In Epistemic Entitlement. The Right to Believe Hannes Ole Matthiessen develops a social externalist account of epistemic entitlement and perceptual knowledge. The basic idea is that positive epistemic status should be understood as a specific kind of epistemic right, that is a right to believe. Since rights have consequences for how others are required to treat the bearer of the right, they have to be publicly accessible. The author therefore suggests that epistemic entitlement can plausibly be conceptualized as (...) a status that is grounded in a publicly observable perceptual situation, rather than in a perceptual experience as current theories of epistemic entitlement state. It is then argued that such a social externalist account of entitlement, in which the perceiver's epistemic perspective becomes relevant only in the exceptional case where an entitlement is challenged, can nevertheless do justice to our central intuitions about first-personal epistemic phenomenology. (shrink)

In recent epistemological literature, epistemic entitlement is understood as a personal epistemic status that does not require elaborate justificatory activity on behalf of the entitled individual. It is nevertheless internalist in a weaker sense, since it is said to be grounded in perceptual experiences. It seems, however, that the conditions under which an epistemic right holds should, like in cases of most other rights, be publicly observable, because they have implications for the ways others are required to treat the entitled (...) individual. Therefore I suggest an alternative to the weakly internalist conception of epistemic entitlement as based on mental episodes. I show how we can construe epistemic rights as being based on external conditions that are publicly observable. This social externalist approach is then defended against internalist and externalist challenges. (shrink)

Thomas Reid's Geometry of Visibles, according to which the geometrical properties of an object's perspectival appearance equal the geometrical properties of its projection on the inside of a sphere with the eye in its centre allows for two different interpretations. It may (1) be understood as a theory about phenomenal visual space – i.e. an account of how things appear to human observers from a certain point of view – or it may (2) be seen as a mathematical model of (...) viewpoint-relative but mind-independent relational properties of objects. This paper makes a systematic and a historical claim. I shall argue, first, that given certain features of the human visual system phenomenal visual space differs in several aspects from Reidean visual space. Secondly, I suggest that, since Reid was aware of some of these empirical facts, we should interpret Reid as endorsing the second interpretation of the Geometry of Visibles. (shrink)

Thomas Reid argued that the geometrical properties of visible figures equal the geometrical properties of their projections on the inside of a sphere centred around the eye. In recent scholarship there are only a few suggestions of which sources might have inspired Reid. I point to a widely ignored body of early eighteenth-century literature – introductions into projective geometry, the use of celestial globes and astronomy – in which the model of the eye in the centre of a sphere was (...) immensely popular. Moreover, I argue that Reid's account results naturally from some astronomical doctrines in conjunction with George Berkeley's theory of vision. (shrink)

George Berkeley argues that vision is a language of God, that the immediate objects of vision are arbitrary signs for tactile objects and that there is no necessary connection between what we see and what we touch. Thomas Reid, on the other hand, aims to establish a geometrical connection between visible and tactile figures. Consequently, although Reid and Berkeley's theories of vision share important elements, Reid explicitly rejects Berkeley's idea that visible figures are merely arbitrary signs for tangible bodies. But (...) is he right in doing so? I show that many passages in Berkeley's work on vision suggest that he acknowledges a geometrical connection between visibles and tangibles. So the opposition between the arbitrariness Berkeley defends and a geometrical connection cannot be as universal as Reid thinks. This paper seeks to offer a plausible reading of Berkeley's theory of vision in this regard and an explanation of why Reid interprets Berkeley differently. (shrink)

According to Paul Snowdon, one directly perceives an object x iff one is in a position to make a true demonstrative judgement of the form “That is x”. Whenever one perceives an object x indirectly (or dependently , as Snowdon puts it) it is the case that there exists an item y (which is not identical to x) such that one can count as demonstrating x only if one acknowledges that y bears a certain relation to x. In this paper (...) I argue that what we hear directly are sounds, and that material objects (such as violins and goldfinches) are only indirectly heard. However, there are cases of auditory object perception that should count as direct : Some blind persons’ ears are so sensitive to the way sound waves are modified by things in their surroundings that they can detect objects such as other persons, fences or trees. Interestingly, objects localized in this way make themselves felt via a kind of pressure in the perceiver’s face (that is why the phenomenon is commonly called “facial vision”), the perception is phenomenally quite different from hearing. Since, to some degree, most people are able to conclude from the way it sounds that, say, they stand at the foot of a concrete wall (when there is enough traffic noise around), we can imagine situations where two persons perceive the same wall, one indirectly (demonstratively apprehending sounds) and the other directly (demonstratively apprehending nothing but the wall). These cases invite us to discuss the role phenomenology plays in determining whether an object is perceived directly or indirectly. (shrink)

