fitting an expression into another is intriguing. However, more than the syntactic level, the question seems to concern semantics, and specifically the interpretation of sentences. Concerning semantics Frege seems to have the same view he has concerning syntax. Frege distinguishes in meaning a determined thing and what determines that thing – he keeps calling the first ‘meaning’ and calls the second ‘sense’. ‘Tom’ has Tom as meaning, and might have as sense sthe boy who won the ski races. As the name ‘Tom’, its sense is saturated, and as the predicate ‘x runs’ the sense of the predicate, say sx practices the fitness activity my grandma liked mosts, is unsaturated. Tom is an individual, cx practices the fitness activity my grandma liked mostc , which is what sx practices the fitness activity my grandma liked mosts determines, is a concept, an unsaturated entity. Though Frege deserves more attention, I’ll stop here discussing his work. If we take some distance, and allow for two semantic relations, designation and application, and claim that the second be proper to predicates, and that predicates apply to what is designated, we would still have only a rather partial grasp of predication. We would know predicates to have a different semantics and them to apply to what is designated to yield a sentence. Would we have then understood predication?Davidson advocates a different account of predication. According to him, truth is a primitive notion and the clue about predication. By keeping to what is held true, we can develop an empirical semantics. What is held true is a sentence, which we split in a subject and a predicate by conjecture (many a conjectures would do). Davidson, that is, turns our original question upside down: unity is not something we yield at, but something we start from. Predication depends on truth, and our analysis would recover what we hold true of what. I’ll stop here with Davidson, not because I think him unworthy a longer discussion. We have grasped one more detail though: if truth applies, there is predication. But we do not know yet what predication is. Moreover, it tends to make it a purely semantic issue, whereas predication seems to be the point, or one of the two points, of semantics.In order to elucidate predication, I’ll compare it with reference. Oversimplifying, ‘Tom’ distinguishes an individual from any other – it doesn’t pick out him by means of one of its features, for instance him having won the ski race, but it endows him one more trait – being called ‘Tom’. Anyway, Tom is different from anybody else because he is so called. ‘Runs’, instead, connects him to any other individual who runs – and consequentially distinguishes him from any nonrunner. Tom and Marco go together because both run, and they do not go with Giorgio, because Giorgio doesn’t run. Predicating connects, and it gives thereby voice to a fundamental cognitive function. Besides developing further this understanding of predication – for instance, facing the question of a property one thing only has – I’ll give some hints towards a metaphysical understanding of predication, about what entities a predicate means (a là Frege). Perhaps, a metaphysical understanding of predication is not required. In my picture, both
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designating expressions and predicates involve only individuals, the first picking them out, the second connecting them, and as a consequence classifying them. This is already a minimal metaphysical commitment. But we may well wonder whether what connects Tom and Marco, that they both run, is not something which has it proper way of being. I’ll not deny this, my claim is that semantics does not require this further posit.
ReferencesT. Burge 2007 “Review Essays: Predication and Truth” (The Journal of Philosophy 104: 580608).D. Davidson 2005 Truth and Predication (Cambridge MA Belknap Press).G. Frege 1892 “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” (Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 100: 2550).
Sergio Filippo Magni (Università di Pavia, Italia)Le conseguenze filosofiche del relativismo etico (Practical)
È plausibile sostenere il relativismo etico come tesi filosofica e in che limiti può esserlo? Sostenere il relativismo etico significa sostenere che «nessun sistema morale è universalmente valido» (Benn, Ethics, 1998; Wong, Relativisme moral, 1996); o, più precisamente, che «opinioni etiche in conflitto possono essere ugualmente valide» (Brandt, Ethical Theory, 1959). In entrambe queste definizioni compare la nozione di “validità”, ma essa può essere sostituita, senza perdere niente di essenziale, con nozioni analoghe: “correttezza”, “giustificazione”, “appropriatezza”, “accettabilità”, “giustezza”, “autorità”, “autorevolezza”, o, in maniera più tradizionale e controversa, “verità” (Brandt, Ethical Relativism, 1967; Frankena, Ethics, 1973; Harman, What Is Moral Relativism?, 1978; Scanlon, Fear of Relativism, 1995, Gowans, Moral Relativism, 2004, ecc.).Ci sono diversi modi di mettere in discussione il relativismo etico La strada meno diretta è quella di mostrare che la diversità morale su cui questa tesi si basa è solo apparente e limitata a principi morali non fondamentali. Essa non si darebbe né empiricamente, né filosoficamente, in quanto i principi morali avrebbero un fondamento oggettivo e assoluto (Hume, A Dialogue, 1751; Foot, Moral Relativism, 1978). La strada più diretta è, invece, quella di mostrare che il relativismo etico deve essere abbandonato in quanto conduce a conseguenze paradossali. Essere relativisti, si argomenta, significherebbe sostenere che i sistemi morali hanno un’applicabilità limitata solo a coloro che li condividono, così che non sarebbe possibile giudicare chi non condivide il nostro sistema morale (Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 1999; Cook, Morality and Cultural Differences, 1999; Lukes, Liberals and Cannibals, 2003). Ma ciò comporterebbe un’imbarazzante incoerenza. Per ritenere che due giudizi in conflitto siano ugualmente validi, il relativista sarebbe costretto a dirsi d’accordo con entrambi e così finirebbe per essere incoerente con se stesso, dando il proprio consenso a principi in contrasto l’uno con l’altro.Non si entrerà nella valutazione della prima critica; condizione necessaria, agli scopi del relativismo, è che la questione rimanga aperta. Ci si concentrerà invece sulla valutazione della seconda. Ci sono due strade percorribili da chi non intende abbandonare il relativismo etico come tesi filosofica. La prima è più frequente ma meno promettente. E’ una strada che accetta la seconda critica e per evitare le conseguenze imbarazzanti del relativismo, ne indebolisce le pretese. Essa utilizza la stessa strategia che è adoperata per sostenere forme moderate di relativismo cognitivo. Come nel caso dei principi cognitivi, anche nel caso dei principi etici non si sarebbe di fronte a
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un’incommensurabilità piena ma solo parziale. Ci sarebbero dei vincoli al contenuto di cosa è morale e dei limiti alla varietà dei sistemi morali, anche se non tali da determinare completamente il contenuto di un sistema morale. Una tesi spesso chiamata “pluralismo valutativo” (Levy, Moral Relativism, 2002; Baghramian, Relativism, 2004). Tuttavia l’esistenza di principi morali universali ed invariabili è essa stessa materia di discussione, più che una soluzione pacifica in grado di risolvere la questione. Inoltre, come si dirà subito, non sembra valere la premessa che se questa manovra non fosse possibile allora il relativismo etico avrebbe conseguenze paradossali. La seconda strada è meno seguita ma più promettente. Essa esamina cosa si intende con la nozione di “validità” (o con le altre nozioni affini, “correttezza”, “giustificazione”, “autorevolezza” e così via). Affermare la validità dei giudizi morali può infatti significare cose diverse. Da un lato, che essi sono dotati di una forza vincolante, in quanto il soggetto li accetta come un’effettiva fonte di obbligo: che sono cioè, “normativamente validi” (Bulygin, Validità e positivismo, 1987). Se si intendono così queste nozioni, dall’affermazione del relativismo etico seguono effettivamente le conseguenze che si sono viste, dato che il soggetto si dovrebbe dire d’accordo con due giudizi in conflitto.Dall’altro lato, che essi sono conformi a una procedura di formazione ritenuta affidabile, cioè a un metodo accettato di ragionamento morale o di buona fondazione: che sono cioè, “epistemologicamente validi”. Se si intendono così queste nozioni, dall’affermazione del relativismo etico non seguono conseguenze paradossali: affermare che due giudizi morali in conflitto sono ugualmente validi significa dire che sono entrambi conformi al metodo di ragionamento morale riconosciuto affidabile, senza dover presupporre che il soggetto sia d’accordo con entrambi. Questo modo di affrontare la questione era stato delineato con una certa chiarezza da Brandt (Ethical Theory 1959). Ma già Harman (What Is Moral Relativism?, 1978) e Scanlon (Fear of Relativism, 1995) confondono standard di giustificazione normativa e standard di giustificazione epistemologica.
Anna Marmodoro (University of Oxford, UK)Can powes be pure? (Metaphysics and Ontology)
In this paper I respond to one of the latest arguments offered against the possibility of pure powers, i.e. powers such as spin, mass and charge (and others) that are not grounded on a base of categorical properties. This is a twopronged argument given by a prominent philosopher of science, Stathis Psillos (PPR, 2006). Psillos claims that while the evidence from current physics for the existence of pure powers is inconclusive, thinking of properties as pure powers leads to a vicious regress; hence the ascription of pure powers to things is incoherent. I show that the metaphysical principle that Psillos uses to derive the regress is false, by arguing that Psillos' principle can be used to derive a vicious regress for every entity in ontology, regardless of what type the entity is. I conclude that if physics posited the existence of pure powers, philosophers would have no conceptual difficulty with it.
Teresa Marques (University of Lisbon, Portugal)Relativism and the Norm of Assertion (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In the recent debate on relativism, John MacFarlane offers the most radical challenge against non
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relative truth, and, in relation to this, to classical conceptions of assertion and its norm. MacFarlane rightly dismisses truth relative to circumstances of evaluation as a proper variety of relativism, and also rightly criticizes attempts to capture a sense of faultless disagreement by means of circumstance relative truth. In alternative, he proposes that truth should be relativized to contexts or points of assessment, that is, perspectives from which a given previous utterance made at a context of utterance can be evaluated as true or false. Relativistic contents of utterance are those whose truthvalue can vary with respect to distinct contexts of assessment, keeping fixed the context at which they were expressed as well as the circumstances with respect to which these contents are evaluated. This challenges the idea of the absoluteness of utterance truth, i.e., the idea that the truthvalue of an utterance is independent from the context from which the utterance is being assessed. Now, a challenge to the coherence of this idea was already formulated by Gareth Evans. Given what speakers aim at in making assertions, and a weak enough norm of assertion such as the truth norm – assert only what is true (we do not need to consider stronger norms such as the knowledge norm – assert only what you know, since the knowledge norm entails the truth norm), if utterance truth were relative to the assessment of different possible evaluators’ perspectives, then speakers could not be responsible for failing to speak the truth. Speakers can aim at, and be held responsible for, attaining the truth norm, i.e., for speaking the truth, if doing so is somehow within their powers. They should be capable of predicting what would need to be the case for an utterance made to be true. If MacFarlane is right, however, there is an insurmountable gap between the eventual truth of a speaker’s utterance, and the speaker’s own commitment to, and responsibility for, the truth of his utterance.MacFarlane takes up the challenge set by Evans and proposes that utterance relative truth is compatible with a distinct and, he claims, plausible alternative norm of assertion. It preserves a speaker’s commitment to the truth of an utterance made as a speaker’s being obliged, “if challenged at any context of assessment a, to give adequate reasons for thinking that the sentence asserted is true (with respect to [context of utterance] u and a), and to withdraw it if the challenge cannot be met” (MacFarlane, ‘Future Contingents and Relative Truth’, 2003, p. 336). I argue that MacFarlane’s new norm (let us call it the meetthechallenge norm), is as impossible to meet as the more standard truth norm. In other words, speakers are no more obliged and responsible to face any challenge whatsoever to the truth of their utterances, from any context of assessment, than they are to meet the truth norm, if utterance truth is relative to contexts of assessment. The meetthechallenge norm is not a norm that can be met, and which gives a good criterion to hold speakers accountable and responsible for their assertions (similar problems would arise for other speech acts). The problem is general. Norm regulated acts allow us to distinguish between, on the one hand, an act being correct or incorrect, and an agent’s responsibility and accountability in meeting the norm. Norms are, in general, something agents can meet and, because of this, by which they can be judged and held responsible. This inveighs, although not conclusively, against norms which cannot be met, and, in the relativism debate, against relative truth as in MacFarlane’s proposal. Interestingly, it equally inveighs against the possibility of contents relative to contexts of assessment.
Francesco Martinello (Università di Torino)Towards a deeper understanding of incongruent counterparts (Metaphysics and Ontology)
It has been claimed since one of Kant’s precritical writings that the phenomenon of enantimorphism (geometrical figures equal in form and size but different in orientation, also
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called “incongruent counterparts”) could prove something about the ontological nature of space. Then, especially during the period 197090, supporters of the absolutist theory of space tried to see whether Kant’s thesis could be readvanced, even though our knowledge of geometry has deeply changed meanwhile. Of course their opponents (namely philosophers who held that space is ontologically relative), replied to that kind of reasoning, but their remarks seemed not to be conclusive. Later the interest of scholars turned to a better comprehension of Kant’s writings rather than to a clarification of the geometrical problem. As a separate step of a larger work about the meaning of the incongruent counterparts in Kant’s philosophy, I would like to come back to the debate about the nature of space, in order to understand whether the argument by the absolutists is sound. I guess that this part of my work could be of some interest for SIFA members. The key point of the absolutist who want to make Kant’s argument revive is that, despite of the new kinds of geometries discovered after his death, Kant’s main tenet can be reformulated with some changes. Kant’s only known euclidean geometry, so for him the difference in orientation of incongruent counterparts was almost inexplicable, insofar as it was not reducible to the properties of their form. So, his thesis was that absolute space must be assumed in order to account for the different orientation of such figures. On the contrary, noneuclidean geometries can account for orientation in terms of curved spaces and dimensionality. Some contemporary scholars, however, claimed that such results can be interpreted in an absolutist sense. The thesis that I would to hold is that this reasoning is simply odd, because it draws ontological conclusions from geometrical remarks, whereas geometry seems to be, like any other formalism, something neutral with respect to its (ontological) interpretation. The most interesting thing about my conference probably will not be the point that I am advancing, it will rather be the path I will follow to reach my conclusion. My aim is to criticize the absolutist thesis by driving my studies towards a stronger grasp on the geometrical meaning of the phenomenon of enantimorphism. This is because both the works by the absolutists philosopher and those by the relativists are, in my opinion, defective according to many aspects. My main complaints, while I was reading these works explaining today’s geometrical account of incongruent counterparts, were basically two. They are, to say it in a leibnitian fashion, too often trying to ‘satisfy the imagination without convincing the intellect’. Moreover they are, although not unclear, too easyminded. I try to show both the difficulties with two examples. (A) The following is a sentence one can easily find in the abovementioned works: “orientation is not a property of a figure, it rather depends on the way by which that figure enters in the space”. This way of introducing a geometrical thesis obviously gives to the reader an immediate grasp of what is at stake; but it is, from a more rigorous point of view, quite inaccurate. Figures properly don’t exist alone a part from the space and then enter in it from outside. Figures are rather made of points (according to someone, they are nothing but sets of points), and points are parts or, at least, determinations of the space. So the assertion that a figure enters in a space is literally false, it’s only a way of speaking which helps our imagination to figure out a certain kind of relation between space and its determination. A relation that, to make the thesis more persuasive, should be explained in a better way. (B) While I was reading works by other scholars I was presented with statements like the following: “objects which are incongruent counterparts in a space of ndimensions will no longer be incongruent in a space of n+1 dimensions”. This thesis of course is correct, by what leaves me unsatisfied with such a formulation is that it does not tell us why this is so. Quite to the contrary, I would like to understand by means of which geometrical notions the addiction of a dimension changes the matter about the orientation of figures. None of the work I studied until now, however, explains this point in a satisfying way, probably because it shall be quite complicate and boring. I am strongly persuaded, however, that a deeper insight to the
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geometrical account of enantimorphism will help us to see the weakness of the revised argument for the absolute space.
Carlo Martini (Tilburg University, Netherlands)Self Judgment in the Lehrer/Wagner Model (Epistemology)
The Lehrer/Wagner model (hereafter LW) for judgment aggregation addresses the problem of how to produce consensus among a group of experts gathered to judge over a certain issue. The model claims that an optimal decisional procedure is given by a matrix multiplication of a set of weights (that each expert assigns to all his fellow committee members) with the set of probabilistic judgments that each expert gives on a certain event. The multiplication of the matrix with the vector and further iterated multiplications of the obtained product with the same matrix yields a singlevalue vector, that is, a vector in which the same value appears on each row. This result is called by Lehrer and Wagner the consensual result. The possibility of reaching a consensual result is secured by the mathematical properties of the model itself but the rationale for the acceptance of such consensual value is based on the acceptance of the initial mathematical constraints, one of which is that the values in each row of the initial matrix sum up to 1. When an expert judges her fellows by assigning them a certain weight, what she does is to express her opinion on the accuracy of the other experts and she does so by assigning them an accuracy value that ranges from 0 (no accuracy) to 1 (full accuracy). This means that in order to accommodate the sum1 constraint such accuracy assignments have to be normalized to 1 in the matrix. It is easy to see that this leaves the weights underdetermined with respect to accuracy attributions. Underdetermination, however, makes the role of weights unclear because the same weights could come from different initial accuracy assignments. This paper argues that the reason for underdetermination is the fact that experts who enter their accuracy reports in the model are allowed to give themselves an accuracy measure lower than 1.0 in the same way as they are allowed to give accuracy measures ranging between 0 and 1 to the other experts.In his Belief and the Will Bas van Fraassen argues that a weatherman whose forecast of the probability of rain tomorrow is 80% is not allowed, in order to hold a consistent set of beliefs, to assess his own judgment as having less than 100% probability of being true. That is to say, if the weatherman claims that tomorrow there are 80% chances of rain, he cannot also claim that this is true only with probability x, where x <100%. Van Fraassen justifies his claim by proposing a diachronic Dutch Book argument to which the weatherman could be subject, were he to hold a set of beliefs that violate the Reflection principle.Reflection states that if the probability assignment (given by weatherman) on an event A at time t, conditional on the fact that the probability of the same event at time t+x is equal to r, must be equal to r. Violation of Reflection is what happens when in the LW model an expert assigns to herself an accuracy measure lower that 1.0: each expert who judges via LW gives an estimate on a certain event and also an accuracy measure on her own judgment, but such accuracy measure can be lower that 1.0. This is to say that each expert is allowed to claim that his own judgment has less than 100% probability of being correct. Two issues are at stake here, on one hand the model, as it is in its original formulation, allows for underdetermination of the weights with respect to accuracy assignments. This is not in itself a problem if not for the fact that with underdetermination the origin and the meaning of weights is somehow unclear. On the other hand violation of Reflection is not in itself a desirable feature of the model if we take the principle, as van Fraassen does, to be a rational rule for holding beliefs. If one wants to avoid violation of Reflection in LW, further constraints (besides those imposed by Lehrer and Wagner) are necessary for the model. In particular, each expert must assign 1.0
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accuracy to himself in the weightsmatrix. That is to say that each wmn (where m = n) will be derived from an initial accuracy assignment of 1.0 (or 100% accuracy) and its actual value in the matrix will depend exclusively on the value of n, that is the number of experts that are taking part in the deliberative process. From this it follows that each of such entries will be the maximal value for w in that row. The important feature of the revised model is that, notwithstanding the extra constraint, now weights are not underdetermined with respect to accuracy reports. Accuracy measures can be reconstructed, starting from the weights and knowing that the unit value of the accuracy assignment is the one that each expert has assigned to themselves (the weights corresponding to the wmn : m = n for each row).
