The central idea of this essay is that philosophical thinking revolves around aporetic clusters, i.e., sets of individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent propositions. The task of philosophy is to dissolve such clusters, either by showing that the propositions in question, contrary to first impression, are compatible with each other, or by showing that it is permissible to abandon at least one of the propositions involved. This view of philosophical problems not only provides a very good description of well-understood philosophizing, but (...) is also better suited than others to explain some seemingly strange characteristics of philosophy, most notably its armchair character, the large variety of incommensurable doctrines by which it is characterized, and its concern with its own history. (shrink)

According to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe that p.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue of a justifying argument (...) that begins from a premise referring to the mental utterance that is emitted in the course of judging ‘p.’. (shrink)

Many philosophical theories of self-knowledge can be understood as attempts to explain why self-ascriptions enjoy a certain kind of authority that other-ascriptions lack (the Authority Thesis). The aim of this paper is not to expand the stock of existing explanations but to ask whether the Authority Thesis can be adequately specified. To this end, I identify three requirements that must be met by any satisfactory specification. I conclude that the search for an adequate specification of the Authority Thesis leads to (...) a dilemma: it either yields an interpretation under which the thesis is philosophically interesting but false, or it produces an interpretation under which the thesis is actually true but of minor philosophical interest. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for extending the idea of transparent introspection to wishes. First, I elucidate the notion of transparent introspection and highlight its advantages over rival accounts of self-knowledge. Then I pose several problems that seem to obstruct the extension of transparent introspection to wishes. In order to overcome these problems, I call into question the standard propositional attitude analysis of non-doxastic attitudes. My considerations lead to a non-orthodox account of attitudes in general (...) and wishes in particular in light of which the problems presented in Sect. 2 disappear. (shrink)

This article aims to show that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument does not succeed if we presuppose a constitutive connection between the phenomenal and the doxastic. In contrast to other luminists, however, my strategy is not to critically focus on the refined safety condition in terms of degrees of confidence that anti-luminists typically use in this context. Instead, I will argue that, given a certain conception of what Chalmers calls ‘direct phenomenal concepts,’ luminosity is guaranteed even if the refined safety condition in (...) terms of degrees of confidence is taken for granted. (shrink)

This paper aims to support my (2018) skeptical position on the possibility of a correct and philosophically significant specification of first-person authority. For this purpose, I critically examine the proposals presented by Doyle (2021) and Winokur (2022) in response to my position and argue that while these proposals contain some ingenious ideas, they ultimately fall short of providing correct and philosophically significant specifications. Ultimately, the search for an adequate specification of first-person authority remains unresolved.

The key message of this book is that we come to know our own mental states, not by peering inward, but by focusing on the aspects of the external world to which we are intentionally related in virtue of having the mental states in question. Though many philosophers think that the idea of transparency, as it is called, may apply to self-knowledge of some mental states, it is often regarded as hopeless to widen its scope to self-knowledge of mental states (...) in general—for it seems that not all mental states make us aware of aspects of the external world. Barz rejects this view and take pains to show that the idea of transparency does apply across the board: not only to beliefs and visual experiences, but also to desires, intentions, bodily sensations and emotions. For this purpose, Barz carefully rethinks the nature of mind. He thereby develops, among other things, an original account of episodic mental states, challenges the orthodox view of propositional content and presents an account of emotions which integrates aspects of both cognitivist and non-cognitivist approaches. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide an account of introspective knowledge concerning visual experiences that is in accordance with the idea of transparent introspection. According to transparent introspection, a person gains knowledge of her own current mental state M solely by paying attention to those aspects of the external world which M is about. In my view, transparent introspection is a promising alternative to inner sense theories. However, it raises the fundamental question why a person who pays attention (...) to something extra-mental should be epistemically justified in holding a belief about something intra-mental. In his Naturalizing the Mind, Fred Dretske solves this problem by conceiving of introspection concerning visual experiences as an inference based on a connecting belief. Although Dretske's account proves defective upon closer inspection, its essence can be salvaged by looking upon introspection as being a game of make-believe. (shrink)