Defeasibility, most generally speaking, means that given some set of conditions A, something else B will hold, unless or until defeating conditions C apply. While the term was introduced into philosophy by legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart in 1949, today, the concept of defeasibility is employed in many different areas of philosophy. This volume for the first time brings together contributions on defeasibility from epistemology , legal philosophy and ethics and the philosophy of action . The volume ends with an extensive (...) bibliography. (shrink)

Several investigations have shown language impairments following electrode implantation surgery for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in movement disorders. The impact of the actual stimulation, however, differs between DBS targets with further deterioration in formal language tests induced by thalamic DBS in contrast to subtle improvement observed in subthalamic DBS. Here, we studied speech samples from interviews with participants treated with DBS of the thalamic ventral intermediate nucleus (VIM) for essential tremor (ET), or the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson’s disease (PD), (...) and healthy volunteers (eachn= 13). We analyzed word frequency and the use of open and closed class words. Active DBS increased word frequency in case of VIM, but not STN stimulation. Further, relative to controls, both DBS groups produced fewer open class words. Whereas VIM DBS further decreased the proportion of open class words, it was increased by STN DBS. Thus, VIM DBS favors the use of relatively common words in spontaneous language, compatible with the idea of lexical simplification under thalamic stimulation. The absence or even partial reversal of these effects in patients receiving STN DBS is of interest with respect to biolinguistic concepts suggesting dichotomous thalamic vs. basal ganglia roles in language processing. (shrink)

Impaired performance in verbal fluency tasks is a frequent observation in Parkinson’s disease. As to the nature of the underlying cognitive deficit, it is commonly attributed to a frontal-type dysexecutive syndrome due to nigrostriatal dopamine depletion. Whereas dopaminergic medication typically improves VF performance in PD, e.g., by ameliorating impaired lexical switching, its effect on semantic network activation is unclear. Data from priming studies suggest that dopamine causes a faster decay of semantic activation spread. The aim of the current study was (...) to examine the impact of dopaminergic medication on the dynamic change of word frequency during VF performance as a measure of semantic spreading activation. To this end, we performed a median split analysis of word frequency during phonemic and semantic VF task performance in a PD group tested while receiving dopaminergic medication as well as after drug withdrawal, and in a sample of age-matched healthy volunteers. Dopaminergic medication in the PD group significantly affected phonemic VF with improved word production as well as increased error-rates. The expected decrease of word frequency during VF task performance was significantly smaller in the PD group ON medication than in healthy volunteers across semantic and phonemic VF. No significant group-difference emerged between controls and the PD group in the OFF condition. The comparison between both treatment conditions within the PD group did not reach statistical significance. The observed pattern of results indicates a faster decay of semantic network activation during lexical access in PD patients on dopaminergic medication. In view of improved word generation, this finding is consistent with a concept of more focused neural activity by an increased signal-to-noise ratio due to dopaminergic neuromodulation. However, the effect of dopaminergic stimulation on VF output suggests a trade-off between these beneficial effects and increased error-rates. (shrink)

This volume is based on papers presented at a conference on defeasibility in ethics, epistemology, law, and logic that took place at the Goethe University in Frankfurt in 2010. The subtitle (“Knowledge, Agency, Responsibility, and the Law”) better reflects the content than does the title of the original conference. None of the papers focuses directly or primarily on defeasible reasoning in logic, though a few touch on this indirectly. Nor are the papers evenly split among the topics. Six are primarily (...) about epistemology, four about responsibility, and one each focuses on agency and the law. (shrink)

Within the domains of morality, is there a distinction that can be properly drawn by using the concepts of applied and theoretical ethics? Could not all ethics be an application of something that has no theoretical foundation - or perhaps only another kind of foundation? Or, perhaps ethics could also be a theory about something that is altogether inapplicable? Moral philosophers have not managed to rule out the possibilities indicated by questions such as these, and this fact could perhaps be (...) taken as a reminder that a relevant moral philosophy should probably not distance itself too much from either the putatively theoretical or applied aspects of moral issues. In this volume, a number of writers wrestle with the problem concerning applied and theoretical ethics, illuminating it from different angles. (Series: Applied Philosophy / Anvendt Filosofi - Vol. 5). (shrink)

In everyday life we either express our beliefs in all-or-nothing terms or we resort to numerical probabilities: I believe it's going to rain or my chance of winning is one in a million. The Stability of Belief develops a theory of rational belief that allows us to reason with all-or-nothing belief and numerical belief simultaneously.