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Guido Melchior (Universität Graz, Austria)External world scepticism and the closure principle: a question of either/or (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science)
The canonical version of the argument for external world scepticism has nowadays the following structure:Premise1: If P does not know that she is not a brain in a vat, then P does not have any knowledge of the external world.Premise2: P does not know that she is not a brain in a vat.Conclusion: Therefore, P does not have any knowledge of the external world. In contemporary epistemological discussions, it is widely accepted that premise1 is essentially based on the closure principle, which states in this context: if a person has knowledge about the external world, then she knows through inference that she is not a brain in vat. According to this view, premise1 is true iff this underlying closure principle holds. Hence, antisceptical philosophers attack external world scepticism by denying that the closure principle holds in sceptical contexts, whereas sceptics argue in the opposite direction. I will argue against both positions. I will show that premise2 can only be true if premise1 is replaced by an internalistic premise and if the closure principle is rejected. Therefore, I will argue that sceptical as well as antisceptical philosophers misunderstand the structure of the sceptical argument. I will proceed in the following way: I will investigate possible argumentations for and against premise2. I will show that premise2 can only be true if premise1 is replaced by an internalistic premise. Subsequently, I will reconstruct the correct version of the sceptical argument. Next, I will argue that this internalistic premise contradicts the closure principle for premise1. I will, conclude that external world scepticism can only hold if the closure principle is rejected.My argumentation will have the following structure: Why should premise2 be true, i.e. why is it problematic for a person to know that she is not a brain in a vat? P can obviously believe that she is not a brain in a vat and it is possible that this belief is true. Therefore, the problematic aspect for P’s knowledge is justification. Obvious candidates for methods of justification are evidence, inference and externalistic justification. If P’s belief that she is not a brain in vat can either be evident or externalistically justified there is no problem of justification. Therefore, premise2 can only be true if the belief can solely be justified through inference.The challenge for sceptics is that the inference from a person’s belief about the external world to her belief that she is not a brain in a vat is truthpreserving. This inference is not a justification, if either the belief about the external world is unjustified or the inference is deficient for other reasons. If it is assumed that the belief about the external world is unjustified, then it is assumed that the conclusion of the argument for external world scepticism is true and the argument itself becomes circular. Therefore, the inference has to be deficient for other reasons.The only reason why a truthpreserving inference is not a valid justification is that it leads into a vicious circle. This is the case if a person can only justify beliefs about the external world by inferring it from knowledge that she is not a brain in a vat. This means that justification of beliefs about the external world is only possible through inference from “inside out”. Hence, premise2 is only true if this internalistic condition of justification is fulfilled. Therefore, the correct argument for external world scepticism has to have the following internalistic structure: Premise1’: P can only have knowledge about the external world if she infers it from knowledge about her own sense data and from knowledge that she is not a brain in a vat. Premise2: P does not know that she is not a brain in a vat.
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Conclusion: Therefore, P does not have any knowledge of the external world.On the one hand, premise2 is only true if a person’s beliefs about the external world can only be justified through inference from her knowledge that she is not a brain in a vat. The closure principle, on the other hand, states: if a person has knowledge about the external world, then she knows through inference that she is not a brain in vat. Vicious circles do not lead to justification. Therefore, premise2 is only true if the closure principle for premise1 does not hold. A popular antisceptical strategy is to deny the validity of the closure principle for premise1. Their sceptical opponents, on the other hand, defend the closure principle in order to defend external world scepticism. It is shown that the antisceptical strategy as well as the sceptical replies are superfluous. If the closure principle holds, then external world scepticism does not exist.
Giovanni Merlo (Università di Padova, Italia)Che Effetto Fa Esse e Qualcosa. Qualia, Stati Fisici e Stati Mentali: un Argomento in Favore dell’Identità (Filosofia della Mente)
In questa relazione, presento un argomento in favore dell’identità di stati fisici e stati mentali coscienti. La discussione di tale argomento si propone di esaminare in quale misura e a quali condizioni gli interrogativi sollevati dal cosiddetto problema della coscienza possano ricevere risposta nel quadro di una teoria dell’identità.L’argomento richiede l’assunzione di tre premesse:(1) Io ho delle sensazioni.(2) Io sono un certo oggetto fisico x:(i) per ogni stato X, se esso è uno stato di x, allora è un mio stato (= uno stato in cui io sono).(ii) Per ogni stato Y, se esso è un mio stato (= uno stato in cui io sono), allora è uno stato di x.(3) Le sensazioni sono stati in cui io sono.Da (1), (2)(ii) e (3) segue che:(4) Le sensazioni sono stati di x. //Sensazione è inteso qui come “stato mentale dotato di qualia”. Pertanto, tra i problem isollevati dalla premessa (1), c’è anzitutto quello di prevenire le obiezioni di tipo eliminativista sollevate, tra gli altri, da Dennett, ma anche di spiegare a che condizioni sia possibile riformulare (1) in terza persona. In questa sede, mi limiterò tuttavia a svolgere lacuna considerazioni in merito alle premesse (2) e (3). Il mio scopo è mostrare che l’assunzione di queste premesse dissolve il cosiddetto explanatory gap, o perlomeno una sua parte rilevante, contribuendo così a ridimensionare il problema della coscienza. Di tale problema si possono isolare tre aspetti:a. In generale, ci si può chiedere perché ci sia qualcosa come un lato cosciente dei processi cerebrali o, in altre parole, perché non siamo tutti degli zombie.b. Nello specifico poi, sembra via sia un gap esplicativo rispetto alla particolare struttura di tale lato cosciente. Perché, ad esempio, abbiamo proprio un certo spazio cromatico?c. Infine, perché ciascuna singola esperienza cosciente è così e non altrimenti? Perché il rosso fa proprio quel determinato e indescrivibile effetto che fa?Mentre vi sono valide ragioni per ritenere che non sia possibile, ma nemmeno necessario, fornire una risposta a (c), penso che le premesse (2) e (3) consentano di far fronte ai quesiti (a) e (b).La premessa (2) costituisce un’ipotesi metafisica forte, che si è costretti ad assumere, nell’impossibilità di fornirne una dimostrazione: essa afferma che, tra i vari oggetti che costituiscono l’universo fisico, un certo oggetto x sono io. (E’ una questione empirica degna di interesse, ma che esula dai miei scopi, quella di stabilire di che oggetto si tratti: il mio corpo, ovvero una sua parte circoscritta, come il cervello). Tale oggetto si trova in stati fisici f differenti
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ad istanti differenti:f(t1), f(t2), f(t3),… In virtù di (2)(i), ciascuno di tali stati è anche uno stato s in cui io mi trovo a t1, t2, t3:f(t1) = s(t1)f(t2) = s(t2)f(t3) = s(t3)…Così, uno stato di intensa stimolazione delle fibreC che fanno parte di x è anche, ipso facto, uno stato in cui io mi trovo. Ora, quanto afferma (3) è che, affinché uno stato qualsiasi (es. l’attivazione delle fibreC) sia una sensazione (es. dolore) l’unico requisito che deve soddisfare è semplicemente l’essere uno stato in cui sono io a trovarmi. Qui va sgombrato il campo da una possibile obiezione: che cioè per provare una sensazione sia anche necessario sentire quale effetto fa trovarsi in tale stato. Se così fosse, io che sento dovrei essere una specie di mente disincarnata che percepisce in una certa maniera i propri stati cerebrali (di volta in volta, come caldi, dolorosi,…) e il mio sentirequaleeffettofannoiprocessicerebrali non potrebbe essere a sua volta uno stato cerebrale, ma qualcosa d’altro e di ulteriore, in contraddizione con l’ipotesi fisicalista (2) che io non sia nient’altro che un oggetto fisico. Perciò, in virtù di (3) e di quanto detto sopra, si può concludere: sensazioni = { s(t1), s(t2), s(t3),…} = { f(t1), f(t2), f(t3),…} In quest’ottica, la risposta ad (a) è che noi non siamo zombie per la semplice ragione che siamo oggetti fisici modificati dall’interazione con l’ambiente ed ogni cambiamento dello stato dell’oggetto x che noi siamo non può che “farci un certo effetto”, se è vero che noi siamo l’oggetto in questione. Altrettanto immediata è la risposta a (b). Il nostro spettro cromatico ha proprio la struttura che ha perché x ha una determinata conformazione fisica, grazie alla quale può discriminare tra certe frequenze luminose, ma non fra altre. In conclusione, risulta essere precisamente l’identità di ciascuno di noi con un certo oggetto fisico a garantire insieme l’esistenza delle sensazioni e la loro identità con gli stati fisici di tale oggetto. Se ciò è vero, persino i funzionalisti potrebbero trovare conveniente, al fine di colmare l’explanatory gap, riconsiderare la teoria dell’identità, perlomeno in una formulazione in termini di token quale quella suggerita qui.
Daria Mingardo (Università di Piemonte Orientale)What gets lost in Contexts (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
The aim of this talk is to provide an assessment of the defence, put forward by Predelli in Contexts (2005), of the traditional semantic paradigm, i.e. natural language semantics or formal semantics, against the objections to it by contextualism. In particular, the aim is that of examining what, if anything, gets lost from the traditional paradigm after Predelli’s defence.The main difference between the traditional paradigm (TP) and contextualism (CP) can be stated as follows: while TP holds that there are only few contextsensitive expressions – basically, those listed by Kaplan (1989) – and that their contextsensitivity affects the truthconditional content of a sentence only in a strictly bottomup manner, in its radical form CP claims, instead, that every expression is contextsensitive, and that such contextsensitivity affects the content of an utterance both in a bottomup and in a topdown manner. The contextualist challenge to TP can be illustrated through Travis’ famous example of Pia’s painted leaves: after having painted green the russet leaves of her maple tree, Pia utters (1) “The leaves are green”, as an answer first to a photographer looking for a green subject, and then to a botanist looking for green leaves. The challenge for TP lies in the fact that in spite of there not being “kaplanian” indexicals in (1), and context and linguistic meaning being the same, the two utterances of this sentence seem to
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diverge in truth conditions. For Predelli, interpretative systems take as inputs clauseindex pairs (ci), and yield results of tdistributions, where clauses are adequate syntactic representations of sentences; indexes are ntuple consisting at least of an agent, a time, a location, a world and a demonstratum; tdistributions are assignments of truth values to ci with respect to alternative points of evaluation (pe), i.e. pairs consisting of a world and a time. Prima facie, Predelli’s system seems to be similar to the one provided by Kaplan (1989). The differences, however, are deep: they are motivated by the need to solve, (allegedly) within TP, both problems internal to Kaplan’s theory, and the ones posed by the contextualist challenge. The comparison with Kaplan’s theory conducted on the basis of the relevant examples will lead to highlight the main tenets of Predelli’s theory, together with what, in my opinion, gets lost of the traditional paradigm. First, contrary to Kaplan, in order to interpret indexicals Predelli allows interpretative systems to exploit improper indexes, i.e. indexes in which the utterer is not at the location of the utterance at the time of the utterance. If this move allows Predelli to obtain the correct truth conditional results for cases otherwise problematic within Kaplan’s theory, it also leads him to allow indexes to comprise parameter values which are “intended by the speaker as semantically relevant”, and so to hold that, for instance, all the linguistic meaning, i.e. the character, of “now” amounts to is a function which guarantees that a “certain contextually salient time is to be selected” by the system. But if this is so, if knowing the meaning of, say, “I” is nothing else than knowing a function which assigns to it whatever occupies the first position in the index, speakers’ linguistic competence with respect to indexicals appears to be deprived of any content whatsoever.Second, Travis’ contextualist challenge is met by distinguishing the notion of pe from that of worldly condition (w): ci are to be evaluated not only with respect to the way the world is or may be (w), but also with respect to the epistemic point of view of the interpreter. Thus, even if one and the same world state faces the case of Pia, the desired results of truth in one case and falsity in the other is obtained by taking into consideration different pe, i.e. the ones corresponding to the different criteria according to which the leaves can or cannot count as green. What I’ll argue is that, as soon one tries to implement Predelli’s proposal, problems arise. First, it’s not clear where we have exactly to locate the relevant epistemic parameter within the pe, given that either option, locating it in w, or adding a new parameter, seems to be problematic. Second, a problem concerning linguistic competence, similar to the one seen for indexicals, seems to arise: if we cannot arrive at the content of, say, “is green” without considering every time the relevant pe, also our linguistic competence with respect to non indexical expressions seems to be deprived of any substance. My conclusion, then, will be that what gets lost of TP in Contexts seems to be TP attempts of, first, finding a level of abstraction from contexts sufficient enough not to be at the constant mercy of its indefinite variability, and, second, of characterizing linguistic meaning and competence in an explicative way.
Vittorio Morato (Università di Padova, Italia)Worldstories and maximality (Metaphysics and Ontology)
According to many actualist theories of modality, possible worlds should be identified with maximal and consistent sets of actually existing propositions called worldstories (see for example [1]).A set of propositions w is said to be maximal if and only if for every (actually existing) proposition P, either P belongs to w or ¬P belongs to w. This conception of maximality, however, is problematic in case what has to be represented by a worldstory is the possible non existence of an actual individual. A representation of the possible non existence of an actual
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individual is either a representation that “encodes” the explicit information that the individual does not exist or a representation that does not contain any infor mation about the individual in question. In the framework of worldstories, the former case corresponds to a worldstory wi that contains a proposition according to which a certain actually existing object, say a, does not ex ist, the latter case to a worldstory wii that simply does not contain any proposition about a.The first way of representing the possible non existence of a, however, is not good for the actualist: as it stands, wi is a set of propositions containing, among the others, the false proposition according to which a does not ex ist; but assume, counterfactually, that wi becomes the true worldstory (the worldstory whose elements are all true) or, using possible worlds terminol ogy, that the world described by wi becomes the actual world. Well, in such a case, something directly about a merely possible object (from the stand point of the world described by wi ), namely a, would be true. An actualist, however, should deny that something singular in nature could be said of a merely possible object, even that it does not exist.Yet, the second way of representing the possible non existence of an ob ject con icts with the standard definition of maximality given above. By that definition, in fact, it follows that any actually existing object will be a constituent of any worldstory because in any worldstory there will be (a great number of) singular propositions about it. For every primitive predi cate _, and any actual object x, a world story will contain at least all the singular propositions expressed by the various instances of the formula ¬_x. Another conception of maximality is then needed; what we need is a maximal and consistent set of propositions that could be taken to be as an alternative description of actuality and not just a description of actuality with respect to an alternative course of it.In order to do this, I propose first to characterize the notion of an actual object that would have existed, had a certain set of propositions been true.Consider, for example, the set of propositions A whose only component is the atomic proposition expressed by a formula like Pa, assume that a is an actual object and that Pa is actually false: in this simple case the question “what actual objects would have esisted, had A been true?” is easy to answer, viz. a.Things, however, are not always so simple: consider now the set B formed by (the propositions expressed) by the formulas •x(x = a) and Pa; assume that a, b and c are the only objects actually existing. In such a case, what actual objects would have existed had B been true? The true of B is com patible with the existence of the elements of the following sets: @B 1 = {a, b , @B 2 = {a, c and @B 3 = {a, b, c . Call these the @B sets. Had B be actual, then, the actual objects that would have existed, had B been true, would have been either those belonging to @B 1 or those belonging to @B 2 or those belonging to @B 3 .What could be said in general is that we could answer, unequivocally, to the question of what actual objects are compatible with the truth of a set of propositions X only relatively to one of its @X sets. The question what actual objects would have existed, had X been true? should then be reinterpreted as the question: what actual objects, relatively to an @Xset, would have existed, had X been true?With the notion of an @X set at our disposal, my aim is to define a corresponding, recursive notion of @X maximality that can be applied to worldstories aiming to represent, in an actualist acceptable way, the possible nonexistence of an actual object.
References[1] Robert M. Adams. Actualism and thisness. Synthese, 49:3–41, 1981.
Luca Morena & Giuliano Torrengo (Università di Torino, Italia)
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The Two Dimensions in Metaphysical Disagreements (Metaphysics and Ontology)
Recent literature on the nature of disagreements in metaphysics has mainly focused on the question whether such disagreements are substantive or shallow. The point of view on metaphysical disagreements has been mainly an external point of view. This is because skeptical challenges are directed to the very nature of such disagreements and the skeptic is never a party to a firstorder dispute. Notoriously, there are many problems in providing a plausible semantics that can be put to use by the skeptic in implementing his or her thesis to the effect that competing theories are intertranslatable and, in the end, equivalent, and some of these difficulties we shall review in our talk. But such problems seem to arise even if we consider a metaphysical debate in its internal dimension, so to speak. Our contention is that there is a more fundamental issue to be addressed before dealing with any skeptic or antiskeptic position: i.e. providing a plausible semantic framework of how reciprocal understanding in a firstorder metaphysical debate can come about. Available semantic options – such as a counterfactual semantics – seem inadequate for such a task (and fictionalist options have similar problems for reasons we shall review). As a matter of fact, such strategies seem to be caught in the following impasse:In a metaphysical dispute, each disputant believes that at least some of his or her central claims are necessarily true and that at least some of the rival claims are necessarily false. (Let A and B be two disputants and let p be a central claim advocated by B)The participants in a metaphysical dispute understand each other (A and B understand each other: in particular A understands p)Reciprocal understanding in a metaphysical dispute involves the understanding of counterfactual conditionals such as “If p were true, then q”, where p is a central claim of the rival position (For example: “If Standard Mereology were true, for every x and y there will be their mereological sum”; “If Fourdimensionalism were true, every persisting object would be composed of temporal parts”; “If Presentism were true, neither the past nor the future would exist”)In the standard semantics for counterfactuals, propositions such as “If p were true, then q” are trivially true if p is necessarily false.In a metaphysical dispute, disputants do not typically take the counterfactual claims that are relevant for reciprocal understanding as trivially true.What we would like to suggest is that such an impasse may be overcome by resorting to a twodimensional framework that makes room for two kinds of modality the metaphysical and the conceptual and for a different account of counterfactual conditionals with metaphysically impossible antecedents (which in our proposal should be counted as “countertheoretical conditionals”). Our aim is to give a plausible, and quite general, account of a metaphysical dispute, in which both the dimensions of reciprocal understanding and genuine disagreement can be preserved. Our proposal amounts to modelling the structure of a given metaphysical dispute, at least to some extent, by means of a twodimensional matrix. The vertical dimension of such a matrix that we identify with the dimension of reciprocal understanding roughly corresponds to the Fregean dimension in a standard twodimensional semantics and it is constituted by the different conceptual or “countertheoretical” alternatives that occupy the conceptual space of metaphysical theories. The horizontal dimension that we identify with the dimension of disagreement roughly corresponds to the Kripkean dimension in a standard twodimensional semantics. Each theoretical alternative along the horizontal dimension expresses “its” metaphysical profile of reality, and parties to a metaphysical dispute, we contend, disagree precisely as to which one of such metaphysical profiles correspond to the correct metaphysics. In the proposed twodimensional framework, the impasse can be easily overcome as long as the antecedents of the counterfactuals (that are relevant for reciprocal understanding) should not be counted as metaphysically impossible namely as antecedents of counterfactuals in the
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horizontal dimension but rather as conceptually possible namely as antecedents of “countertheoretical” conditionals in the vertical dimension.