In his seminal paper, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ (1978), Gareth Evans advanced an argument purporting to prove that the idea of indeterminate identity is incoherent. Aware that his argument was incomplete as it stands, Evans added a remark at the end of his paper, in which he explained how the original argument needed to be modified to arrive at an explicit contradiction. This paper aims to develop a modified version of Evans’ original argument, which I argue is more promising (...) than the modification that Evans proposed in his remark. Last, a structurally similar argument against the idea of indeterminate existence is presented. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to take a fresh look at a discussion about the distinct existences argument that took place between David Armstrong and Frank Jackson more than fifty years ago. I will try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be successfully defended against Jackson’s objections (albeit at the price of certain concessions concerning Armstrong’s view on the meaning of psychological terms as well as his conception of universals). Focusing on two counterexamples that Jackson put forward against Hume’s (...) principle (which is central to Armstrong’s argument), I will argue that they are either compatible with Hume’s principle, or imply a false claim. I will also look at several other considerations that go against Hume’s principle, such as, for example, Kripke’s origin essentialism and counterexamples from aposteriori necessity. (shrink)

Since their formulation by Keith DeRose (1992), the so-called bank cases have played a major role in the discussion about whether knowledge depends on practical factors. According to the proponents of pragmatic encroachment, the proper conclusion to be drawn from the bank cases and similar examples is that knowledge of a proposition _p_ does not supervene on one’s evidence for or against _p_. In my view, this conclusion is ill-founded. The reason is that the bank cases and similar examples suffer (...) from an ambiguity concerning the known proposition — an ambiguity that has so far been overlooked. When this ambiguity is made explicit, it becomes clear that the conclusion does not follow. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that introspective beliefs about one’s own current visual experiences are not immediate in the sense that what justifies them does not include other beliefs that the subject in question might possess. The argument will take the following course. First, the author explains the notions of immediacy and truth-sufficiency as they are used here. Second, the author suggests a test to determine whether a given belief lacks immediacy. Third, the author applies this test (...) to a standard case of formation of an introspective belief about one’s own current visual experiences and concludes that the belief in question is neither immediate nor truth-sufficient. Fourth, the author rebuts several objections that might be raised against the argument. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Priest's modal Meinongianism might benefit from joining forces with two-dimensionalism. For this purpose, I propose a two-dimensional solution to a problem for modal Meinongianism that is posed by Beall, Sauchelli, and Milne, and show that, by taking recourse to two-dimensionalism, divergent intuitions about the question of whether fictional characters might exist can be reconciled. Moreover, two-dimensionalism helps to rebut Kroon's argument to the conclusion that modal Meinongianism cannot rule out the odd (...) claim that some non-existent objects have existence-entailing properties at the actual world. (shrink)

In recent literature, there is a strong tendency to endorse the following argument: There are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible; if there are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, then the infallibility of those judgments is due to the relation of acquaintance; therefore, acquaintance explains why those particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences are infallible. The aim of this paper is to examine critically both the first and the second premise (...) of this argument. It will emerge that there might be a small class of judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, namely judgments involving direct phenomenal concepts. However, as I will try to show, the infallibility of such judgments, if existent at all, is not due to the relation of acquaintance. (shrink)

This essay develops the thesis that Frege’s notion of grasping does not refer to some special psychological relation between a subject and a proposition. Instead, the verb “to grasp” is a contextually defined technical term that, taken by itself, has no meaning. If that is right, then not only Frege’s resentment to the idea of grasping singular propositions is unfounded. The view that intentionality without representations is possible, championed by some advocates of the New Theory of Reference, is groundless as (...) well. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that it is not irrational to doubt one’s own existence, even in the face of introspective evidence to the effect that one is currently in a certain mental state. For this purpose, I will outline a situation in which I do not exist, but which cannot be ruled out on the basis of any evidence available to me—including introspective evidence about my current mental states. I use this ‘superskeptical scenario,’ as I will (...) call it, to formulate an argument to the conclusion that I do not know that I exist. In order to substantiate my argument, I draw upon Terence Parsons’ theory of non-existent objects. I conclude that, inasmuch as Parsons’ theory is reasonable, doubts about one’s own existence are reasonable as well. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers find intentionality challenging because of its apparent resistance to integration into a naturalistic worldview. Consequently, they strive to make intentionality intelligible as part of the natural world. The central thesis of this book is that such an approach does not do justice to the philosophical significance of the problem. The problem of intentionality lies at a different level, namely the challenge to the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals. Addressing this challenge goes beyond the scope of naturalizing (...) intentionality; instead, it requires logical and semantic considerations to refute it. A promising avenue from this perspective is Frege’s claim that intentional states are relations to propositions. The author elucidates the subtleties of this approach in contrast to alternative positions, defends it against classical counterarguments, and demonstrates its compatibility with directly referentialist views. The objection that speaking of relations to propositions remains unsatisfactory in the absence of any naturalistic comment is refuted after a detailed discussion of Dretske's information-theoretic approach. (shrink)