The book examines the emerging approach of using qualitative methods, such as interviews and field observations, in the philosophy of science. Qualitative methods are gaining popularity among philosophers of science as more and more scholars are resorting to empirical work in their study of scientific practices. At the same time, the results produced through empirical work are quite different from those gained through the kind of introspective conceptual analysis more typical of philosophy. This volume explores the benefits and challenges of (...) an empirical philosophy of science and addresses questions such as: What do philosophers gain from empirical work? How can empirical research help to develop philosophical concepts? How do we integrate philosophical frameworks and empirical research? What constraints do we accept when choosing an empirical approach? What constraints does a pronounced theoretical focus impose on empirical work? Nine experts discuss their thoughts and empirical results in the chapters of this book with the aim of providing readers with an answer to these questions. (shrink)

When people talk about anarchism, what they have in mind is typically political anarchism, that is, the view that there should be no state. As the philosopher and anarchism scholar David Miller observes, however, anarchism itself is a more general view, namely the view that there should be no rulers. Miller writes that “although the state is the most distinctive object of anarchist attack, it is by no means the only object. Any institution which, like the state, appears to anarchists (...) coercive, punitive, exploitative or destructive is condemned in the same way”—including, for example, religious institutions, schools, or economic systems (Miller 1984: 8). In this sense, one can be an anarchist about different things. Relationship anarchy is anarchism about personal relationships. -/- Several thinkers in the anarchist tradition have held views on personal relationships (e.g., Godwin 1793; Bakunin 1866; Goldman 1910). In what follows, however, our focus is not on the general issue of anarchist views on relationships, but on the ideas of the contemporary movement of self-identifying relationship anarchists. -/- The ideas of relationship anarchy in this sense—hereafter RA—have been developed in queer and countercultural communities over the last two decades. Rather than focusing primarily on mechanisms of political power, RA theorists have been concerned with understanding and challenging the power dynamics at play in close personal relationships. Andie Nordgren, the movement’s central, founding theorist, describes RA as a radical commitment “to avoid defining relationships by attempts to exercise power over each other” (Nordgren 2018). -/- Our aim is to give a concise presentation and defense of RA. We will approach RA as a theory in applied ethics—in particular, as a theory in sexual ethics and relationship ethics—and relate it to ongoing debates in these areas. We, the authors, are both queer men with a background in countercultures where RA is widely practiced and discussed. One of us is an activist working on trans- and sex workers’ rights (Sørlie), the other is a philosophy professor (Moen). Although we make several claims about the scope, content, and justification of RA, we do not claim to speak with any special authority on the issue. Moreover, many of the points that we make here, while not attributable to a specific source, are not original to us, but are the result of several years of fruitful discussion with others in the RA community. -/- We start by considering the cases where, from an RA perspective, current mainstream relationship norms are too restrictive. Then we turn to the cases where current norms are too permissive. Our views on what counts as “mainstream” relationship norms are, no doubt, influenced by the fact that we are writing from a Scandinavian perspective. -/- We then proceed to consider the relationship between RA and polyamory. We argue that RA is compatible with some, but not all, forms of polyamorous practice. We also argue that, from an RA perspective, the increasingly popular term “consensual non-monogamy” is a misleading term that should be avoided. In the conclusion, we explain how RA, as a position in applied ethics, can be justified within consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethical frameworks alike. -/- We have restricted our scope, in what follows, to chosen relationships between adults. Thus, we are not dealing with, for example, kinship relationships into which one is born, nor relationships between adults and minors. Although many issues and arguments deserve to be explored in greater depth than we can do here, we hope, nevertheless, to be able to convey the main nature and thrust of RA. (shrink)