Martine Nida Rümelin (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland)Invited Speaker for Philophy of MindActivities and the content of experience
We are constantly active in our daily life even when not engaged in action. Activities form a broader class than actions. We normally experience ourselves as active in our doings and we perceive other people as well as other animals as active in their doings. These experiences of being active and of others as active have a specific content: they present the world as being a certain way. I will discuss an account of that experiential content and the veridicality of the experiences at issue.
Elisa Oggionni (Università di Milano, Italia)Una risposta all’antiegualitarismo a partire da Tugendhat (Filosofia pratica)
Angelika Krebs, nell’introduzione a Gleichheit oder Gerechtigkeit, riassume alcune istanze dell’antiegualitarismo contemporaneo e definisce l’egualitarismo come la teoria secondo la quale scopo della giustizia sia stabilire l’uguaglianza di mezzi e di prospettive di vita tra i membri della società cui tale concetto di giustizia viene fatto inerire. Egualitariste sono secondo l’autrice tutte e solo quelle teorie della giustizia che descrivono l’uguaglianza come un “valore morale in sé”, un fine in sé. A suo avviso, l’uguaglianza degli egualitaristi è inoltre un concetto relazionale, comparativo, concernente in modo precipuo il confronto tra le quantità dell’ammontare di un certo tipo di beni dei quali ogni individuo appartenente al gruppo considerato può disporre. Così facendo, l’egualitarismo si precluderebbe la possibilità del ricorso a principi morali ulteriori, “assoluti” e indipendenti dalla semplice commisurazione (offrendosi tra l’altro alla facile levelling down objection).La metaetica di Ernst Tugendhat, così come elaborata nel testo Dialog in Leticia e negli ultimi saggi dell’autore (a partire da «Was heißt es, moralische Urteile zu begründen?»), fonda la morale su di un concetto di giustizia intesa come uguaglianza, sviluppando una teoria egualitarista della giustizia contraddittoria con quanto enunciato da Krebs.Discrimine centrale sembra essere in proposito l’opposizione tra la concezione di Tugendhat di una fondazione della morale attraverso un concetto di giustizia (come uguaglianza) e la critica di Krebs alle teorie egualitariste in quanto teorie fondative della giustizia su di un concetto morale (di uguaglianza).L’argomentazione sviluppata da Tugendhat non riconosce all’uguaglianza un valore morale (come scopo della giustizia), bensì fonda discorsivamente la nozione di “moralmente buono” su quella di “ugualmente buono per tutti”. Attribuire valore morale intrinseco alla nozione di uguaglianza significherebbe infatti fondare la morale ricorsivamente su se stessa, opzione secondo l’autore teoricamente non ammissibile. Dall’analisi della proposta avanzata da Tugendhat emerge come l’uguaglianza distributiva possa essere considerata l’unico criterio partitivo che non necessiti di giustificazioni ulteriori a quelle contenute in una teoria dell’uguaglianza considerata in quanto fondativa della morale, mentre ogni ripartizione nonequa richiede di venir motivata “di fronte a ogni interessato”.Nello stesso tempo, una teoria come quella di Tugendhat, secondo la quale l’individuazione di
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una divisione equa dei vantaggi e degli svantaggi sociali contribuisce alla definizione di che cosa sia una distribuzione morale di essi, previene il problema sollevato da Krebs per cui le teorie egualitariste non permetterebbero di giustificare con criteri a esse interni quale genere di uguaglianza sia considerabile come giusto.L’egualitarismo di Tugendhat non preclude dunque il ricorso a principi “assoluti” e ulteriori al mero calcolo relativo dei beni posseduti dai singoli, così come invece affermato da Krebs, in quanto esattamente una teoria dell’uguaglianza come fondativa della definizione di che cosa sia giusto e moralmente giusto permette di giustificare quale sia il fine di una giustizia “assoluta” plausibile. L’elemento discorsivo della teoria, inoltre, pur relativizzando come sostiene Krebs l’uguaglianza al confronto tra gli individui, indica tale confronto quale base imprescindibile sulla quale fondare la distinzione tra moralità e potere anziché porlo come scopo tout court della giustizia stessa. Un’importante obiezione all’egualitarismo, sostenuta in una delle sue varianti ad esempio da Frankfurt, nega un valore morale intrinseco all’uguaglianza sociale di beni e condizioni di vita per attribuire valore specifico al possesso, da parte di ogni individuo, di ciò che può garantire all’essere umano una vita dignitosa o più che dignitosa.La prospettiva di Tugendhat risolve a mio avviso la dicotomia tra attribuzione di una validità intrinseca all’eguaglianza comparativa dei diritti di cui godono i membri di un gruppo sociale e assegnazione di un valore prioritario alla fruizione da parte di ogni individuo di particolari diritti fondamentali.L’uguaglianza proposta da Tugendhat a fondamento dell’etica è infatti un’uguaglianza comparativa della fruizione dei diritti umani fondamentali senza la quale l’attribuzione diseguale degli stessi (pur quando rawlsianamente “garantista” nei confronti degli “svantaggiati”) non possiede in linea di principio alcuna giustificazione e significato morali.Può insomma una teoria egualitarista fondativa della morale ovviare alle problematiche riconosciute dagli antiegualitaristi esser proprie delle teorie egualitariste fondative della giustizia? Cercherò di sostenere che sì.
Michele Ongaro (Università di Pavia, Italia)Il fondamento sintattico dell’ontologia: Platone Sofista, 262c25 (Storia delle idee)
In Soph. 260d5–261a4, dopo aver dimostrato l’esistenza e la natura del non essere, lo straniero di Elea prende in considerazione una nuova possibile obiezione del sofista: questi ammette l’esistenza del non essere, ma afferma che non tutte le cose possono avere comunanza con esso. Non il discorso che, escluso da questa partecipazione, non può essere falso. In Soph. 261c6 ha inizio l’analisi della struttura grammaticale della frase, funzionale proprio alla risoluzione del problema del falso: Platone intende dimostrare che, non coincidendo le condizioni di significatività del linguaggio con le condizioni di verità, possono esservi enunciati falsi perfettamente significanti. Ogni frase risulta dall’associazione di un nome (onoma), che designa una cosa o un agente (pragma), e di un verbo (rema), che designa un’azione (praxis): il venir meno di tale regola sintattica rende il discorso privo di senso (261e4262c9). L’indagine platonica distingue chiaramente grammatica (nome e verbo) e semantica (agente ed azione); a livello semantico, la relazione tra un agente e un’azione si esplica nell’espressione di uno stato di cose temporalmente caratterizzato. In Soph. 262c25, a supporto di quanto detto in precedenza, lo straniero afferma:
E se i nomi non vengono mischiati con i predicati, le parole pronunciate non esprimono né
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azione, né assenza d’azione (apraxia), né l’essere di ciò che è (ousia ontos), né l’essere di ciò che non è (ousia me ontos).
Le dimensioni della praxis (azione) e dell' apraxia (assenza di azione) costituiscono la determinazione semantica del verbo, il quale può esprimere o un’azione o uno stato di cose, cioè un’assenza di azione: l’apraxia viene configurata dai verbi di stato e configura la dimensione ontologica della stasis. Risulta invece più difficile stabilire cosa Platone voglia intendere attraverso le espressioni ousia ontos e ousia me ontos. La nozione di ousia sembra riferirsi a un’indistinta dimensione del vero essere, della vera realtà: bisogna pertanto identificare quale sia la realtà di cui viene stabilita una determinazione intensiva. Ma prima di scegliere la traduzione e l’interpretazione più corretta, bisogna rilevare che questo passo presuppone un ampliamento della funzione del termine rema, che sembra ora indicare la dimensione della predicazione in generale: predicazione verbale come “siede” o “vola”, ma anche predicazione nominale come “è bello” o “è greco”. Ritengo allora che Platone, attraverso le espressioni ousia ontos e ousia me ontos, voglia intendere la dimensione semantica espressa dalla predicazione nominale, a seconda che sia espressa in forma affermativa o negativa (per esempio, nelle proposizioni: “Socrate è bello”; “Socrate non è bello”).In base a tali presupposti sintattici, la dimensione semantica del rema può essere collegata alla dimensione ontologica dei meghista ghene, i generi sommi (essere, identità, differenza, stasi e movimento): praxis e apraxia corrispondono ai generi del movimento e della stasi, mentre ousia ontos e ousia me ontos corrispondono ai generi dell’identico e del diverso. Le prime due corrispondenze sono palesi. Per quanto riguarda il “diverso”, la precedente analisi platonica aveva mostrato come questo genere costituisca il correlato ontologico del “non essere”, cioè il significato e la condizione di possibilità dell’espressione copulativa negativa. L'analogia con il genere dell'identico, bisogna ammettere, è più incerta, perché l’espressione ousia ontos (l'essere di ciò che è) potrebbe corrispondere sia al giudizio di identità (Socrate è il maestro di Platone), in quanto espressione del genere dell’identico, sia al giudizio attributivo (Socrate è un filosofo) o a un giudizio esistenziale (Socrate esiste) in quanto espressioni del genere dell’essere. Ma è ragionevole supporre che Platone abbia inteso costruire uno schema simmetrico: il predicato nominale esprime identità e differenza, il predicato verbale esprime stasi e movimento. Per quanto riguarda il genere dell’essere, il dialogo non pone esplicitamente la sua corrispondenza con altre tipologie di predicazione e non credo che il passo 262e25 faccia riferimento ad esso.
Questa ipotesi dipende in modo determinante dalla possibilità di intendere e tradurre la nozione di rema come “predicazione”, e non semplicemente come “verbo”. Prescindendo da altri passi del corpus platonico, vediamo che il passo successivo sembra confermare tale prospettiva. In Soph. 262e6–263b1, lo Straniero mette in rilievo che la proposizione verte sempre su qualcosa (ti), per esempio “Teeteto”, e fa un’affermazione su tale soggetto, per esempio “siede”, oppure “vola”. I pronomi interrogativi tinos (di cosa?) e poios (quale?) costituiscono le funzioni pragmatiche mediante le quali si procede alla costruzione del logos. Il primo conduce a identificare il soggetto: alla domanda “di cosa si parla?”, bisogna indicare l’oggetto del discorso, cioè il soggetto della frase (Teeteto). Il secondo pronome conduce a identificare il predicato, il rema, ma è evidente che alla domanda “quale?” si risponderebbe più agevolmente con un sostantivo (il maestro) o un aggettivo (il greco) piuttosto che con un verbo (siede), a meno che non si decida di rispondere con una perifrasi (per es. “quello che siede”). Sembra dunque che il pronome interrogativo poios porti ad esprimere un predicato nominale: o piuttosto, dobbiamo ipotizzare che la nozione di rema identifichi la predicazione in generale, la cui natura consiste genericamente nel “dire qualcosa su qualcosa”. Gli esempi platonici, bisogna dire, si basano esclusivamente sui predicati verbali, “siede” oppure “vola”. Ma è chiaro che Platone intende la predicazione verbale come un tipo particolare di predicazione, accanto alla predicazione
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nominale. La corrispondenza tra il piano ontologico dei generi sommi e il piano sintattico delle tipologie di predicazione sembra costituire un esito coerente delle precedenti analisi sul “non essere” e sul “diverso”. Tali analisi si erano appoggiate in modo determinante ai diversi significati della copula, cioè alle diverse tipologie di predicazione nominale: e i due passi che abbiamo analizzato segnalano l’esigenza platonica di concludere e rendere più coerente l’approccio usato in precedenza, e di identificare un equivalente sintattico (il predicato verbale) anche per i generi della stasi e del movimento. Con questo non intendo negare che questo saggio platonico di filosofia del linguaggio sia funzionale alla risoluzione del problema del falso: ma esso serve nondimeno per suggellare la validità di un approccio metodologico che è rimasto sullo sfondo nell’indagine sul non essere, sull’identico e sul diverso, e che consiste nel tracciare un parallelismo tra strutture della predicazione e categorie metafisiche (generi sommi).
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Valeria Ottonelli (Università di Genova, Italia)In difesa di una concezione puramente procedurale di tirannia della maggioranza (Filosofia pratica)
In The Tyranny of the Majority Lani Guinier ha sostenuto che in contesti istituzionali democratici può essere fatta valere una concezione puramente procedurale della “tirannia della maggioranza”, in base alla quale una maggioranza è tirannica non (solo) quando viola alcuni valori o diritti fondamentali della minoranza, ma (anche) quando le procedure di decisione conferiscono di fatto un potere stabile nel tempo a una maggioranza consolidata, o relegano alcuni gruppi all’interno della società a una posizione di minoranza o di non visibilità politica permanente.Sebbene a prima vista questa definizione di tirannia della maggioranza possa apparire perspicua, risulta difficile definire a livello teorico quali siano le basi normative e le intuizioni fondamentali che rendono conto del suo carattere di ingiustizia. Può sorgere il dubbio che qualsiasi definizione di “tirannia” che sia in grado di rendere conto dell’ingiustizia perpetrata nei confronti delle minoranze permanenti debba necessariamente fare affidamento, in ultima analisi, sull’idea che tali minoranze rischino di vedere calpestati i loro diritti e i loro interessi fondamentali; questo farebbe collassare la concezione puramente procedurale di tirannia della maggioranza su una concezione sostanziale (tirannia come violazione di diritti o di criteri di equità sostanziali). D’altra parte, gli esiti politici che in base a questa concezione sono definiti come “tirannici” non possono esserlo semplicemente in riferimento a criteri procedurali minimali come “una testa, un voto” e la regola di maggioranza; è proprio l’applicazione di questi criteri meramente procedurali, infatti, che può permettere e generare il tipo di tirannia denunciata da Guinier.A favore della tesi che quello isolato da Guinier sia un tipo di tirannia genuinamente configurabile come “procedurale” può essere addotta la natura dei rimedi proposti. Come antidoto alla tirannia procedurale della maggioranza, Guinier altri teorici che si sono occupati della questione propongono forme di rappresentanza ponderata per le minoranze generalmente escluse dai processi decisionali regolati dal sistema maggioritario. Questi rimedi, tuttavia, non assicurano affatto compromessi equi in base a criteri sostanziali, perché permettono che le decisioni vengano influenzate dalla forza numerica delle parti coinvolte, anziché semplicemente dalla forza delle ragioni o degli interessi in gioco. Questa circostanza sembra confermare la natura puramente procedurale dei criteri di equità invocati: se si è disposti a permettere che le decisioni ultime vengano lasciate alla forza dei numeri, evidentemente non si sta facendo riferimento a standard sostanziali di giustizia che garantiscano esiti determinati indipendentemente dalle circostanze contingenti della scelta collettiva.Allo stesso tempo, però, ed esattamente per le stesse ragioni, non è facile giustificare questa caratteristica del sistema proposto, soprattutto se, come fanno Guinier e altri autori che hanno presentato argomentazioni analoghe, si ricorre in ultima istanza all’idea che le procedure democratiche abbiano una fondazione contrattualista. Perché mai le minoranze dovrebbero dare assenso a una procedura che riflette la loro debolezza numerica? E in che senso istituzioni del genere non sono tiranniche?La soluzione che presento è fondata su una interpretazione eccentrica dell’idea – invalsa nella letteratura – che ciò che deve essere distribuito egualmente, in base all’ideale del governo democratico, non è semplicemente il voto, ma un “meaningful vote”, ossia un voto dotato di significato. Una delle interpretazioni più comuni di questo principio è che il voto deve poter effettivamente avere un impatto sulla legislazione, ossia che non deve andare sistematicamente “sprecato”. Ma l’idea di “voto significativo” va oltre questa ovvia constatazione, e rimanda a una dimensione propriamente procedurale della giustizia democratica. L’esercizio del potere non ha un valore puramente strumentale, ossia non ha solo il significato di mezzo per raggiungere i
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propri fini; come ha osservato Brian Barry, ciò che si chiede, quando si chiede il voto eguale, non è solo ottenere ciò che si vuole, ma anche ottenere ciò che si vuole attraverso l’esercizio del proprio potere, e in modo tale che l’esistenza di questo potere e del suo legame causale con gli esiti delle decisioni politiche sia riconosciuto e visibile. Così si può leggere l’idea del meaningful vote anche in un’altra chiave, non meramente strumentale: il voto significativo è quello che può corrispondere effettivamente a un esercizio visibile e riconosciuto del potere politico.La tesi che intendo sostenere è che concepire il valore dei diritti politici democratici in termini di “voto significativo” così ridefinito permette di rendere conto delle intuizioni di giustizia che stanno dietro alla nozione puramente procedurale di tirannia della maggioranza.
Elisa Paganini (Università di Milano, Italia)Ontic vague objects without ontic indeterminate identity (Metaphysics and Ontology)
I endorse the thesis that ontic vague objects do not involve ontic indeterminate identity. In particular, I consider a recent argument proposed by Noonan (2008) for the opposite thesis, i. e. for the thesis that some ontic vague objects do involve ontic indeterminate identity, and I present my objection to it.It is worth pointing out the philosophical importance of the subject matter under consideration. As is well known, Evans (1978) proposed an argument for the following thesis:1) there is no ontic indeterminate identity. Moreover, it has long been assumed that:2) if there are ontic vague objects, then there is ontic indeterminate identity. And, by modus tollens, from 1) and 2) it follows:3) there are no ontic vague objects.Conclusion 3) is obviously inacceptable for any defender of ontic vague objects. For any such defender two strategies are open: [a] he shows that Evans’ argument in favour of 1) is not valid [b] he maintains that Evans’ argument is valid but shows that 2) is not true. This second strategy has been envisaged by Sainsbury (1989) and it has been fully endorsed by Tye (1990). If 2) is not true – the argument goes then Evans’ argument has no ontological import and the existence of ontic vague objects is not ruled out.Noonan (2008) is not satisfied by Tye’s argument. On the one side he grants it possible that some cases of ontic indeterminacy in boundaries (i.e. ontic vague objects) do not involve ontic indeterminacy of identity, but he argues that “some cases of ontic indeterminacy in boundaries do […] involve ontic indeterminacy of identity”. His goal is to show that strategy [a] is inescapable for any defender of ontic vague objects: if some cases of ontic indeterminacy in boundaries involve ontic indeterminacy of identity, then ontic indeterminate identity should not be ruled out, otherwise coherence is at stake. I will argue instead that strategy [b] is perfectly in order: if ontic vague objects do not imply ontic indeterminate identity, ontic indeterminate identity can be ruled out and ontic vague objects can be assumed.Noonan considers the following situation: Brown and Robinson undergo a surgical procedure in which Brown’s brain is transplanted into Robinson’s body. Brownson is the name of the person who wakes up after the transplant. Noonan’s argument is supposed to show that if Brown and Brownson are cases of ontic indeterminacy in temporal boundaries then Brown should be indeterminately identical with Brownson. Brown’s and Brownson’s ontic indeterminacy in temporal boundaries is diagrammed in the following way:
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_____________________......................................…………………………..___________________
The first line is to be read as Brown’s temporal life and the second line is to be read as Brownson’s temporal life, the continuous line represents the determinate region of the vague objects and the dots the indeterminate region.Now consider an instant of time t before the transplant. According to Noonan the following assumptions are in order:a) it is determinately the case that there is just one person in Room 100 at tb) Brown is such that he is determinately in Room 100 at tc) Brownson is such that he is indeterminately in Room 100 at tNow, if we deduce from b) and c) that Brown and Brownson are determinately different (as Evans’ argument suggests), then we should abandon premise a). But in Noonan’s opinion premise a) is indisputable, so from b) and c) we should deduce that Brown and Brownson are indeterminately identical.I argue that premise a) is not indisputable for anyone who accepts ontic vague objects and if a) is abandoned, then Evans’ thesis can be accepted and ontic vague objects are not ruled out. As long as it is assumed that objects can have ontic indeterminacy in temporal boundaries, the number of objects existing in every region of space is not a definite matter. It is instead an indeterminate matter whether to count indeterminately existing objects. If that is the case, a) should be substituted by
a*) it is not determinately the case that there is just one person in Room 100 at t.And a*) together with b) and c) is compatible with the thesis that Brown and Brownson are determinately different.