Ich versuche zu zeigen, daß die auf Frege zurückgehende These, daß Meinungen Relationen zwischen Personen und Propositionen darstellen, nicht zwangsläufig die Frage nach der Natur des Mechanismus aufwirft, der Personen mit Propositionen verbindet. Um meine Auffassung zu begründen, lasse ich zunächst eine Überlegung Revue passieren, die meines Erachtens den stärksten Beweggrund für die Einführung von Propositionen darstellt. In diesem Zusammenhang zeigt sich, daß sich die These, daß Meinungen Relationen zwischen Personen und Propositionen darstellen, auf die Struktur von Berichten über Meinungen (...) bezieht – und nicht auf die Struktur von Meinungen selbst. Wer Freges These unterschreibt, legt sich daher weder auf das Vorhandensein eines mysteriösen Aktes intellektueller Anschauung, noch auf die Existenz irgendeiner anderen Art von erklärungsbedürftiger Interaktion zwischen einer Person und einer abstrakten Entität fest. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung. Im ersten Teil meines Aufsatzes versuche ich zu zeigen, dass Meinongs Satz vom Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes auf Quines These hinausläuft, dass Variablen, die im Einflussbereich eines intentionalen Verbs liegen, nicht durch Quantoren gebunden werden können, die sich außerhalb dieses Bereichs befinden. Im zweiten Teil diskutiere ich eine Schwierigkeit für meine Interpretation: Meinong hält – im Gegensatz zu Quine – an der Idee fest, dass intentionale Zustände Relationen zwischen Personen und Gegenständen sind. Hätte Meinong diese Idee nicht fallenlassen müssen, (...) wenn er mit Quine im Hinblick auf die Bindbarkeit von Variablen im Einflussbereich intentionaler Verben einig gewesen wäre? Ich löse dieses Problem, indem ich verschiedene Möglichkeiten durchspiele, wie man Quines Diktum über das „Hineinquantifizieren“ akzeptieren und dennoch an der Idee der gegenständlichen Gerichtetheit von intentionalen Zuständen festhalten kann. Eine von Meinong selbst ins Auge gefasste Möglichkeit arbeitet mit der Unterscheidung zwischen dem „Hilfsgegenstand“ und dem „Zielgegenstand“ eines intentionalen Zustands. (shrink)