In this thesis I seek to advance our understanding of what intuitions are. I argue that intuitions are experiences of a certain kind. In particular, they are experiences with representational content, and with a certain phenomenal character. -/- In Chapter 1 I identify our target and provide some important reliminaries. Intuitions are mental states, but which ones? Giving examples helps: a person has an intuition when it seems to her that torturing the innocent is wrong, or that if something is (...) red it is coloured. We can also provide an initial characterisation of the state by saying that it has representational content, often causes belief, and appears to justify belief. In addition, there is something it is like to have an intuition: intuition has a certain phenomenal character. -/- Some argue that intuition does not explain anything which cannot be explained by other mental states. One version of this view takes intuition to reduce to belief. In Chapter 2 I argue that this entails that agents are rationally criticisable in situations where we know they are not, and that such views are therefore untenable. A parallel argument shows that the corresponding approach to perception fails. This suggests a similarity in nature: both intuition and perception are experiences. -/- Others take intuition to reduce to a disposition to have a belief. In Chapter 3 I consider a line of argument against such views, find it unsuccessful, and present two new arguments. One is likely to be dialectically ineffective. The other suffers no such weakness: it shows that the proposed reduction fails. As before, the argument also applies to perception, and suggests that intuition and perception are both experiences. -/- In the remainder of the thesis I develop an account of intuition as an experience. I distinguish between content-specific and attitude-specific phenomenology, and argue that intuition lacks the former (Chapter 4), but has the latter (Chapter 5). This allows us to say what intuition is: it is is an experience with representational content and with attitude-specific phenomenology of a certain kind. -/- In Chapter 6 I put this account of intuition to use. When a person has a perceptual or intuitional experience, I argue that simply having the experience is what makes the subject justified in believing what the experience represents. Moreover, what explains that intuition and perception can justify belief in this way is precisely their phenomenal character. (shrink)

The thesis defended in this article is that by uttering or publishing a great many declarative sentences in assertoric mode, one does not actually assert that their conjunction is true – one rather asserts that the vast majority of these sentences are true. Accordingly, the belief that is expressed thereby is the belief that the vast majority of these sentences are true. In the article, we make this proposal precise, we explain the context-dependency of belief that corresponds to it, we (...) point out why our everyday oral practice of single assertions is not affected by it, and we argue that the proposal leads to a way out of the Paradox of the Preface. (shrink)

Logic isn’t special. Its theories are continuous with science; its method continuous with scientific method. Logic isn’t a priori, nor are its truths analytic truths. Logical theories are revisable, and if they are revised, they are revised on the same grounds as scientific theories. These are the tenets of anti-exceptionalism about logic. The position is most famously defended by Quine, but has more recent advocates in Maddy, Priest, Russell, and Williamson. Although these authors agree on many methodological issues about logic, (...) they disagree about which logic anti-exceptionalism supports. Williamson uses an anti-exceptionalist argument to defend classical logic, while Priest claims that his anti-exceptionalism supports nonclassical logic. This paper argues that the disagreement is due to a difference in how the parties understand logical theories. Once we reject Williamson’s deflationary account of logical theories, the argument for classical logic is undercut. Instead an alternative account of logical theories is offered, on which logical pluralism is a plausible supplement to anti-exceptionalism. (shrink)

Introduction to this special issue of The Australasian Journal of Logic.

The paper presents a revised view of quantum mechanics centered on the notion (“genuine fortuitousness”) that the click in a counter is a totally lawless event, which comes by itself. A crucial point is the distinction between events on the spacetime scene and the content of the symbolic algorism. A revised conception of matrix variables emerges, by which such a variable, as part of a whole, does not have a value, under any circumstance. This conception is at variance with that (...) of indeterminate variables. A matrix variable not having a value does not enter spacetime and is not a measurable quantity, but manifests itself by a click in a counter with the remarkable property of having an onset, a beginning, from which the click develops. The individual click with its immense complexity is unique and lawless, even beyond probability. The notion of probability only applies to clicks in low resolution, and the completeness of a probabilistic theory is thereby seen in a new perspective. The genuinely fortuitous click is not produced by the impact of a particle, nor caused by an event in the source prior to the click in the counter. Indeed, there are no particles on the spacetime scene. The theory is thereby liberated from notions, which go with particles having indeterminate variables, and which have given to quantum mechanics the image of an unfathomable theory. With no particle as intermediary, the connection between source and detector is non-local, as is the entire theory, which deals exclusively with distributions of clicks. The locality permeating quantum mechanics is a symbolic one. The wave function enters in the sole role of encoding the probability distributions of clicks. The quest to understand the occurrence of the click in terms of the evolution of the wave function loses its meaning. However, click distributions in low resolution can be analyzed in terms of the connection between click distributions for different sets of counters, as given by the wave function. With increasing resolution, the probabilities, and the wave function, gradually lose significance, whereby the onset remains beyond reach. Thus, the downward path from events on the spacetime scene does not extend beyond the onset. The notion that quantum mechanics deals with particles (or fields) is rooted in the historical evolution but appears unable to accomodate genuine fortuitousness. The latter concept is given its due place by fully accepting the abstract nature of the matrix variables. (shrink)