References:EVANS G. (1978), Can there be vague objects?, “Analysis”, 38, p. 208NOONAN H. W. (2008), Does ontic indeterminacy in boundaries entail ontic indeterminacy in identity?, in “Analysis”, 68.2, pp. 174176SAINSBURY M. (1989), What is a vague object?, in “Analysis”, 49, pp. 99103TYE M. (1990), Vague objects, in “Mind”, 99, pp. 535557
Gainranco Pellegrini (LUISS, Roma, Italia)The moral significance of noncompliance (Practical Philosophy) Sometimes, agents do not comply with the demands of morality. Some ethical theories regard the fact of noncompliance as a trivial one, or at least as an unfortunate accident, devoid of tremendous significance. At most, the fact of noncompliance may drive enquiries into moral psychology (in particular, moral motivation) or into a normative account of moral sanctions. By contrast, other approaches view partial compliance as a fact able to change in meaningful ways the content of any given ethical theory. Noncompliance forces us to move from ideal theory (i.e. a theory assuming a condition of full compliance) to nonideal theory (a theory aimed to account for situations of partial compliance).This paper discusses those views of the significance of noncompliance. First, various patterns of relation between ideal and nonideal theory will be considered, and some objections to them assessed. Second, it will be argued that, since two of these patterns of relation are seriously flawed, only the third should be accepted. Moreover, some objections to this way of connecting ideal and nonideal ethical theory will be answered. A view of the moral significance of non
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compliance is outlined. Theorists regarding noncompliance as not significant assume the ideal theory as the only yardstick to be considered. Paramount instances of such an approach are several forms of procedural kantianism (but not Rawls’ theory of justice), various kind of ideal or cooperative consequentialism (the view that one should do the action that produces the best consequence if everyone did it), a view of beneficence as contributing one’s own fair share (a version of which was recently defended by Liam B. Murphy), or certain kinds of virtue ethics (particularly those endorsing some version of the ideal of the unity of the virtues).The main fault of those approaches is their lack of realism and practical impact. Plainly, ethical theories are not mere descriptions, but should provide normative standards to evaluate actual behaviour, and possibly to correct it; however, facts about patterns of noncompliance seem to have an obvious import on any given theory. In particular, beyond a given ratio of noncompliers, those facts may indicate that the standards provided by the theory in question are systematically and deeply unfit for human beings. More precisely, a huge amount of noncompliance may betray that a given theory fails to work as a human ideal of conduct, in that it provides standards which are largely not applicable to the human condition, or strongly unappealing for average human beings. Accordingly, noncompliance is a significant fact, in that it provides a hint concerning the attainability of certain moral ideals, and their fittingness to the human condition.Other approaches, despite setting standards addressed to an ideal situation of full compliance, hold that those standards should be adjusted to meet real situations of only partial compliance, and this could be done by assuming as fixed a given level of noncompliance. Instances of this mode of going from the ideal to the nonideal level are John Rawls’ theory of justice, especially in its international version developed in Law of Peoples, or some versions of ruleconsequentialism, which select system of rules able to produce the best consequences under conditions of fixed partial compliance (recently, Brad Hooker defended this view, following previous suggestions by Richard Brandt).Those views face the following problem. The level of noncompliance assumed seems to be arbitrary. Why certain levels of noncompliance are morally significant, while other levels, beyond or below the chosen threshold, have no significance at all? This objection may be avoided by giving significance to any actual level of noncompliance. This is what actconsequentialism usually does, by enjoining changes of behaviour depending on any, even slight, change of the actual pattern of compliance. Unfortunately, actconsequentialism sensitiveness to any slight shift in actual compliance has attracted the following objections: first, this could produce overdemanding (if too many persons fail to comply) and unfair demands (why others’ failure to comply should be mended by me? Why should the demands addressed to me be raised in proportion to a behaviour out of my control?); second, ethical standards become too contingent, depending as they are on detailed and actual patterns of compliance.The rest of the paper is aimed to answer the first objection to actconsequentialism. The following line of reasoning will be presented: the only clear sense in which certain increased demands, caused by extended noncompliance, are objectionable is that they seem to be unfair requests. Overdemandingness amounts to unfairness. However, the idea that those demands are unfair may be explained away in terms of the moral wrongness of noncompliance. Therefore, the moral significance of noncompliance is presupposed, not denied, in that objection. However, apart from sanctioning noncompliance and improving the motivational powers of morality, increasing the demands of morality seems to be the only appropriate reaction to the moral relevance of noncompliance. Accordingly, actconsequentialism is the only proper account of the moral significance of noncompliance.
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Tommaso Piazza (University of Porto, Portugal)Antirealist Meaning and the Manifestation Challenge (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
As is well known, the semantic antirealist claims that the epistemic conception of truth is preferable over the nonepistemic one, endorsed by her realist opponent, because it makes available a notion in terms of which sentential meaning can be elucidated without jettisoning the requirement that knowledge of it be fully manifestable in use (henceforth, MR). In this paper I set forth to counter this received view, and to show that once MR is properly understood, also antirealistic meaning turns out to fail it.The strategy to be pursued: firstly, I shall analyze Dummett’s argument to the effect that knowledge of realist meaning cannot, and knowledge of antirealist meaning can, be fully manifested in use. I shall diagnose that Dummett’s argument goes through just on the interpretation of MR according to which the conditions knowledge of which meaning understanding are alleged to consist in have to be such that a competent speaker must be able to recognize them as obtaining, whenever they obtain (almost by definition, evidencetranscendent truthconditions, as opposed to assertibility conditions, may obtain without its being possible fort a speaker to recognize them). Since this is the way in which Dummett himself construes MR, let call the requirement, under this reading, DMR. Second step of my argument will be to argue that satisfaction of DMR is not enough to ensure that knowledge of meaning be manifestable in the sense in which both the realist and the antirealist should agree that knowledge of meaning ought to be. To show this I shall rehearse the usual (Wittgensteinean) motivation behind MR, according to which semantic competence should be explained without adverting to essentially private mental states, and argue that a semantic theory’s satisfaction of DMR does not guarantee that it will explain knowledge of meaning without adverting to essentially private mental states. In order to vindicate the latter claim, I shall argue that by Dummett’s own lights an undecidable statement, like Goldbach’s conjecture (GC), is one for which we lack a current guarantee of its being metaphysically possible that we will ever achieve an epistemic situation in which we will either be able to prove or disprove it. Therefore, by Dummett’s own lights, it follows that whichever explanation is given of our current understanding of GC, it must be compatible with its being metaphysically impossible for us to prove or disprove it. Now, assuming the latter to be the case, it follows that a speaker’s knowledge of the meaning of GC – even under the antirealist’s identification of this knowledge with knowledge of assertibilityconditions – is going to be manifested under to possible range of circumstances: in order for a speaker’s knowledge of this meaning to be manifested, in fact, a speaker should be presented with either a proof or a disproof of the conjecture, and recognize it as such, yet, under our current assumption, the obtaining of the latter conjunctive stateofaffairs is precluded by its being impossible for (each disjunct of its first) conjunct to obtain. To be sure, knowledge of antirealist meaning would still be Dmanifestable, for the latter impossibility would still make true that a speaker would recognize a proof or a disproof were she to be presented with one. Yet, a speaker’s knowledge of the meaning of GC would be identified with an essentially private mental condition (the never to be exercised capability of recognizing a proof or a disproof of CG) and so fail to respect MR. Accordingly, I shall conclude that Dummett’s argument, to the effect that antirealist meaning is, and realist meaning is not, Dmanifestable should give the antirealist no dialectical advantage, as both semantic theories fall short of meeting the philosophically motivated MR.
Mauro Piras (Università di Piemonte Orientale, Italia)
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Una difesa della ragione pubblica (Filosofia politica)
La relazione intende mostrare che l’idea di ragione pubblica (RP) è costitutiva del liberalismo politico, rispondendo alle critiche che sono state mosse da più parti a tale idea. Diverse critiche sostengono che i vincoli imposti dalla RP limiterebbero il pluralismo, in particolare in campo religioso, imponendo ai cittadini credenti di tradurre le loro convinzioni in un linguaggio “secolare”.Per rispondere a tali critiche, si procederà nei seguenti passaggi.1. La necessità di una giustificazione pubblica condivisa delle leggi discende dai presupposti stessi della costituzione liberaldemocratica, cioè dalla legittimazione dell’autorità politica sulla base di equi termini di cooperazione tra cittadini liberi e eguali.2. La RP, fondata su questi presupposti, non si applica indifferentemente ad ogni tipo di dibattito pubblico. Bisogna distinguere tre livelli: a) le istituzioni dello stato, per le quali i vincoli della RP sono rigidi; b) il dibattito politico pubblico, cioè tutti quei dibattiti nel foro pubblico che sono finalizzati a influenzare direttamente le decisioni politiche o il controllo del potere politico, per i quali la RP vale in maniera non rigida, secondo la “tesi inclusiva” di Rawls; c) la società civile, cioè l’ambito di tutti quei dibattiti informali che non servono a influenzare direttamente la decisione politica, per i quali non vale nessun tipo di vincolo.3. Nessuno contesta i vincoli della RP per il livello a); i problemi riguardano il livello b). Per giustificare la RP in questo ambito, si cercherà di mostrare quali potrebbero essere gli esiti del dibattito pubblico se non ci fosse nessun vincolo condiviso di RP. Dopo un’analisi delle tipologie di esiti possibili, si mostrerà che in ogni caso viene violato il principio della reciprocità, cioè dell’eguale rispetto tra cittadini liberi e eguali. Questo perché gli esiti portano o al prevalere di una dottrina comprensiva sulle altre, o alla scissione della sfera pubblica in parti violentemente contrapposte. In ogni caso si realizza uno scollamento tra istituzioni pubbliche e cultura politica pubblica.4. Si tratta quindi di definire la portata della RP. Va ricordato in primo luogo che la RP, per il dibattito nel foro pubblico, non è un vincolo istituzionale e giuridico, ma un “dovere morale”, dovrebbe far parte della cultura politica condivisa. Tale “dovere di civiltà” (Rawls) è osservato se le parti, qualsiasi posizione propongano, lo fanno con ragioni che sostengono sempre anche una concezione politica della giustizia. Secondo questa formulazione, non viene richiesto che le dottrine comprensive, quando si esprimono nel dibattito pubblico, vengano “tradotte” nel linguaggio di una concezione politica della giustizia; la traduzione è auspicabile, ma non è necessario che essa venga realizzata subito e dalle stesse persone che esprimono la posizione nel linguaggio della dottrina comprensiva. Questa interpretazione della ragione pubblica è coerente con quella proposta da Rawls.5. L’ultimo passo richiede di collegare la RP al consenso per intersezione. La vera risposta alla domanda “come è possibile la RP senza fare violenza al pluralismo religioso?” è infatti: grazie al consenso per intersezione. Infatti, se si realizza tale consenso, i cittadini di fede che parlano nel dibattito politico pubblico il linguaggio dei principi politici condivisi non sono costretti a “rinunciare alle proprie convinzioni più profonde”, come spesso si sostiene nelle critiche al liberalismo politico; essi parlano invece un linguaggio che è semplicemente una parte di un tutto, perché è in continuità con le convinzioni più profonde radicate nella dottrina comprensiva.6. Si potrebbe però chiedere: se questo consenso per intersezione si è realizzato, non è proprio perché alcune dottrine comprensive hanno dovuto “adattarsi” ai principi base del liberalismo politico, hanno dovuto “snaturarsi” per accettarli? Ciò accadrebbe però se si arricchissero troppo quei principi, e se li si gravassero di una giustificazione filosofica e morale. Se ci si limita a esplicitare i principi che fondano il liberalismo politico, ogni individuo e ogni gruppo farà a suo modo (anche nei modi più inaspettati e imprevisti) il collegamento tra la concezione politica
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della giustizia e la propria dottrina comprensiva; ognuno di essi farà liberamente l’integrazione dei due livelli, eventualmente modificando parti della dottrina comprensiva, ma anche reinterpretando la concezione politica della giustizia.
Matteo Plebani (Università di Venezia, Italia)Wittgenstein on Gödel: the key problem of KC (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
The aim of this talk is to show the limitations of the attempt made by Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam (2000) to defend Wittgenstein’s remarks concerning Gödel’s first theorem. According to Floyd and Putnam, we can extrapolate from Wittgenstein’s ‘notorious’ comments about the Gödel’s theorem some philosophically insightful remarks. Let “P” be the Gödelian sentence for the logical system embodied in the Principia Mathematica (PM). Wittgenstein’s key claim (KC) runs as follows:
KC: If one assumes that ¬P is provable in PM, then one should give up the “translation” of P by the English sentence “P is not provable”
Two objections can be raised against this interpretation of Wittgenstein’s remarks:(1) First, the key claim (KC) attributed to Wittgenstein by Floyd and Putnam is compatible with mathematical realism, a type of philosophy of mathematics that the philosopher explicitly rejected. KC is based upon three uncontroversial mathematical results:1. If PM ¬P, then PM is ├ ω inconsistent.2. If PM is consistent but ω inconsistent, then all of the models of PM contain nonstandard natural numbers—i.e., elements which the model treats as natural numbers but which do not correspond to any of the ordinary natural numbers.3. The translation of P as “P is not provable” depends on interpreting P at the “natural numbers alone.”If we interpret P at a nonstandard model—i.e., at one of the models described in 2—then there is no reason to think that this will lead to a translation of P as “P is not provable.” But the fact that P cannot be translated as “P is not provable” if it is interpreted in a nonstandard model is compatible with the fact that, if PM is consistent, then P is true in the standard model N, but not provable.(2) Secondly, Floyd and Putnam’s claim hinges upon an untenable way of distinguishing between mathematical theorems and their metaphysical interpretation (p. 632):That the Gödel theorem shows that (1) there is a well defined notion of “mathematical truth” applicable to every formula of PM; and (2) that if PM is consistent, then some “mathematical truths” in that sense are undecidable in PM, is not a mathematical result but a metaphysical claim. But that if P is provable in PM then PM is inconsistent and if ¬P is provable in PM then PM is ω inconsistent is precisely the mathematical claim that Gödel proved. What Wittgenstein is criticizing is the philosophical naiveté involved in confusing the two, or thinking that the former follows from the latter. But not because Wittgenstein want to simply deny the metaphysical claim; rather he wants us to see how little sense we have succeeded in giving it.The first problem with these remarks is that there are mathematically respectable ways of stating the (allegedly) “metaphysical claim”; therefore, there is no mathematical reason to prefer a syntactic formulation of Gödel’s theorem (where the notion of truth plays no role) to a semantic one (where it does). Secondly, using an argument due to Martino (Martino 2006) I show that the mathematical theorem and the alleged metaphysical thesis involve the same ontological assumptions. In short: if there is a welldefined notion of consistency for a formal system, then
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there are welldefined notions of a numeral, wellformed formula, theorem, and so forth, and there is a welldefined notion of a structure isomorphic to N. If this holds, there is a welldefined notion of mathematical truth applicable to every formula of PM, which is what we obtain when we interpret our formal language using this structure. So, the supposed mathematical theorem collapses into the metaphysical thesis. The conclusion is that either the two formulations of Gödel’s theorem are both metaphysical theses, or they are both mathematical results. There is no room for the proseversusproof distinction.Of course, even if we accept the semantic version of Gödel’s theorem, many philosophical options alternative to Platonism are left open: we could be fictionalists, or nominalists, or intuitionists, although we could hardly be strict finitists. We might wonder whether we might be Wittgensteinians, and this is my final issue: I argue that some of Wittgenstein’s pivotal theses in the philosophy of mathematics are involved in his discussion of Gödel’s theorem; and I cast some doubts on the alleged nonrevisionist nature of his reflection on mathematics.
ReferencesBays, Timothy 2004 On Floyd and Putnam on Wittgenstein on Gödel, The Journal of Philosophy CI.4, 197 – 210.Floyd, Juliet, Putnam, Hilary 2001: A note on Wittgesntein “Notorius Paragraph” about the Gödel Theorem, The Journal of Philosophy, XCVII, 11, 624632.Gödel, Kurt 1986, On formally undecidable proposition of Principia Mathematica and related systems, in Collected Works, New York: Oxford University Press.Martino, Enrico 2006, Ragionamento astratto e teoremi di incompletezza di Gödel, unpublished.
Karol Polcyn (University of Szczecin, Poland)The Intuition of Dualism and the Explanatory Gap (Philosophy of Mind)
The problem of the explanatory gap is that we do not understand how mindbrain identities can be true even in the light of our theoretical evidence for their truth. According to David Papineau, however, the explanatory gap is simply a manifestation of our pretheoretical intuition that mind and brain cannot be identical and since we can consistently assume that this intuition of dualism is false, the problem of the explanatory gap disappears.In my view, Papineau’s diagnosis is wrong. The line of reasoning that Papineau uses to prove the existence of the intuition of dualism leaves no room for assuming that this intuition is false. So the intuition of dualism is the evidence of our conceptual difficulty in accepting physicalism and hence reinforces the explanatory gap instead of explaining it away.Papineau’s proof that we are all in the grip of the intuition of dualism proceeds as follows. Natural kind concepts, such as water or heat, are semantically unstable (pick out different referents in different possible actual worlds) and therefore theoretical identities can appear possibly false even to someone who believes they are true. Phenomenal concepts, on the other hand, are stable and therefore mindbrain identities should not appear possibly false to someone who believes they are true. However, mindbrain identities do appear possibly false even to committed physicalists and this calls out for explanation. Papineau suggests that the only way to resolve this inconsistency is to assume that even committed physicalists do not believe mindbrain identities at an intuitive level. This intuition of dualism explains why mindbrain identities appear possibly false while leaving room for our commitment to the truth of those identities at the theoretical level. Of course, in order to leave room for our theoretical commitment, Papineau assumes that the intuition of dualism is false. He argues that there is nothing ad hoc in this assumption since there
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is presumably an explanation of why the intuition of dualism arises consistently with assuming that it is false. But assuming that the intuition of dualism is false and that this is the intuition that generates the feeling that there is some troublesome explanatory gap, the problem of the explanatory gap no longer poses any difficulty for physicalism. There isn’t any conceptual difficulty in understanding how mindbrain identities can be true. Instead, there is only the false pretheoretical intuition that they cannot be true. Papineau’s favourite explanation of the intuition of dualism appeals to the idea that phenomenal concepts, unlike their corresponding physical concepts, use the properties they pick out. While this conceptual difference gives rise to the feeling that those two sorts of concepts cannot pick out the same properties, there is no incoherence in assuming that the phenomenal properties used by phenomenal concepts are for all we know identical with physical properties.I do not think that this explanation works. Indeed, I do not think there is any other model for explaining the intuition of dualism away. Any such explanatory model must presuppose that we understand how mindbrain identities can be true at an intuitive level and yet this is something that we do not understand in the light of the line of reasoning that leads Papineau to introducing the intuition of dualism. Obviously, this line of reasoning commits us to holding not only that we do not believe mindbrain identities at an intuitive level but also that we cannot even assume them to be true. And if we cannot even assume that mindbrain identities are true, we cannot really understand how they can be true.To apply this point to the explanation of the intuition of dualism offered by Papineau, we cannot assume at an intuitive level that the phenomenal properties used by phenomenal concepts are identical with physical properties. Given the semantic stability of phenomenal concepts, the properties used by phenomenal concepts should not appear possibly distinct from physical properties to someone who assumes that those properties are identical. So given that those properties do appear possibly distinct even to committed physicalists, we cannot assume they are identical.I conclude that the intuition of dualism cannot be explained consistently with assuming that mindbrain identities are true and that therefore we cannot assume that this intuition is false. Consequently, the intuition of dualism does not explain the explanatory gap away.