Das Ziel des Aufsatzes besteht darin, den Streit zwischen Fregeanern und Direktreferentialisten zu schlichten. Dieser Streit dreht sich um die Frage, wie wir uns die Proposition zurecht legen sollen, die durch einen Satz der Form „a ist F“ zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Fregeaner vertreten die Auffassung, daß es sich bei dieser Proposition um einen Komplex handelt, der sich aus der Eigenschaft F und dem Sinn von „a“ zusammensetzt. Direktreferentialisten hingegen nehmen an, daß die betreffende Proposition anstelle des Sinns von „a“ (...) das Einzelding enthält, auf das sich „a“ bezieht. Ich versuche zu zeigen, daß beide Auffassungen nicht unverträglich sind. Denn es ist ein Fehler, nach der Proposition zu fragen, die durch einen Satz zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Es gibt viele durch einen Satz zum Ausdruck gebrachte Propositionen, die jeweils unterschiedlichen theoretischen Zwecken dienen. Fregeanische Propositionen werden benötigt, um den Beitrag zu erklären, den die Inhaltsklausel zur Wahrheit eines Glaubenssatzes beisteuert. Singuläre Propositionen hingegen werden gebraucht, um zu erklären, welchen Beitrag die Inhaltsklausel zur Wahrheit der im Glaubenssatz beschriebenen Überzeugung leistet.The aim of my paper is to settle the dispute between Fregeans and proponents of direct reference. The dispute revolves around the question of how we should conceive of the proposition expressed by a sentence of the form “a is F”. Fregeans hold the view that the corresponding proposition is a complex composed of the property F and the sense of “a”. Proponents of direct reference maintain that the respective proposition contains, in place of the sense of “a”, the individual “a” denotes. I try to show that these claims do not conflict. For it is a mistake to ask for the proposition expressed by a sentence. There are many propositions expressed by a sentence serving different theoretical purposes. Fregean propositions are needed to explain what the content-clause contributes to the truth of a belief-sentence, whereas singular propositions are required for illuminating what the content-clause contributes to the truth of the belief ascribed by a belief-sentence. (shrink)

It is argued that Searle’s argument for the thesis that there is a conceptual connection between intentionality and consciousness suffers from serious ambiguities. Searle’s argument is reconstructed as consisting of three premises that contain the notions of aspectual shape and irreducible subjectivity. Having identified two different readings of ‘aspectual shape’ and ‘irreducibly subjective,’ I conclude that each version of Searle’s argument incorporates at least one false premise.

Der Beitrag versucht zu zeigen, dass Intentionalität nicht deshalb problematisch ist, weil sie unser naturalistisches Weltbild herausfordert, sondern deshalb, weil sie gegen gewisse logische Intuitionen zu verstoßen scheint, und dass die angemessene Reaktion auf dieses Problem nicht darin besteht, über die physikalische Realisierung intentionaler mentaler Zustände, sondern über die logische Form intensionaler Sätze nachzudenken. Als Zeuge führt der Autor Fred Dretske an, dessen Analyse der Intentionalität sich bei näherem Hinsehen als naturalistisch verbrämte Theorie der logischen Form intensionaler Sätze herausstellt.

I argue that the project of naturalizing intentionality is misconceived. Intentionality should not be considered as a challenge to our naturalistic world-view, but rather as something which gives rise to a logical problem: how to save the principle of indiscernibility of identicals from apparent counterexamples arising from intensional discourse.

In a recent paper, Gow raised a new and interesting problem for externalist representationalism, the conclusion of which is that its proponents are unable to provide an acceptable account of the phenomenal character of colour hallucination. In contrast to Gow, we do not believe that the problem is particularly severe – indeed, that there is any problem at all. Thus our aim is to defend externalist representationalism against the problem raised by Gow. To this end, we will first reconstruct her (...) reasoning, and then show that it poses no real challenge to externalist representationalism. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept an ‘Authority Thesis’ according to which self-ascriptions of one’s current mental states ordinarily are or ought to be met with a distinctive presumption of truth. Recently, however, Wolfgang Barz (2018) has argued that there is no adequately specified Authority Thesis. This, he argues, is because available specifications are either (1) philosophically puzzling but implausible, or (2) plausible but philosophically unpuzzling. I argue that there are several plausible and philosophically puzzling specifications of the Authority Thesis.

This book has grown out of eight years of close collaboration among its authors. From the very beginning we decided that its content should come out as the result of a truly common effort. That is, we did not "distribute" parts of the text planned to each one of us. On the contrary, we made a point that each single paragraph be the product of a common reflection. Genuine team-work is not as usual in philosophy as it is in other (...) academic disciplines. We think, however, that this is more due to the idiosyncrasy of philosophers than to the nature of their subject. Close collaboration with positive results is as rewarding as anything can be, but it may also prove to be quite difficult to implement. In our case, part of the difficulties came from purely geographic separation. This caused unsuspected delays in coordinating the work. But more than this, as time passed, the accumulation of particular results and ideas outran our ability to fit them into an organic unity. Different styles of exposition, different ways of formalization, different levels of complexity were simultaneously present in a voluminous manuscript that had become completely unmanageable. In particular, a portion of the text had been conceived in the language of category theory and employed ideas of a rather abstract nature, while another part was expounded in the more conventional set-theoretic style, stressing intui tivity and concreteness. (shrink)