ReferencesLevine, J. (1983) Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64.Papineau, D. (1993) Physicalism, Consciousness and the Antipathetic Fallacy. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 71.Papineau, D. (2007) Kripke’s Proof That We Are All Intuitive Dualists.Papineau, D. (2007) Kripke’s Proof is Ad Hominem not TwoDimensional. Philosophical Perspectives 21.
Daniele Porello (INRIA, Bordeaux, France & Università di Genova, Italia)Preference Update and Deliberation about Dimensions (Logic and Language)
The aim of this work is to investigate the relationship between the notion of dimension used in social choice theory and the logic of preference upgrade. Intuitively, a dimension is an ordering of the alternatives, which may be respected by individual preferences: it is a ranking of all alternatives according to some strict order and individual preferences are compatible with it if, for example, an individual orders alternatives form the last one to the first.
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As it is well known in social choice theory, the fact that individual preferences may be ordered according to a dimension constitutes under certain hypotheses a sufficient condition avoiding cycles in the collective preference ordering, voted by means of certain democratic voting procedure, and avoiding Condorcet’s paradoxes. The proposal here advanced is to investigate process of preference aggregation and to see how individuals may reach a shared dimension. In particular, we would like to show how the property of singlepeakedness (see for example (Elsholtz, List, 2004)) may be interpreted within the framework of preference logic. Given a set N of individuals and a set A of alternatives, we define a preference relation Ri of an individual i as a transitive, reflexive, connected relation on A.
Definition 1 (singlepeakedness). A set of orderings is single peaked if and only if there exists a bijection : X {1, ..., k} such that for every triple of options Ω → x1 , x2 , x3 and for every i in N it holds that: if x1 Ri x2 and (Ω x1) < (Ω x2 ) < (Ω x3 ) or (Ω x3 ) < (Ω x2 ) < (Ω x1 ), then x1 Pi x3
If a set of ordering is single peaked, then it is possible to vote by majority a best alternative, avoiding Condorcet’s paradox (see (Elsholtz, List, 2004)). We will consider the preference logic presented in van Benthem, Liu (2004), which defines preference relations Ri on possible worlds and it allows to express various meanings of preference sentences defining preference operators “pref i φ”. If we apply the definition of singlepeakedness to the order relation between possible worlds, we may consider individual preference relations which are singlepeaked. If this is the case, we get that there is a collective ordering of the worlds which gives always a set of collectively preferred sentences. Moreover, we may ask which are the constraints on the relational structure in order to produce singlepeaked preference orderings.The most interesting point is however how individuals may converge towards a shared dimension, and which are the triggers for dimension changing in this framework. In (Dryzek, List (2003)) it is observed that one of the feature of deliberation is to make the dimensions involved in voting explicit. We will present some applications of preferences upgrade defined in van Benthem and Liu (2004), based on the idea that preference change will be triggered by the fact that the lack of a shared dimension becomes common knowledge (after obtaining a cyclic collective preference) and we will see some considerations in favour of a model of the upgrade which will disentangle the profile leading to a cycle, so to make the different dimensions involved explicit.
References− Kornhauser, L. A.: 1992, ‘Modelling Collegial Courts. II. Legal Doctrine’. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 8, 441–470.− List, C. and P. Pettit: 2002, ‘Aggregating Sets of Judgements: An Impossibility Result’. Economics and Philosophy, 18, 89–110.− Pauly, M. and M. van Hees: 2005, ‘Logical Constraints on Judgment Aggregation’. Journal of Philosophical Logic. Forthcoming.− Porello, D. : 2007, ‘Aggregation of Ranking Judgements and Arrow’s Theorem’. A Meeting ofthe Minds. Proceedings of Workshop on Logic, Rationality and Interaction, Beijing, 2007. , J.van Benthem, Shier Ju and F. Veltman, (eds.), Text in Computer Science 8, College Publication,London.− van Benthem, J. and Liu, F.: 2007, ‘Dynamic logic for Preferences Upgrade’. Journal of Applied Nonclassical Logic, 17, 2.
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Simin Rahimi (Heythrop College, London, UK)A Resolution to the Euthyphro Dilemma (Philosophy of Religion)
The debate on the relation of ethics to divinity goes back to Socrates’ dialogue with Euthyphro. Divine command theory holds that God’s commands determine the moral value of actions. This paper examines some issues surrounding this theory and the interplay between ethics and religion.It briefly discuses three different arguments 1) scriptural, 2) metaphysical, and 3) metaethical, and argues that none of them are successful. It then offers a solution to the dilemma.Recall the dilemma revolves around the disjunction:
(A) Either right actions are right because God commands the performance of them, or God commands the performance of right actions because they are right.
The paper argues that the disjunct in (A) though exclusive are not exhaustive. There is in fact a third alternative way of understanding the connection between morality and divine commands that neither makes morality arbitrary nor limits divine sovereignty. Thus, anyone who takes (A) must accept
(B) God commands the performance of all right actions.
And anyone who asserts (A) must also accept
(C) The correlation between an action being right and its being commanded by God is capable of explanation.
One cannot sensibly deny (C) and at the same time assert (A); the two disjuncts in (A) expresses two possible explanations of the correlation stated in (B), and (C) simply asserts that the correlation is capable of explanation. Otherwise, it would be hard, to say the least, to make sense of the word ‘because’ in the disjuncts. A further critical assumption underlying (A) is
(D) The explanatory connection between an action’s being right and its performance’s being commanded by God is a direct connection.
Assumptions (B) through (D) are all necessary and in fact adequate for deriving (A), and hence the Euthyphro dilemma. But D and therefore A can possibly be wrong. To deny (D), it is first and foremost essential to reject
(E) The connection between the rightness of actions and God’s commands is a justificatory connection.
It is only then that the explanatory connection between the rightness of an action and its performance’s being commanded by God becomes an indirect connection. Several arguments, as seen, are usually put forward to defend that God’s commands constitute justifications for the ethical rightness or wrongness of actions. The arguments all involve reasons for the necessity of following divine commands. To begin with, it is often argued that God is omniscient, i.e., he perfectly knows everything about us including what is wrong or right for us to do. Human beings
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should, therefore, follow his commands. This logical reasoning presumes that “there is a realm of independent ethical facts that God knows flawlessly” (Carlton Fisher, 1990, p. 359) but human beings are not able to know them. However, this position implies that the rightness or wrongness of an action does not really depend on divine commands, but on certain objective features that are not easily knowable to us. Another consideration often mentioned to support the claim that divine commands constitute reasons for our actions is that he cares equally about the welfare of every human being; i.e., he is omnibenevolent. He is, therefore, an ideal judge. And since we should do whatever an ideal judge would advise or want us to do, we should follow God’s commands. This reasoning is not inconsistent with the existence of an independently valid system of ethics (See Stephen Darwall, 1998, p. 44). For this reason, it does not justify the necessity of obeying divine commands simply because they are God’s commands.A third consideration is that we “should obey God out of gratitude because his having created and sustained our lives and everything valuable in them” (Richard Swinburne, 1981, p.132; Peter Geach, 1981, p. 172). This reasoning, however, suggests that there is at least one moral fact whose validity does not depend on divine commands; that is, it is obligatory to show gratitude. If the reason for the necessity of following God’s commands is that one ought to show him gratitude, then the claim that it is obligatory to show gratitude cannot depend on his commands. Even if he were to command one to show gratitude, it would still be the case that one should follow his commands only if she knew that she ought to show gratitude. Adams’ appeal to love also fails to establish the necessity of following God’s command. If love does not contribute to ethical rightness, it can sensibly be asked why one ought to follow the commands of a loving God (John Chandler, 1985: pp. 231 39). If it contributes to the rightness of actions, it is love and possibly some other natural properties that make an action ethically good, not divine commands. Moreover, given that the moral laws would have been different, if our nature had been created differently, any claim for the justificatory role of divine commands should inevitably establish that the commands are conducive to ‘human happiness’; that is, they reflect the means vital for achieving happiness. Otherwise, the question remains why one has to follow divine commands. If so, it is not divine commands that make the performance of an action morally right or wrong. Rather, it is the facts about human nature that justify divine commands, and hence the performance of an action as ethically right or wrong. This undercuts a direct justificatory connection between the properties of being morally right and being commanded by God. With (E) being rejected, there is no reason for (D) to be true either. When (D) is rejected, the two disjuncts in (A) no longer state exhaustive possibilities. There is a third possibility, which says God only creates human beings and the moral laws are only derivative from their nature. Just as God creates nature and natural laws are only derived from nature.Based on these analyses, the paper rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. It argues that moral truths (if there are any) depend on divine will because human nature depends on divine will. To be precise, just as scientific laws and physical objects depend on divine will, morality also depends on divine will, not commands. The proposal overcomes the difficulties of traditional divine command theories.
Davide Rizza (University of Sheffield, UK)Is there incommensurability in mathematics? (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science)
I consider a recent article by Otávio Bueno (Bueno 2007) where the author suggests the existence of a phenomenon similar to Kuhnian incommensurability but internal to mathematics.
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He exemplifies it by referring to two contrasting conceptions of the continuum, involving or excluding infinitesimals, arisen in the development of analysis. I look at three points Bueno makes to exhibit the existence of incommensurability in this context:i) different conceptions of the continuum attempt to describe different mathematical objects;ii) there are statements which are true of one kind of continuum but not the other; iii) the elements of different continua can’t be identified in a crossstructure fashion.Observations (i) to (iii), together with the notion of incommensurability they articulate, are really significant only if they capture important aspects of mathematical practice and its development. One way of deciding about their significance is to check whether they adequately account for conceptual change in the history of mathematics, relative to the emergence of different conceptions of the continuum. I do this and show that Bueno’s characterization of incommensurability fails to deliver the account it should produce.More precisely: against (i), I consider an example from seventeenth century mathematics and one from contemporary mathematics, to show that the use or rejection of infinitesimals is not necessarily motivated by the decision to study a particular mathematical object: on the contrary, infinitesimals have been understood in many important cases as prooftheoretical aids to deducing results which hold in continua devoid of them. This is true of the mathematical work of Newton and Leibniz, as shown by Kitcher 1973 and Levey 1998 among others. The same can be said of the theory presented in Nelson 1977, where infinitesimals are introduced by suitably enriching the underlying logic of mathematics, rather than through ontological extension. The focus is deductive and not semantic, as Bueno argues. against (ii), I take as counterexample a theorem, briefly discussed in Bueno 2007 and originally proved by Cauchy, on series of continuous functions: generally speaking, its proof would be wrong if all the notions occurring in it were interpreted as referring to a continuum without infinitesimals, while it is correct under a suitable alternative interpretation involving infinitesimals. However, the infinitesimal version of the theorem is equivalent to one without infinitesimals, involving uniformly convergent series of continuous functions. This and the history of Cauchy’s theorem can be used to show that often what matters in mathematics is to obtain a desired theorem and not to identify the propositions thought to be true in a particular abstract setting, taken as primary object of investigation. At the same time, divergences between different continua would be typically shown in the form of differences in prooftheoretical strength of corresponding theories: it is not the truth of statements to be crucial, but the provability of desired results. against (iii), I briefly observe how, using e.g. the ultraproduct construction of elementary extensions of the reals, the possibility of isomorphically embedding the latter into their extensions containing infinitesimal and infinitely large numbers is entirely available. Furthermore, the key property of Dedekind completeness is equivalent to a representation theorem for the limited numbers in the ultraproduct extensions. Thus, under suitable conditions, crossstructure identification is possible.
ReferencesBueno, O. 2007. ‘Incommensurability in Mathematics’, in Bart Van Kerkhove and Jean Paul Van Bendegem (eds.), Perspectives on Mathematical Practices, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 83–105.Kitcher, P. 1973. ‘Fluxions, Limits, and Infinite Littlenesse. A Study of Newton’s Presentation of the Calculus’, Isis, 64, 33–49.Levey, S. 1998. ‘Leibniz on Mathematics and the Actually Infinite Division of Matter’, Philosophical Review, 107, 49–96.
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Nelson, E. 1977. ‘Internal set theory: A new approach to nonstandard Analysis’, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 83, 1165–1198.
Deborah Roberts (University of Reading, UK)The distinction between thick and thin concepts (Practical philosophy)
“Great powers are claimed for thick concepts, and we should do our best to get to the root of which powers they really have and which they lack.” Alan Gibbard.
Much of moral philosophy happens in the relatively rarefied atmosphere of the thin: much of the time moral philosophers talk in terms of the thin concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Although thick concepts, for example ‘kind’ and ‘cruel’, are an indispensible part of virtue ethics, there is not a lot of literature which descends to put thick concepts themselves under the microscope. In that which there is, the notion of the genuinely thick is insufficiently discussed and insufficiently understood. My main aim in this paper is to get clear on just what genuine thickness might be by considering how to draw the distinction between thick and thin concepts, if genuine thickness exists. My way into this is to focus on John McDowell’s socalled ‘disentangling argument’ in his paper “NonCognitivism and RuleFollowing”.I make four main claims:1. McDowell’s remarks here can be, and have been, read in two different ways. This generates
a way of making the distinction between thick and thin concepts. The distinction thus generated gives rise to my second and third claims:2. Thin concepts are nonnormatively shapeless in the sense that we cannot identify such a
shape by studying the nonnormative features of a range of cases to which the concept is correctly applied.
3. Thick concepts are nonnormatively shapeless in that we cannot identify such a shape even by examining a single instance of the application of the concept.
If the above captures how we should understand genuine thickness, then:4. A genuinely thick concept is one which ascribes irreducibly thick properties.Thus, one way for defenders of the genuinely thick to proceed is to defend the existence of irreducibly thick properties.Thick concepts are thought to have a dual character: they both evaluate and describe. In contrast, thin concepts are thought to be purely evaluative (or deontic). If I say that a paper is incisive and perceptive, I convey more information about it than if I say it is good. But it seems clear that the first description evaluates as well as describes. There are those who think that the descriptive and evaluative meaning in thick concepts can be ‘disentangled’ into separate elements and those who think they cannot: the duality is inextricable. I take it that genuine thickness is of the inextricable kind, for on this view the thickness cannot be explained away. Genuine thickness most often turns up when it is to be pressed into use as a weapon, as it is against noncognitivism or against the factvalue distinction.McDowell’s socalled ‘disentangling argument’ is often referred to by those who would defend an account of genuine thickness. It supposedly does this by showing that what frustrates the disentangling of description and evaluation is that thick concepts are ‘shapeless’. Our normative concepts give our experience of the world shape in the way that they classify the things to which they apply. Some people claim that our normative concepts are nonnormatively shapeless: the classifications cannot be seen at or from the natural level. This is the level on which normative concepts are held to supervene, or from which they are held to result.I argue for my first three claims by way of a detailed examination of two key passages of
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McDowell’s paper “NonCognitivism and RuleFollowing”. I show how these two passages taken together can be read as either talking of shapelessness in the sense outlined in claim 2 or talking of shapelessness in the sense as outlined in claim 3. I point out those who have read McDowell as talking of shapelessness in the claim 2 sense, and argue that a certain key defence of genuine thickness Jonathan Dancy’s “In Defense of Thick Concepts” relies on the notion of shapelessness in the claim 3 sense. Along the way, I show why it is implausible to assume that McDowell himself intended to offer an argument for genuine thickness. I argue for the fourth claim by showing that McDowell’s considerations result in a standoff between those who feel the force of ‘shapelessness’ and those who do not. One promising way to defend the claim that thick concepts are shapeless in the sense of claim 3 is to argue that there are irreducibly thick properties. These would be properties that are irreducibly both natural and normative. David Wiggins’s “A Sensible Subjectivism” offers a way of understanding such properties. If there were properties that were thick all the way down, then it would not be the case that we could identify a nonnormative shape at the level of the natural even by examining a single instance of the application of the concept.I end by briefly discussing the implications of this view for the notions of ‘supervenience’ and ‘description’ as they are most commonly understood in metaethics.
Mauro Rossi (London School of Economics)Mirroring and Mindreading: A Theory Theory Perspective (Philosophy of Mind)
The mindreading capacity, that is, the capacity to ascribe mental states to a target, has been the subject of considerable attention from different fields in the past thirty years. Two main approaches have emerged: Theory Theory (TT) and Simulation Theory (ST). According to the former, ordinary people ascribe mental states to others by means of a ‘theory of mind’ that they, more or less tacitly, possess. According to the latter, ordinary people ascribe mental states to others by trying to replicate, or simulate, their mental life.Recently, new discoveries in neuroscience seem to have brought decisive support in favour of simulationbased accounts of mindreading. Studies about normal subjects have established the existence of a specific class of neurons, i.e. mirror neurons, that are activated both when the subject experiences a specific emotion and when the subject observes behavioural signs that another individual is experiencing the same emotion. Moreover, studies of braindamaged subjects have established the existence of corresponding pair deficit phenomena: the subject is impaired both in his capacity to experience that emotion and in his capacity to recognise the same emotion in other individuals, on the basis of behavioural clues. According to Goldman, this neuroscientific evidence favours ST over TT, as the former can both provide a better explanation of these findings and predict the paired deficit phenomena.We want to argue, to the contrary, that the neuroscientific evidence does not decisively settle the matter against TT. We distinguish three alternative ways to characterise a TT mindreading account, differing with respect to (1) the definition of mental recognition, (2) the role assigned to introspection in the recognition of mental states, (3) the mechanisms postulated for the attribution of mental states. In this paper, we defend a ‘moderate’ TT approach to mindreading by showing that it is predictively on a par with, and explanatorily better than, ST. In particular, we argue that a sophisticated version of TT will maintain that the ability to experience an emotion qua a specific emotion is based on the same tacit theory that emotion recognition in others is based on. Further, given the informationprocessing constraints on brain evolution, it is likely that these recognitional abilities will be localised in specific neural structures. This suggests that TT can very well explain the existence of mirroring phenomena and the fact that
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impaired subjects have specific paired deficits. In the former case, it is due to the same recognitional, theorybased capacity being employed in both first and thirdperson mindreading. In the latter case, it is due to the fact that the subjects lack these recognitional abilities, and thus show deficits in both self and otherascriptions of specific emotions. This explanation is superior to that of ST, as it accounts for how we experience emotions, and not just that we do so. Further, the plausibility of the modularity of these abilities means that this form of TT should at least be weakly predicting the neural findings to involve localised phenomena of the kind that have been observed.
ReferencesCSIBRA, G. “Action mirroring and action interpretation: An alternative account”, in P. HAGGARD, Y.ROSETTI, and M. KAWATO (eds.), Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition. Attentionand Performance XXII, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 435459.DAMASIO, A. The Feeling of What Happens, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999.GOLDMAN, A. I. Simulating Minds, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.“Mirroring, mindreading, and simulation”, in PINEDA, J. (ed.) Mirror Neuron System: The Roleof Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition, Humana Press, 2008a.“Two routes to empathy: Insights from cognitive neuroscience”, in A. COPLAN and P. GOLDIE(eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2008aGOLDMAN, A. I. and SRIPADA, C. S. “Simulationist models of facebased emotion recognition”,Cognition, 94 (2005), pp. 194213.JACOB, P. “What do mirror neurons contribute to human social cognition?”, Mind and Language, 23(2008), pp. 190223.
Marco Santambrogio (Università di Parma)What is a contradiction? (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
I assertively utter “The sky is blue”. The proposition I express is that the sky is blue. By means of my utterance, I mean to say that that proposition is true in the world as it is in the context of my utterance. As a matter of fact, my assertion is true, in so far as the proposition is true in the actual world. But it is possible for the sky to be green. Imagine that it is so and, in the world as it would then be, someone asserts the proposition that the sky is not blue. Clearly, this person would be right, as the proposition would in fact be true in her world. Would she being disagreeing with me, who asserted, in different circumstances, that the sky is blue? Not at all. She and I would be talking past each other. She would be asserting something about the world she inhabits, how the sky is in her world, whereas I was saying how the sky is in the actual world. Since our utterances are not about the same thing (world, situation), we are not disagreeing. Since we are not disagreeing, we cannot be contradicting each other.It is entirely natural to take a contradiction to amount to a pair of propositions, one of which is the negation of the other. The reason why this is so, is that we take the content of an utterance to consist in the proposition expressed by it. But, if we assume this, then two speakers, inhabiting two distinct worlds, and asserting – one, the proposition that the sky is blue, the other the proposition that the sky is not blue – ought to be contradicting each other, and they are not.
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Just as a person asserting, in different circumstances, that the sky is not blue would not be contradicting my previous utterance that the sky is blue (we would be just talking past each other), so, in case she asserted that the sky is blue, she would not be intuitively saying the same thing as I said. She would still not be asserting the same thing as I asserted, even in case she asserted that the sky is blue in the actual world, if only because the proposition I asserted was contingent, whereas the one she would be asserting is necessary.So, how are we to understand a contradiction? Is it at all possible for two speakers to contradict each other on contingent matters, while being located at distinct worlds? It might be thought that there is no need to consider such exotic situations as those in which two speakers contradict each other while being located in two distinct worlds, since every argument between two disputants is bound to take place in the same world – mainly the actual one, in the interesting cases. Moreover, it might be thought that, every utterance being about the world as it is in the context in which it is uttered, it is useless to compare assertions taking place in different worlds, which would not concern (or be about) the same world. Relative to the same world, it is perfectly in order to take a contradiction to consist in a pair formed by a proposition and its negation. One, and only one of them must be true, relative to any given world. It is not so, however. First, it does not hold true that we never have a chance to consider and compare utterances originating in two distinct worlds, each concerning the world in which it occurs. Second, it does not seem to be true that an utterance can only concern the world as it is in the context in which it occurs. Consider this utterance:
1. The sky is blue. But I could assert that the sky is not blue without contradicting what I just asserted.
Surely, there is a sense in which it is true. However, if a contradiction is taken to amount to a pair formed by a proposition and its negation, then it is impossible to account for its intuitive truth, since the proposition expressed by my utterance “The sky is blue” (which lacks indexical or pronominal devices or ambiguities) is the same I would be rejecting in the circumstances imagined. I claim that, in order to account for the intuitive truth of (1), it is necessary to revise the notion of content. The content of an utterance – what is said by it – does not amount to just the proposition expressed and must somehow involve the object, world or situation the utterance is about. The notion of full content is introduced (closely related with de re belief). What a contradiction amounts to is to be explained in terms of this notion.John MacFarlane has recently raised problems similar to mine concerning the notion of disagreement, in relation with his views about relativism. Another relativist, Francois Recanati, has considered the notion of what he calls Austinian proposition, which bears some similarity to my notion of full content. I will apply the new notion of full content to the problem of semantically accounting for referential uses of definite descriptions.
Filippo Santoni De Sio (Università di Torino, Italia)Si può essere incapaci di volere? La responsabilità in caso di “desideri irresistibili” (Filosofia pratica)
Anthony Kenny scrisse una volta, provocatoriamente: “l’unico rimedio alla prassi giudiziaria di consentire agli avvocati della difesa di chiamare periti psichiatrici a testimoniare riguardo la
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presenza di impulsi irresistibili da parte dell’imputato sarebbe probabilmente consentire all’accusa di chiamare un filosofo a testimoniare che non esistendo una cosa come un impulso irresistibile, l’imputato non può avere agito sotto la spinta di una cosa del genere, più di quanto possa avere ucciso uno scapolo sposato o rubato un cerchio quadrato” (Kenny, 1983). A sostegno dell’impossibilità concettuale di impulsi o desideri irresistibili e della loro inutilizzabilità come “scusante”, Kenny offriva due tesi generali: 1) l’azione umana è un fenomeno complesso, interpretabile come il prodotto di una facoltà dotata di speciali capacità (linguistiche, intenzionali) alla quale non ha senso applicare concetti “parameccanici” come quello di un “limite di resistenza” a “impulsi” dotati di una certa “forza”; 2) la legittimità dell’attribuzione di responsabilità dipende dal possesso di una capacità generale (il ragionamento pratico) comprendente un fitto intreccio di aspetti intellettivi e volitivi: non esistono prestazioni specificamente volitive (non c’è una performance che sta alla volontà come il fare somme aritmetiche sta all’intelletto), né difetti della capacità di volere valutabili indipendentemente da difetti generali nella capacità di razionalità pratica (Kenny, 1989).Le tesi di Kenny sull’impossibilità concettuale di desideri letteralmente irresistibili e “difetti della volontà” sono state messe in discussione dalle recenti discussioni sulla responsabilità per azioni compiute sotto la spinta di desideri legati a dipendenze da sostanze tossiche. La posizione di Kenny va alla luce di ciò completata in tre modi. Si deve:a) spiegare perché non funziona il paragone fra l’azione compiuta per sfuggire al disagio
dell’astinenza da una sostanza a cui si è assuefatti e quella compiuta sotto la spinta di una grave minaccia posta da terzi, per la quale l’etica e il diritto talvolta offrono una scusante; questo suggerimento tenta di sfuggire al problema concettuale di Kenny, affidandosi all’idea di limitare la responsabilità sulla base di ragioni normative indipendenti, applicabili anche ad azioni inequivocabilmente volontarie e “razionali” (Wertheimer, 1987) ma non convince sul piano normativo (la minaccia dei sintomi dell’astinenza non è paragonabile alle minacce di gravi danni fisici necessarie per una scusante di minacce) e concettuale: le “minacce dall’interno” paiono più una metafora fuorviante che un nome di qualcosa (Morse, 1994);
b) chiarire perché la recente riabilitazione del ruolo delle “volizioni” nella teoria dell’azione (Moore, 1993) e la letteratura psicologica sulle dipendenze (Loewenstein, 1999, Elster, 1999) non siano decisive, come vorrebbe Wallace (Wallace, 2001): le volizioni alla Moore, ammesso che esistano, sono riconducibili a una funzione meramente esecutiva; ma le azioni da forti desideri paiono comunque riconducibili a difetti di razionalità generale (sul modello della “debolezza della volontà”) piuttosto che a problemi al livello dell’esecuzione di azioni elementari, come mostrato dalla medesima letteratura psicologica.
c) valutare l’idea di far rientrare i “desideri irresistibili” sotto l’attenuante della tempesta emotiva, sulla scia delle recenti indicazioni date da J. Horder a proposito della provocazione e di altre attenuanti legate a “disturbi della personalità” (Horder, 2004). Le azioni del “tossico” non paiono soddisfare il requisito di “irrazionalità” posto da Horder per la concessione di un’attenuante di provocazione (essere prive di giustificazione anche nella prospettiva dell’agente); resta la possibilità dell’applicazione di una scusante parziale “mista” (seminfermità mentale + provocazione), che pare però disponibile in pochissimi casi reali di dipendenza.
Le tesi di Kenny sulla indisponibilità di una scusante (o attenuante) per aver assecondato “desideri irresistibili” appaiono applicabili anche in caso di dipendenze da sostanze tossiche, nonostante gli argomenti contrari recentemente proposti.
BibliografiaJ. Elster, Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behavior, Cambridge (Ma.), 1999.G. Loewenstein, A Visceral Account of Addiction, in Getting Hooked: Rationality and Addiction,
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a cura di J. Elster – O.J. Skog, Cambridge, 1999.J. Horder, Excusing Crime, Oxford, 2004.A. Kenny, The Expert in Court, in 99 Law Quarterly Review, 1983.––– The Metaphysics of Mind, Oxford, 1989.M.S. Moore, Act and Crime: The Philosophy of Action and Its Implication for the Criminal Law, Oxford, 1993.S.J. Morse, Culpability and Control, in 142 U. Pa L. Rev., 1994.R.J. Wallace, Addiction as a Defect of the Will, in 18 Law and Philosophy, 1999.
Daniele Santoro (LUISS, Roma, Italia)The Modal Bond of Analytic Pragmatism (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
In his John Locke Lectures, Robert Brandom defends a view of pragmatism as an extension of the classical project of semantic analysis, sufficiently powerful to incorporate not only relations among meanings, but also and more fundamentally relations among meaning and use.One of the core aspects of the project is to show that the empiricist strategy of ruling out necessity from the conceptual apparatus of empirical vocabulary is doomed to failure. The paper explores the fundamental strategy that underlies the answer to the empiricist reductionism: the semantic explanation of empirical vocabulary in terms of pragmatic relations involving modal and normative vocabularies.Section (1) presents the general framework of analytic pragmatism. The fundamental strategy is to explain semantic relations among vocabularies in terms of the correlative practices or abilities of employing them, and then spelling out which conceptual capacities such practices or abilities presuppose. A viable pragmatic explanation of empirical vocabulary will show that «in using ordinary empirical vocabulary, one already knows how to do everything one needs to know how to do in order to introduce and deploy modal and normative vocabularies» (Brandom, 2008, p.102). This is the socalled KantSellars thesis: it claims that using empirical vocabulary is sufficient to specify those aspects of the practices that are necessary to introduce and deploy modal and normative vocabularies.Section (2) focuses on two semantic phenomena that are supposed to vindicate the validity of the KantSellars. Transposition: although modal and normative vocabularies are claimed to be complementary, a stronger Sellarsian position is also defended, the idea that «the language of modality is a transposed language of norms». Bootstrapping: within a pragmatic framework, vocabularies exhibit a peculiar expressive bootstrapping phenomenon, i.e. when an expressively weaker vocabulary is a sufficient pragmatic metavocabulary for an expressively stronger one.Some elucidations of the ‘transposition thesis’ show that a vocabulary is transposable into another when among other things the former can be fully expressed into, but not reduced to the latter. If we accept the transposition thesis, we should conclude for some sort of priority of the normative over the modal vocabulary, and thus reject the bootstrapping. However, the pragmatic bootstrapping is an important semantic phenomenon, in that it opens up the space for a nonreductive naturalistic explanation of meanings. Rather than the bootstrapping, we should reject the transposition thesis.Section (3) defends a view of analytic pragmatism based on modal constraints that does not make appeal to the transposition thesis. A fundamental feature of modal vocabulary is to make explicit the ability of acknowledging incompatible properties of the objects of experience. Nonetheless, according to the transposition thesis, such ability presupposes a more fundamental capacity of acknowledging what inferences ought to be undertaken. This is cannot be the case, since the ability of modal discrimination cannot not always be grasped in inferential terms. For
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instance, the distinction between incompatible properties («being red» and «being green») and inconceivable arrangements of properties («being round» and «being circle») vanishes when transposed in the normative vocabulary, as both kinds of properties are treated as instances of impermissible inferences. Abilities of modal discrimination do not always, nor necessarily, reflect abilities of normative acknowledgment. Two main conclusions follow from this argument: first, modal constraints underlie the conceivability and the very inferential practices in which normative vocabulary is involved, rather than the other way round. Second, since modal vocabulary is expressively weaker than the normative one, the expressive bootstrapping is satisfied.Delimiting the expressive power of analytic pragmatism does not imply narrowing its explanatory range: from the point of view of semantic analysis, an incompatibility semantics based on modal pragmatics is ampliative compared with one based on normative pragmatics. Moreover, although in a less demanding fashion, modal pragmatism can explain important features of the space of reasons, such as the possibility of conceptual change.
ReferencesArmstrong, D. (1986): «The Nature of Possibility», Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 41, pp. 575594.Brandom, R. (1994): Making It Explicit. Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitments, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press.Brandom, R. (2008): Between Saying and Doing. Towards an Analytic Pragmatism, Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press.Cappelen, H., Lepore, E. (2005): «Radical and Moderate Pragmatics: Does Meaning DetermineTruth Conditions?», in Szabò, Z.G. (ed), Semantics versus Pragmatics, Oxford Uk: Clarendon Press,2005, pp. 4571.Sellars, W. (1963): «Inference and Meaning», in Sellars, W., In the Space of Reasons. Selected Essays ofWilfrid Sellars, K. Scharp, and R. Brandom (eds), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,2008, pp. 327.Stalnaker, R. (1976): «Possible Worlds», Noûs, 10, pp. 6575.
Theordore Scaltsas (University of Edinbugh, UK)Invited Speaker History of IdeasI Can’t Believe What I Know
In the Republic, Bk V, Plato claims that gnosis cannot be analysed in terms of doxa, because doxa is not a component of gnosis. This is incompatible with the definitions of knowledge as true belief with an account, variations of which had remained unchallenged from Plato’s first formulations of it in other dialogues, until the postGettier era. I argue that Plato’s claim that gnosis cannot be analysed in terms of doxa should not be seen in the light of Tim Williamson’s view of knowledge as a primitive unanalysable cognitive state. I propose a reading of this controversial passage of the Republic according to which Plato is not here making a distinction between knowledge and belief. Rather, by ‘gnosis’ he means understanding and comprehension of what there is, not knowledge; by ‘doxa’ he means partialunderstanding and incomplete comprehension, not belief. The person with understanding is
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aware of the full ontology which explains what there is, and recognises the Forms as Forms. Furthermore, she recognises their relation to each other, and their relation to their instances. She does have cognitive access to the things in the visible world, too, and has gnosis of them, understanding and recognition of what they are, namely instances of the Forms. In that sense, she understands how each Form is one, and how each Form is many. By contrast, the person of partialunderstanding reaches out onto the objects in the visible world through prisms that limit her vision; and this limitation confuses her. She describes the target of her investigation, but because she cannot find it in what she sees, she mistakes other things for it. Compare seeing the things in a room in bright light to looking at the room in the dimmest flicker; are you recognising, identifying the same objects? In a sense yes, and in a sense no, since their silhouettes, their colours, their boundaries are fuzzy you see some of them but not all, and you fail to distinguish between proximate ones, while dividing others into many. Similarly, the person of partialunderstanding reaches some aspects of reality, but not others, while taking further ones to be different than they are. The result is a cognitive fusion of what is and is not the case. Understanding for Plato is holistic. The reason is that the semantics of our language is built on the recognition of the fundamental ontological distinctions (i.e., universals and particulars). If our cognition of what there is does not match the presuppositions of our language, confusion and misidentifications result; general terms are matched up with particulars, etc. Language malfunctions without cognition of the ontology of being. In consequence, understanding cannot be analysed in terms of partialunderstanding, since partialunderstanding is intrinsically failed understanding – intrinsically fallible. As such, it can be neither a component of understanding, or be entailed by understanding, which is free of confusion and error. So gnosis cannot be analysed in terms of doxa.
Miguel Ángel Sebastián (Universidad de Barcelona, Spain)Recursive Model of Consciousness. A Double Content Theory of Consciousness (Philosophy of Mind)
Imagine that you are in a Japanese restaurant. Tasting a delightful maguronigiri, you have a distinctive conscious experience of it. There is somethingitislike for you to taste a maguronigiri; it can be different from 'whatitislike' for me to taste it and, for sure, 'whatitislike' for me to taste a maguronigiri is different from 'whatitislike' for me to taste spaghetti alla carbonara. We say that a certain mental state M of mine is phenomenally conscious if and only if there is somethingitislike forme to be in M. To be in a certain conscious mental state feels in a certain way. This paper is about the properties of the experience that you are undergoing, about whatitislike to undergo an experience.The paper is organized in four sections:In section 1, I introduce the notion of phenomenal consciousness (pconsciousness). An interesting attempt to explain consciousness in a compatible way with materialism is representationalism. First order representational (FOR) theories of consciousness try to characterize the phenomenal properties of experience in terms of its representational contents. Within the representationalist framework, I will defend that giving an appropriate account of pconsciousness is not just identifying what pconsciousness is, but also explaining why it feels the way it does. This is made explicit by distinguishing two different levels in which “whatitislike” has been used: A lower level that refers to the qualitative properties that distinctively appear in a sensory experience and a higher level referring to how it feels for the subject to experience these properties. This distinction allows me to distinguish two aspects of p
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consciousness: the qualitative aspect (low level whatitislikeness) and the subjective aspect (formeness).In section 2, I present the evidences in favor of nonconscious experiences. They pose a problem for first order representational theories, as I defend they can characterize the qualitative aspect but not the subjective one and have motivated higher order representational (HOR) theories of consciousness, which try to distinguish conscious and nonconscious experience in terms of some kind of higher order representation. Unfortunately, HOR theories seem not to provide a satisfactory explanation of why conscious mental states feel the way they do. One exception is Carruthers' dispositional theory, which accounts for pconsciousness in terms of a double representational content (isseems). I present this theory in section 3, and give two objections to it: 1. I argue that it is too demanding, for it requires a theory of mind: consciousness seems to be a prerequisite of a theory of mind and not a byproduct of it, as Carruthers defends. 2. It is quite implausible, for it leaves open the possibility of having an experience as of X lacking the content X.I finally present my own proposal: a representational theory that tries to explain consciousness as a double representational content that accounts for the two aspects of consciousness: the qualitative (whatitislikeness) and the subjective (formeness). The qualitative aspect is explained through the intentional content of perception, and the subjective aspect through the metarepresentation of the relation between this first order representation and the first order representation of the internal states. A double intentional content explains whatitislike forme to undergo certain experience.