The “official” history of connexive logic was written in 2012 by Storrs McCall who argued that connexive logic was founded by ancient logicians like Aristotle, Chrysippus, and Boethius; that it was further developed by medieval logicians like Abelard, Kilwardby, and Paul of Venice; and that it was rediscovered in the 19th and twentieth century by Lewis Carroll, Hugh MacColl, Frank P. Ramsey, and Everett J. Nelson. From 1960 onwards, connexive logic was finally transformed into non-classical calculi which partly concur with (...) systems of relevance logic and paraconsistent logic. In this paper it will be argued that McCall’s historical analysis is fundamentally mistaken since it doesn’t take into account two versions of connexivism. While “humble” connexivism maintains that connexive properties only apply to “normal” antecedents, “hardcore” connexivism insists that they also hold for “abnormal” propositions. It is shown that the overwhelming majority of the forerunners of connexive logic were only “humble” connexivists. Their ideas concerning connexive implication don’t give rise, however, to anything like a non-classical logic. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of cognition centrally builds on his conception of self-consciousness and the transcendental use of the phrase “I think”: the ability to add the phrase “I think” to a representation is a necessary condition of the ability to cognize objects. The paper argues that “I think”, rather than denoting the content of a predicative judgement, is typically an expression of the subject’s thinking. It expresses a kind of self-consciousness that, without assertively representing the subject itself, indicates that representational contents (...) are unified in a single consciousness of a single subject. Our aim is thus to develop and defend an expressivist interpretation of Kant’s “I think”. (shrink)

In addition to discussing some philosophical accounts of common sense, this article considers several ways in which common sense can be altered or disturbed in psychopathology. Common sense can be defined as practical understanding, capacity to see and take things in their right light, sound judgment, or ordinary mental capacity. The philosopher Vico described it as the ability to distinguish the probable from the improbable. Goethe understood common sense as an "organ" that is formed in communication for the purpose of (...) communication. Common sense is rooted in the intersubjective constitution of the life-world. Obsessive-compulsive patients show relatively mild disturbances of common sense. Patients with major affective psychoses, in their premorbid personality structure, are overly attached to common sense. In schizophrenia, however, there seems to be a true abdication of common sense involving a loss of "natural self-evidence." Even in premorbid states, such persons often lose both the sense of tact and the ability to "take things in their right light." Although logic, and the ability to engage in theoretical discussion, may be preserved, there is a loss of interpretive skills and the "faculty of judgment"; this results in an inability to cope with everyday practical and social activity. There is also a characteristic sense of perplexity, a sense of amazement before that which would normally seem self-evident and a frequent tendency to reflect upon the conditions of possibility of existence that otherwise remain concealed. The author suggests that the fragility of common sense should not be seen as a mere deficiency state. Rather, it derives from a basic vulnerability inherent in the very structure of being human. (Abstract written by special issue editor: L.A.S.). (shrink)

SummaryA simple and precise definition is offered of “term t of theory T being T‐theoretical” which can be applied to any formalized theory. The definition is in line with and emends traditional accounts of theoreticity. Its adequacy is demonstrated by application to three examples: exchange economics, classical mechanics and collision mechanics.

We present a reconstruction of so-called classical, formal or Mendelian genetics using a notation which we believe is more legible than that of earlier accounts, and lends itself easily to computer implementation, for instance in PROLOG. By drawing from, and emending, earlier work of Balzer and Dawe (1986,1997), the present account presents the three most important lines of development of classical genetics: the so-called Mendel's laws, linkage genetics and gene mapping, in the form of a theory-net. This shows that the (...) set theoretic representation format used in the structuralist approach to the philosophy of science also applies to the domain of genetic theories. There construction is intended to lend more clarity to theme thodological, philosophical and didactical discussions of the foundations of genetics, and on the other hand to defend a formally, logically minded view of theories which seems to have become contested through the work of Feyerabend, Kuhn and Kitcher. (shrink)