References• Carruthers, P., 2000. Phenomenal Consciousness: a naturalistic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press• Carruthers, P., 2004. 'HOP over FOR, HOT theory'. In Gennaro, Higherorder theories of consciousness: an anthology. John Benjamins B.V.• Chalmers, D., 1996. The Conscious Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.• Damasio, A., 2000. The Feeling of What Happens. Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. Vintage.• Kriegel, U. 2006. 'Consciousness: Phenomenal Consciousness, Access Consciousness, and Scientific Practice.' In P. Thagard (ed.), handbook of the Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science (pp. 195217). Amsterdam: NorthHolland. • Levine, J., 2001. Purple Haze. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press• Lycan W., 2004. 'The superiority of HOP to HOT' In Gennaro, Higherorder theories of consciousness: an anthology. John Benjamins B.V.• Millikan, R., 1984. Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.• Tye, M., 1995. Ten Problems of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.• Tye, M., 1995. 'A representational theory of pains and their phenomenal character,' Philosophical perspectives, volume 9 pp. 223240 . J.Tomberline (ed.) Northridge, CA: Ridgeview. In Block et al. (ed.), The Nature of Consciousness (pp. 329340). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Andrea Sereni (Università San Raffaele, Italia)On the Very Idea of an Indispensability Argument (Epistemology and Philosophy of Science)
The debate between platonists and nominalists in the philosophy of mathematics seems often to
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be grounded on irreducibly competing intuitions. Nominalists are, according to platonists, irredeemably skeptic. Platonists are, according to nominalists, prey to an epistemically unjustifiable mythology. The socalled indispensability argument, also known as the Quine/Putnam indispensability argument, rests apparently on premises that are congenial to both parties. But what exactly are these premises?One of the most discussed version of the argument has been proposed by Mark Colyvan (2001), and runs as follows:
1.i) We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only those entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories;1.ii) Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories;[1] 1.iii) We ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities
The argument is commonly taken to rely on a number of doctrines, all of which are part of a Quinean backdrop, which are supposed to appear more or less explicitly in the premises of the argument itself: most notably, naturalism and confirmational holism. Much of the recent discussion about the argument has indeed focused on criticisms to the notions of naturalism (e.g. in Maddy (1992)) and confirmational holism (e.g. in Sober (1993)).My aim is to oppose the idea that the thesis of naturalism and confirmational holism are necessary premises for any version of the indispensability argument. I will offer a minimal formulation of the argument whose validity, let alone the truth of its conclusion, does not seem to hinge on anything like those doctrines:
2.i) Our best scientific theories are true;2.ii) Among these theories, some are such that recourse to mathematical language is indispensable to their formulation;2.iii) These theories are thus true only if the mathematical theories to which that language belongs are themselves true;2.iv) A mathematical theory is true only if there exist abstract objects that can be identified with the objects the theory purports to be about;[2] 2.v) The abstract objects to which the mathematical theories mentioned in premise (2.iii) are about exist.According to Colyvan (among others), naturalism would mandate that we acknowledge as existing only those entities that empirical sciences require to be there; confirmational holism, on the other hand, would mandate that we acknowledge as existing all the entities that are required by empirical sciences (including abstract objects, apparently banned by a common understanding of naturalism). If the minimal argument is accepted, however, neither naturalism nor confirmational holism need to feature as (more or less explicit) premises. The argument is meant to apply to the vocabulary employed in a scientific theory regardless of any distinction between expressions for concrete entities and expressions for abstract entities. It follows that the argument establishes that all the entities quantified over in the relevant scientific theories must be acknowledged as existing. Moreover, the argument applies only to those expressions that purportedly refer to the entities quantified over in the statements of the theory. The ‘all and only’ clause in Colyvan’s formulation seems thus recovered without resorting to naturalism and holism. I will also point to some other elements of comparison, both with Colyvan’s formulation, and with Quine’s general views on ontology I order to see how the minimal argument fares with respect to these latter.
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The argument can be attacked on many flanks, and it is not my purpose to defend it. The adoption of premises (2.ii)(2.iv), for example, rests on an elucidation of the notions of indispensability and ontological commitment, and many recent criticism has focused on these latter (cf. Field (1980), Yablo (1998), Azzouni (2004)).But naturalism and confirmational holism are scientific views that are, at most, reinforced by the correctness of the indispensability argument, or that might, alternatively, explain the reasons, if independently adopted, for suggesting the argument. But they are not, strictly speaking, (part of) the premises of the argument. There are many reasons for doubting that the indispensability argument is correct, but neither rejection of naturalism nor rejection of confirmational holism should feature among them.
ReferencesColyvan, M., (2001), The Indispensability of Mathematics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Field, H., (1980), Science Without Numbers, Blackwell, Oxford.Hofweber, T., (2005), “A puzzle about ontology”, Noûs, 39:256–283.Maddy, P., (1992), “Indispensability and practice”, Journal of Philosophy 89, 275289.Sober, E., (1993), “Mathematics and indispensability”, The Philosophical Review, 102, 3557.Yablo, S., (1998), “Does Ontology Rest On a Mistake?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 72:229–261.
Siufan Lee (King’s College, London, UK)A counterfactual reference theory of fictional discourse (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
Fictional discourse presents problems for semantic interpretation. Fictional names have no denotation; hence, they cannot be explained by Millian theory of names, which holds that the semantic function of names are exhausted by reference. Intuition divides over whether sentences containing fictional names are true, false, or truthvalueless. Some claim that sentences containing fictional names are only possibly true when interpreted with an implicit operator ‘according to the story’; however, it is controversial what function that operator exactly performs.This paper examines three main approaches to interpret fiction, arguing that most of them are not satisfactory. I propose instead a new counterfactual theory of reference regarding fictional names and defend it as an alternative to existing theories.The first approach extends ontology to provide a referent for fictional names. Meinongians (cf. Parsons 1980) posit nonexistent objects. Kripke (1973) defies shadowy existence yet he cannot avoid extending ontology to include fictional characters as referents of fictional names either. Kripke’s approach is not desirable because fictional characters, as abstract entities existing in the real world in virtue of people’s actual activities, do not posses the properties they are supposed to have in the story. The difficulty is deepened when Kripke argues that fictional names are rigid designators like other names; hence, if there is no entity in the actual world that is Sherlock Holmes, there is no entity in any possible world that is Sherlock Holmes (1980: 158). Unless we posit the existence of impossible worlds, which Kripke would certainly decline as he opposes to the Meinongian proposal, there is no world whatsoever in which a sentence containing a fictional name would be true and hence it is impossible for Kripke to explain what it is for a sentence to be true according to the story.The second approach is to deny fictional names are names. Russell (1905, 1918) claims ordinary names including empty names are not names but truncated definite descriptions, subject to quantificational analysis. Kripke (1980) argues against the thesis that names are synonymous
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with definite descriptions. Sainsbury (2002) defends Russell by claiming that a contextualised description associated with a name in individual’s thought is a rigid designator. Although speakers may associate different descriptions to the same object, communication is possible as long as the object remains the same. However, this defence would not work for empty names when no object is present. McDowell (1977) and Evans (1982) deny fictional names as names by denying the possibility of sense without reference. I provide textual and theoretical evidence to refute Evans’s claim. I argue that the notion of de re senses is necessary only if one wants to deny the metaphysical status of sense. I claim instead that we need sense to explain empty names anyway.The remaining approach is to make meaning of terms conditional to meaning of sentences they compose. Free logic is assumed to accommodate nondenoting terms. There are two ways to explicate meaning within this approach. Sainsbury (2005) proposes that meaning is conditional to truth as in Davidson’s theory (1967), supplemented by McDowell’s austerity (1977) and negative free logic (Burge 1974). Interpretation of fictional names is governed by axioms such as ‘For all x, ‘Santa Claus’ refers to x iff x = Santa Claus’. I argue that this theory faces an empirical adequacy problem when it comes to interpreting empty names. Besides, the theory requires some notion of pretended truth to explain truth ‘according to the story’. This only complicates our existing conception of truth and shifts the problem of reference to truth without solving it. For we have to explain what it is to be a pretended truth rather than a literal truth and what makes a sentence true in pretence. I propose instead meaning of empty names is conditional not on truth but on counterfactual situation in which the term denotes.My theory assumes that any satisfactory theory of names requires three elements: a meaning theory to explain the relation between language, mind and reality, a context theory to capture the usage of a linguistic expression and a free logic to govern truthvalue assignment when nondenoting terms are involved. I endorse a Fregean theory of sense to fix the meanings of expressions, a Kripkean causal theory to determine contexts under Stalnaker’s (1978) twodimensional framework, and a combination of strict Fregean free logic (Lehmann 1994) and supervaluation (Bencivenga 1991) to determine truevalue assignments. Fictional names, used in the actual context of utterance, do not denote. However, when used in the counterfactual situation in which the names denote, fictional names would refer to some entities existing in a possible world. All counterfactual referents of relevant names in a fiction are identified in like manner; together they constitute a specific world or context in which sentences are evaluated. All evaluation would be standard. This accounts for what being true ‘according to the story’. No special kind of truth is needed. My theory has advantages in the following respects. Counterfactual referents are determined by sense under some shift of context. Since counterfactual referents are entities in some possible world, no extension of ontology is needed. A fiction, according to this view, does not involve pretence of truth, but pretence of language – we speak as if we refer to something that our actual use of the terms does not. The contextual shifts involved are shifts in context of utterance, not context of evaluation. No epistemic issues are raised because counterfactual referents are not actual referents of fictional names. We have nothing lost but are now capable of constructing semantics on austere metaphysics comprising only of standard ontology of actual and possible worlds. I claim this theory a sufficient if not the only viable option to date for explaining fiction.
Marzia Soavi (Università di Padova, Italia)Compositional Monism (Metaphysics and Ontology)
The main target of my paper is a thesis defended by van Inwagen in his famous Material Beings.
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I call this thesis Minimal Compositional Monism. The expression “Compositional Monism” is introduced in the literature by Cris McDaniel in the paper Minimal Realism with Overlap, but since then the expression has been used by different authors in different ways. In the first part of the talk I take into account three different definition of Compositional monism and I compare them with Uniqueness of Composition as defined by Lewis in Parts of Classes, then I introduce Minimal Compositional Monism (MCM):
Minimal Compositional Monism: there is only one mode of composition.
(MCM) plays a central role in van Inwagen’s critical analysis if the possible answers to the Special Composition Question. According to the author if we accept the possibility of different relations of composition for objects of different type then we inevitably violate the requisite of transitivity of parthood relation. The main problem of his argument is that two different conceptual level are confused, on the one hand we have the general level of the formal features of composition, at this level Monims means that there is but one single basis of axioms for mereology and composition. On the other hand in his inquiry for an answer to the Special Composition Question van Inwagen is not looking for a formal characterization of composition but he is trying to individuate the physical relation/s that can give rise to ontological composition. I take that a physical relation R is a relation of this kind if and only if the following holds:
if in a region of space S at t there are n objects and if at t’ they all enter into the physical relation R to each other, then at t’ we have n + 1 object (assuming that in the meanwhile nothing else happens).
The idea is simple: there are actions and operations that seem to result in the building or construction of some new object. Lets suppose that you teach a child to build a doll gluing and sewing together pieces of fabric, buttons and wool, at the end of the process the children, and you as well, would probably believe that she has a new object: it seems that sewing and gluing are action that cause pieces of fabrics, buttons and wool to enter into a relation of ontological composition. The issue addressed by van Inwagen through his analysis of different possible answer to the Special Composition Question, is that despite the appearances a lot of operation or of accidental event that seems to end up into the composition of something new in fact do not! Hence, the problem is to distinguish those physical relations that really cause objects to compose something new and those physical relation that do not. In this analysis he takes for demonstrated the truth of (MCM).I argue that Monism at the mereological level does not imply Monism at the physical level. To the contrary it seems quite intuitive to think that there might be different relations of composition for different objects, that is for different relata. These physical relations can be viewed as different instances of the general mereological composition. According to van Inwagen an answer to the Special Composition Question that endorses a form of pluralism allow for situations that violate the transitivity of parthood. I argue that this conclusion is not compelling and that pluralism at the level of physical relation of composition do not always involve violation of transitivity of parthood. Moreover the very solution that van Inwagne offers – that is that composite material objects are all and only living beings – seems to imply a certain form of pluralism and hence, if his argument holds, a violation of transitivity as well. The problem for his solution derives from the fact that Monims enters into the connection between composition and of parthood and give rise to the result that if R is the physical relation of composition, mentioned in an answer to the Special Composition Question, then any two parts of a composite object O
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must enter into R to each other, directly or via another part of O. This is quite difficult to demonstrate for living beings if we suppose, as van Iwagen does, that R holds between elementary particles. The main points of my conclusion are: (1) Compositional Monisim, either in the minimal form or in one of the others here presented is a thesis concerning the abstract and general characterization of composition – the mereological characterization of composition – while the inquiry for an answer to the Special Composition Question is located at a different level, that is at a physical level;(2) the adoption of Monism at the mereological level does not require the adoption of Monism at the physical level; (3) finally Monism at the physical level has some quite implausible consequence for parthood and composition in relation to the answer to the Special Composition Question that van Inwagen proposes.
Claudia Stancati (Università della Calabria, Italia)Il rinnovamento della metafisica tra Ottocento e Novecento: tra oggetti e segni (Storia delle idee)
In un contesto di pensiero segnato da Brentano a Frege dal problema del rapporto tra filosofia e psicologia si sviluppa la ricerca filosofica di Alexius Meinong. Attraverso l’integrazione nella sua teoria dell’oggetto dell’oggetto inesistente e dell’oggetto impossibile, egli ridefinisce i rapporti tra ontologia e gnoseologia.L’oggetto è per Meinong un correlato dell’esperienza senza vincoli di non contraddittorietà o compossibilità; indifferente all’essere, o addirittura fuori dell’essere, l’oggetto di pensiero è definito in una relazione conoscitiva in cui è l’uso linguistico che ci fa pensare ad affermazioni ontologicamente impegnative là dove in realtà siamo in presenza di relazioni solo gnoseologiche.L’ontologia tradizionale viene così allargata a tutte le espressioni psichiche intenzionali che hanno così all’interno di questa stessa dimensione il loro riferimento; non solo, anche ciò di cui si predica la non esistenza deve avere caratteristiche determinate “l’esser così di un oggetto non è toccato dal suo non essere” (Meinong 1904/2002: 242).La conclusione di Meinong che “ormai sappiamo quanto poco la totalità degli oggetti del conoscere sia costituita dalla totalità di ciò che esiste, o perfino di ciò che è; e quanto poco perciò, una scienza del reale, o anche dell’ente in generale, benché universale, possa essere considerata la scienza degli oggetti di conoscenza per antonomasia” (Meinong 1904/2002:246). In effetti il suo obiettivo è una definizione dell’oggettualità che includa ogni conoscere e ogni rappresentare.Un’altra revisione dell’ontologia è quella che con altro linguaggio opera Charles Sanders Peirce. Qui i segni ogni conoscenza è operata tramite segni e i segni sono definiti dalle loro modalità di rinvio all’oggetto che si riflettono necessariamente nel modo in cui il segno è interpretato per una analisi logica, più ampia possibile, dei prodotti del pensiero.Il segno è ciò che può dirsi tale: “sia che abbia la natura di una qualità significante, o di qualcosa che una volta pronunciato è passato per sempre, o di un modello stabile come il nostro solo articolo determinativo; sia che sostenga di stare al posto di una possibilità, di una cosa singola, di un evento, o di un tipo di cose o di verità; sia che sia in relazione con la cosa che rappresenta, verità o invenzione che sia imitandola, o come effetto del proprio oggetto, o per una convenzione o abitudine; sia che lanci il suo appello per simpatia, per enfasi, per familiarità; che sia una parola singola, una frase, o Declino e caduta di Gibbon; che sia interrogativo, imperativo o assertorio, che abbia la natura di uno scherzo, o sia sigillato e controllato, o che poggi su una
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forza artistica” (Peirce 1907/2000: 63).Lo scopo del mio lavoro è di mostrare come confrontando posizioni del tipo di quelle espresse da Meinong e Peirce, anche per le loro peculiari posizioni rispetto al dominio linguistico, possiamo trovare le basi non solo semantiche ma ontologiche (di una ontologia appunto ampiamente riveduta) per riflettere sui rapporti tra ontologia, mente e linguaggio.
Alexius Meinong, Teoria dell’oggetto, trad.it. a c. di Venanzio Raspa, Edizioni Parnaso, Trieste, 2002.Charles S. Peirce, Pragmatismo e oltre, trad. it a c. di G. Maddalena, Bompiani, Milano, 2000.
Alex Steinberg (University College, London, UK)Global and Strong Supervenience (Metaphysics and Ontology)
Many philosophers believe that various things supervene on other things. The mental is supposed to supervene on the physical, moral properties on ‘natural’ properties, and, perhaps, facts about wholes on facts about their parts. Supervenience is a useful tool in the philosopher’s toolbox for dealing with prima facie mysterious entities that are, nevertheless, taken to be indispensable in one area of philosophy or other. The thought is that we can domesticate these entities by hooking them up, via supervenience claims, with more respectable denizens of reality.Fproperties supervene on Gproperties just in case there cannot be a difference in Fproperties without a difference in Gproperties. This general supervenience slogan can be spelled out in different ways. The three major ways discussed in the literature yield weak, strong and global supervenience. The first two kinds of supervenience deal in property differences between individuals while the last deals in differences between whole possible worlds. My paper is concerned with a much debated topic: the logical relationship between strong and global supervenience.Soon after it had become generally known that the supervenience slogan can be spelled out in three apparently nonequivalent ways, Jaegwon Kim, in Kim (1984), attempted to give a proof to the effect that global and strong supervenience are equivalent notions. A few years later, Petrie(1987) gave what he took to be a counterexample to the claim that global entails strong supervenience (the Entailment Claim, for short). Because of Petrie’s counterexample Kim ( 1987) retracted and claimed in addition that for similar reasons global supervenience is far too weak to deserve its name: according to Kim at the time, global supervenience is not a kind of supervenience at all. However, a few years later still, Paull and Sider( 1992) argued that Petrie’s purported counterexample fails. Although they went on to give their own counterexample, they maintained that counterexamples of that sort do not render global supervenience as weak as Kim made it out to be. The received view nowadays is that the Entailment Claim fails — because of Paull/Siderlike counterexamples — but that it only fails because the supervening properties may have a certain peculiar feature not matched by the subvening properties. Kim(1993) conjectures, and Bennett(2004) attempts to prove, that the Entailment Claim only fails if some of the supervenient properties are extrinsic (and the subvenient properties are not). Thus, according to them, a restricted Entailment Claim holds: if the supervenient properties are intrinsic, global supervenience entails strong supervenience.I will argue that the Entailment Claim is false, whether or not it is restricted to intrinsic properties. Consequently, global supervenience has a chance of being an interesting and distinctive kind of supervenience — it is not just strong supervenience in disguise. The argument is simple: supervenience of modal properties (such as the property of being possibly a philosopher or necessarily human) affords a counterexample to the Entailment Claim that does
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not rely on extrinsic properties. Given that S5 is the correct modal logic, modal properties globally supervene on any kind of properties, for instance on weight properties. But modal properties do not strongly supervene on all kinds of properties. In particular, they do not supervene on weight properties. Thus, global does not entail strong supervenience. With the counterexample in hand, the paper traces the debate and shows where the arguments for the Entailment Claim go wrong.
ReferencesBennett, K. 2004: ‘Global Supervenience and Dependence’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68(3), pp. 501–529.Kim, J. 1984: ‘Concepts of Supervenience’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45, pp. 153–176.—— 1987: ‘“Strong” and “Global” Supervenience Revisited’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48(2), pp. 315–326.—— 1993: ‘Postscripts on Supervenience’. In Supervenience and Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 161–171.Paull, R. C. and T. Sider 1992: ‘In Defense of Global Supervenience’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52(4), pp. 833–854.Petrie, B. 1987: ‘Global Supervenience and Reduction’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48, pp. 119–130.
Richard Swinburne (University of Oxford)Invited Speaker: Philosophy of ReligionGod and Morality
Among the necessary truths of morality are the truths that people have an obligation to reverence the great, the good, and the wise, and to thank and please benefactors. If there is a God, he is the source of all the good things humans have. Hence humans are obliged to obey the commands of God. His commands turn otherwise supererogatory actions into obligatory ones. He may issue commands either in order to ensure coordination of good actions, or to get us to do important good actions which will help us to form our characters. But we need a well authenticated revelation if we are know what God’s commands are, and also if we are to know some necessary truths of morality other than that of the obligation to please benefactors, which we are not able to find out for ourselves.
Jacopo Tagliabue (Università San Raffaele, Milano, Italia)Il Lato oscuro della Vaghezza: convenzionalismo o massimalismo? (Metafisica e Ontologia)
Pochissimi tra i più recenti argomenti in metafisica hanno la fama ed il fascino dell’Argument From Vagueness (AFV, d’ora in poi), presentato in Sider (2001) raffinando una precedente intuizione di Lewis (1986). Viene spesso notato in letteratura come l’argomento abbia il grande merito di stabilire una connessione tra due dei principali punti sull’agenda dell’ontologia contemporanea, mereologia e vaghezza. Quello che invece non viene quasi mai notato – ed è ciò su cui io invece concentrerò la mia attenzione – sono le insolite caratteristiche modali del mondo dipinto dall’AFV. In particolare, scopo del mio lavoro sarà analizzare le conseguenze modali dell’argomento originale di Sider e di una nuova versione di esso, evidenziandone le sorprendenti conclusioni per gettare nuova luce sul dibattito tra amici e nemici
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dell’essenzialismo.Come è noto, l’AFV inizia chiedendosi a quali condizioni gli oggetti inizino/cessino di esistere. Scartata l’opzione nichilista, l’AFV dimostra che qualsiasi risposta moderata finisce per costringere il suo sostenitore alla vaghezza de re. Assumendo che questa ultima è incoerente, Sider può dunque optare per l’Universalismo e concludere infine che il quadridimensionalismo è l’unica teoria possibile della persistenza. L’AFV, presentato utilizzando un framework squisitamente mereologico, è facilmente riassumibile in dettaglio (vedi Varzi (2005)): data una classe non vuota di istanti di tempo, I, e una funzione f che assegna un insieme non vuoto di oggetti, f(t), ad ogni t in I,
DCQ) a quali condizioni esiste un oggetto x che esiste esattamente negli istanti in I e che ad ogni istante t in I è composto dagli oggetti in f(t)?
AFV 1) Ci sono tre risposte possibili a DCQ: DCA1 (Nichilismo), DCA2 (Moderatismo), DCA3
(Universalismo)AFV 2) DCA1 non è sostenibileAFV 3) DCA2 non è sostenibile, perchèAFV 3.1) ogni risposta moderata a DCQ è destinata ad essere vaga, dato cheAFV 3.1.1) ogni risposta moderata è soggetta al paradosso del sorite, eAFV 3.1.2) essere soggetti a tale paradosso è segno di vaghezzaAFV 3.2) tale vaghezza è ontologica, perchèAFV 3.2.1) la domanda sulla composizione mereologica può essere interamente espressa in un linguaggio composto da solo vocabolario logico, eAFV 3.2.2) nessuna parte del vocabolario logico è semanticamente vagaAFV 3.3) la vaghezza ontologica è insostenibile.AFV 4) Ergo, DCA3 è l’unica risposta accettabile a DCQAFV 5) Questa opzione è compatibile con il quadridimensionalismoAFV 6) Questa opzione non è compatibile con il tridimensionalismoAFV 7) Ergo, Il quadridimensionalismo è una migliore teoria della persistenza rispetto al tridimensionalismo Dopo una breve (pessimistica) considerazione sul successo dell’AFV nel passare dalla mereologia alla teoria della persistenza, mi concentro sulla parte iniziale (AFV 1)(AFV 4). In particolare, se il ragionamento di Sider stabilisce il successo di un principio di composizione diacronica non ristretta, lo stesso argomento, mutatis mutandae, può venire usato per stabilire un principio di composizione “modale” non ristretta. A quali cambiamenti un dato oggetto può sopravvivere e a quali cambiamenti no? In altre parole, data una classe non vuota di mondi, W, una funzione f che assegna un insieme non vuoto di oggetti, f(w), ad ogni w in W, e un insieme non vuoto di oggetti, f(@), al mondo @,
DCQR) in quali condizioni l’oggetto x, composto in @ dagli oggetti in f(@), esiste esattamente in ogni w in W ed è composto dagli oggetti in f(w)?
Inspirandomi ai contromodelli proposti in letteratura per l’AFV, discuto dunque alcuni possibili contromodelli al nuovo argomento modale, evidenziandone i problemi. Infine, cerco di approfondire la plausibilità ontologica e semantica dell’immagine del mondo che ci restituiscono i due AFV. Data la stretta connessione tra proprietà essenziali e le condizioni di persistenza di un oggetto, argomento che accettare l’AFV originale implica l’accettazione del Massimalismo (vedi Eklund (2007)): specificate condizioni di identità e persistenza a piacere e,
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se il mondo è, di fatto, compatibile con tali condizioni, avrete individuato un tipo di oggetto in piena regola. Accettare anche l’AFV “modale” implica un ulteriore passo in avanti, ovvero l’accettazione del seguente principio antiessenzialista:
AE) un dato oggetto potrebbe essere qualsiasi altro oggetto.
Concludo mostrando come esistano due interpretazioni ontologiche entrambe convincenti ma distinte di (AE), una – latu sensu lewisiana – fondamentalmente realista e una fondamentalmente convenzionalista. Criticando il modello standard del convenzionalismo (i.e. la stuff ontology à la Sidelle), provo a delineare una proposta convenzionalista che mi pare particolarmente promettente.
Bibligrafia essenzialeEklund M., 2007, ‘The Picture of Reality as an Amorphous Lump’, in John Hawthorne, Theodore Sider, Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, Blackwell.Lewis D., 1986, On the plurality of worlds, Oxford, Blackwell.Lowe E. J., 2005, ‘Vagueness and Endurance’, Analysis 65: 104–112.Sidelle A., 1998, ‘A Sweater Unraveled: Following One Thread of Thought for Avoiding Coincident Entities’, Nous 32: 423448. Sider T., 2001, Four dimensionalism, Oxford University Press.Varzi A., 2005, ‘Change, Temporal Parts, and the Argument from Vagueness’, Dialectica 59:4, 485498.
Luca Tranchini (Università di Siena)The meaning of negation: a proposal (Logic and Philosophy of Language)
We start from the problem presented by Hand (1999) of fixing the meaning of negation by purely prooftheoretical means. As specified in the BHK informal semantics for intuitionistic logic, absurdity is something for which no proof can be available. On the other hand, the deductive characterization of through the ex falso rule does not completely grasp the⊥ impossibility of being in a situation in which the absurdity can be asserted. For, suppose all atomic sentences of language are true: in this case there is nothing wrong in asserting � as only true sentences can be inferred from it. But we want to define as what cannot be asserted in⊥ any situation. Since negation is defined as A ∞ �, the impossibility of being in possession of a proof of a sentence and of its negation is not warranted.After sketching Dummett’s (1991) solution to the problem, we present an alternative proposal. The starting point is Tennant’s (1999) rejection of treating � as having a propositional content: absurdity is taken as a marker of the fact that a dead end in the process of deduction is reached. Being devoid of propositional content, it becomes impossible to apply logical constants to �, in particular implication. Consequently, the negation of a sentence A cannot be taken as the abbreviation of A ∞ � any more. To explain the meaning of negation, Tennant introduces the new primitive notion of refutation. His proposal can be summarized by saying that the equivalence
A proof of ¬A is a refutation of A.
is no more a way of explaining refutations by means of negation, but the other way around. We then try to present the connection between Tennant’s idea of developing a framework in which it
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is possible to account for both proofs and refutations with Dummett and Prawitz’s suggestions, according to which the verificationist theory of meaning has its specular in a falsificationist (or pragmatist) theory of meaning. In particular, we develop an analogy between the verificationist notion of assumption “closure” and Tennant’s reading of � as a “dead end” marker, by introducing the idea of conclusion “closure”. As verificationism requires the notion of assumption closure (for which we introduce the sign T), so falsificationism requires the notion of conclusion closure (marked by �). Verificationism takes assertion as the primitive linguistic act: hence, the most relevant deductive processes are those allowing the assertion of a sentence, i.e. deductions in which all assumptions are closed. According to the way in which has been introduced, they can be schematically represented as follows:
T...
A
On the other hand, falsificationism takes denial as the primitive linguistic act: hence, the most relevant deductive processes are those allowing the denial of a sentence, i.e. deductions having � as conclusion (or, according to the alternative reading of � we propose, deductions in which the conclusion is closed). Schematically, they can be represented as follows:
A...
�
The deep symmetry emerging from this analysis suggests that Tennant’s treatment, in which proofs receive a privileged status with respect to refutations, should be revised.With the help of these conceptual tools, it is possible to reframe the notion of consistency as the impossibility of being in the position of simultaneously asserting and denying a given sentence (instead of the traditional impossibility of simultaneously asserting a sentence and its negation). Formally, this amounts to ban deductive patterns having both assumptions and conclusion closed, which we can schematize as:
T ...
�
The notion of consistency plays a crucial role in Dummett’s (1991) analysis of the problem of fixing the meaning of negation by purely prooftheoretical means. We show that our notion of consistency helps in clarifying why consistency is required to fix the meaning of negation. By doing this, we end up with an alternative interpretation of the I¬ and E¬ rules showing that negation, rather than a connective, is a device making a structural symmetry of deduction explicit.
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Dummett, M., 1991, The logical basis of metaphysics, Duckworth, London. Gabbay, D. M. and Wansing, H. (eds), 1999, What is negation?, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hand, M., 1999, ‘Antirealism and falsity’, in Gabbay and Wansing (1999). Tennant, N. 1999, ‘Negation, absurdity and contrariety’, in Gabbay and Wansing (1999).
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SIFA 2008 Abstracts
Vera Tripodi (Università di Roma, La Sapienza, Italia)Thinking Gender Categories as Tropes (Metaphysics and Ontology)
Is a metaphysically sound objectivist account of sexed identity possible? Do gender categories exist because we recognize real distinctions in the world or because we agree to use gender terms while according to them categorical force? In this paper, I defend a nonrealistic view of gender categories visàvis Sally Haslanger’s recent attempt to argue in favor of a “thin” metaphysical realism of gender categories. The paper is divided in two parts. In the first, I present Haslanger’s view, as characterized by the two following theses: (i) there is an objective basis for gender distinction; and (ii) this basis is not the product of discursive effect. In my analysis, particular attention is given to her critique of antiobjectivism in relation to sexual categories and to the socalled “ubiquity of mediation thesis”, i. e., that all of our access to reality is mediated by language and knowledge. In the second part, I show why Haslanger’s approach is inadequate, by showing that sexed entities are neither natural kinds (i.e. common essences which a group may share), nor “objective types” (i.e. unities without an underlying essence). Here is a more detailed layout of my argument.There is a genuinely metaphysical disagreement about whether our gender classifications capture a natural kind or a social kind. According to the genuine nominalist, the world by itself can’t tell us what gender is and humans create categories of sexual preference and behavior: a person is regarded as a “woman” or “man” because they are induced to believe that humans are either “woman” or “man”. Realists hold that this is not the case: humans are differentiated sexually as the woman/man dichotomy exists in reality. Haslanger is critical of both approaches: according to her, gender is an “objective type” (a group of things that have a certain unity) and a social kind of unity (not discursively constructed). On her approach, there is some nonrandom or nonarbitrary basis for the gender unity and this unity is not a matter of sharing properties. Haslanger’s idea is that gender as a concept is discursively constructed, but gender by itself is independent of us.Unfortunaly, Haslanger’s defense of objectivism is given without specifying what precisely is objective about sexual difference, and a conflict I will suggest emerges between her realistic view and her social constructionist accounts of gender. More specifically, Haslanger’s account falls short of two defects. It does not adequately capture the fact that each person’s gender identity is unique. Furthermore, it disconnects gender from the fact that criteria for distinguishing sexes differ across times and places. These defects, I argue, may be resolved by thinking of gender as referring to tropes, that is particularized property manifestation can only exist in one location at one time. Womanness, for example, is neither the special way a woman participates in a universal, nor a peculiar quality of a woman, but simply something that a particular person and that person alone has. Such a way of thinking about gender allows us to see a woman without identifying common attributes that all women have, or without implying that all women have a common natural or social – identity and to explain what it is for two tokens (individual instances) to be of the same type in terms of resemblance. As result, I conclude, one’s gender may not be entirely stable and there is no feature of identity or unity itself that all women share.
References:Haslanger, Sally, (1995), "Ontology and Social Construction." Philosophical Topics 23:2 (Fall 1995): 95125.Haslanger, Sally, (2000), "Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?" Noûs 34:1 (March 2000): 3155.Haslanger, Sally, (2006) "Feminism and Metaphysics: Negotiating the Natural." In the
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SIFA 2008 Abstracts
Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, ed., M. Fricker and J. Hornsby. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 107126.)
George Tudorie (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)Understanding minds: the case of schizophrenia (Philosophy of Mind)
In the early 1990s Chris Frith has proposed a unitary account of schizophrenic symptoms that connected these symptoms to a dysfunction in the capacity to think about minds and their contents. Autism had already been related to mindreading problems, and it remains the dominant pathological test case for modeling this capacity. Frith’s proposal triggered a good deal of research seeking to evaluate the role of a breakdown in the capacity to understand minds in schizophrenia. Recently, Frith and Corcoran have developed Frith’s initial model of schizophrenia linking access to one’s own mental states (mainly in terms of autobiographical memory) to the performance on attributions of such states to others. They suggested that their theory bears resemblance with simulation accounts of mindreading. One understanding of these remarks is that a certain model of schizophrenia might offer differential support for the simulation theory of mindreading. Ideally, this would be an instance of reverseengineering, a pattern of breakdown revealing aspects of the functional structure of the intact mechanism. In this paper I propose to evaluate this suggestion. I begin by sketching a map of the controversies about mindreading. The field is moving away from the bipolar theorytheory / simulation theory debate, important authors seeming now favorable to hybrid accounts. Nichols and Stich switched gears and defended such an account in their 2003 book Mindreading, and so did Goldman more recently in his Simulating Minds (2006). Since controversies survive, I continue by proposing a number of desiderata that a theory of mindreading should satisfy. Among these desiderata there is the requirement that an acceptable theory should explain not only typical patterns of performance in mindreading, but also patterns of breakdown. This requirement connects the construction of a theory of mindreading with the data and models available from the study of psychopathology. While we continue to explore the connections between autism spectrum disorders and mindreading, Frith’s suggestions and the subsequent research on schizophrenia show that we should also consider this latter condition as potentially relevant for a mature understanding of the capacity to read minds. At this point, I will consider the following questions: (i) Is schizophrenia a relevant illness? I argue that it is, conditional on the correctness of some experimental findings; (ii) Are Frith and Corcoran right to suggest a connection between first and third person mindreading dysfunctions? My tentative answer is, against Nichols and Stich, positive, on both conceptual and empirical grounds; though the asymmetries between the first and third person mindreading should survive on any model, they are, to put it briefly, ‘accidents’ of access, and not internal to what it is to understand minds; (iii) Does the research inspired by Frith support a simulation theory of mindreading? Here the problems are legion, and lacking a definite answer I will try to show what might clarify the issue. First, as many authors have emphasized, we need a clearer notion of simulation – the fact that some theoretical approaches use now the notion of model makes the need for clarification stringent; second, while the metarepresentational theory of schizophrenia is under revision, it should help to draw a line and see what its legacy is up to this point.
Michael Tye (University of Texas at Austin)Plenary Speaker
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SIFA 2008 Abstracts
Attention, Seeing and Changeblindness
My talk discusses the relationship between attention and visual consciousness. It is argued that on a proper understanding of this relationship, the phenomenon of change blindness is best supposed in at least some cases to involve a failure to see things in the field of view that are large enough to see. The framework developed is applied to the famous philosophical puzzle of the speckled hen; there is also a critical discussion of a recent argument by Fred Dretske which purports to show that victims of change blindness really do see the things in the field of view, changes in which they fail to notice.
Achille C. Varzi, (Columbia University)Invited Speaker: OntologyPreemption and Prevention
Difficulties concerning preemption and prevention are generally thought to be the biggest bugbears for the counterfactual theory of causation. Consider: You and I throw stones at a window, but since you throw harder, it is your stone that gets there first and shatters the glass. Intuition dictates that the actual cause of the shattering is your throw; mine is merely a preempted potential cause. Yet the counterfactual theory cannot—it is argued—account for this judgment, for (1) the glass would have shattered even if you had not thrown your stone (owing to my throw), hence (2) there is no causal dependence between the glass shattering and your throw. Or consider: You catch a ball headed for a vase, even though I leapt behind you ready to take the catch in case you missed. Common sense credits you with preventing the vase from breaking, since I do nothing after all. Yet again the counterfactual theory cannot—it is argued—account for this verdict, for (3) the vase would not have broken even if you missed the ball (thanks to my intervention), hence (4) there is no causal dependence between the vase not breaking and your catch. Both cases, I submit, are misguided, though for different reasons. The first concerns the metaphysics of events. I side with the view that (1′ ) the shattering of the glass that would have occurred without your throw should not be identified with the actual shattering (e.g., because it would have occurred later, or because its participants and mode of occurrence are different); it would have been a shattering of the glass, but not that shattering. Hence (2′ ) had the actual cause (your throw) not occurred, the actual effect (that shattering) would not have occurred either. The second reason concerns the ontology. I hold that (3′ ) the vase not breaking is not an event of nonoccurrence, but rather the nonoccurrence of an event. Hence (4′ ) to look for a link of causal dependence is to conflate causation and causal explanation. Both ways out must face complications, some of which are serious, but so be it. The counterfactual theory is true, not trivial.
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