Why do so many doctors have profound misgivings about the push to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide? Ole Hartling uses his background as a physician, university professor and former president of the Danish Council of Ethics to introduce new elements into what can often be understood as an all too simple debate. Alive to the case that assisted dying can be driven by an unattainable yearning for control, Hartling concentrates on two fundamental questions: whether the answer to suffering is to (...) remove the sufferer, and whether self-determination in dying and death is an illusion. He draws on his own experience as a medical doctor to personalize the ethical arguments, share patients' narratives and make references to medical literature. Here is a sceptical stance towards euthanasia, one that is respectful to those who hold different opinions and well-informed about the details and nuances of different euthanasia practices. Written from a Scandinavian perspective, where respect for autonomy and high quality palliative care go hand in hand, Hartling's is a nuanced, valuable contribution to the arguments that surround a question doctors have faced since the birth of medicine. He shows us how the intentions of doing something good can sometimes lead to even greater dilemmas, opening us up to those situations where an inclination to end suffering by ending life is deeply conflicting both for the clinician and for any fellow human being. (shrink)

Brain Organoids in their current state of development are patentable. Future brain organoids may face some challenges in this regard, which I address in this contribution. Brain organoids unproblematically fulfil the general prerequisites of patentability set forth in Art. 3 (1) EU-Directive 98/44/ec (invention, novelty, inventive step and susceptibility of industrial application). Patentability is excluded if an invention makes use of human embryos or constitutes a stage of the human body in the individual phases of its formation and development. Both (...) do not apply to brain organoids, unless ES-cells are used. Art. 6 (1) EU-Directive 98/44/ec excludes patentability for inventions “the commercial exploitation of which would be contrary to ordre public or morality”. While there is no conceivable scenario, in which the commercial application of current brain organoids violates the ordre public, the same is not necessarily true for future brain organoids. Keeping in mind that a development of consciousness-like abilities in future brain organoids cannot be excluded and that an ability for both physical and psychological suffering has been theorized, both of which are aspects of the ordre public, certain applications of future brain organoids may constitute a violation of the ordre public and therefore lead to an exclusion of patentability. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the Quinean view that logical theories have no special epistemological status, in particular, they are not self-evident or justified a priori. Instead, logical theories are continuous with scientific theories, and knowledge about logic is as hard-earned as knowledge of physics, economics, and chemistry. Once we reject apriorism about logic, however, we need an alternative account of how logical theories are justified and revised. A number of authors have recently argued that logical theories are justified by abductive (...) argument (e.g. Gillian Russell, Graham Priest, Timothy Williamson). This paper explores one crucial question about the abductive strategy: what counts as evidence for a logical theory? I develop three accounts of evidential confirmation that an anti-exceptionalist can accept: (1) intuitions about validity, (2) the Quine-Williamson account, and (3) indispensability arguments. I argue, against the received view, that none of the evidential sources support classical logic. (shrink)

Business scholars have recently proposed that the virtue of personal wisdom may predict leadership behaviors and the quality of leader–follower relationships. This study investigated relationships among leaders’ personal wisdom—defined as the integration of advanced cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics (Ardelt, Hum Dev 47:257–285, 2004)—transformational leadership behaviors, and leader–member exchange (LMX) quality. It was hypothesized that leaders’ personal wisdom positively predicts LMX quality and that intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, two dimensions of transformational leadership, mediate this relationship. Data came from (...) 75 religious leaders and 1–3 employees of each leader (N = 158). Results showed that leaders’ personal wisdom had a positive indirect effect on follower ratings of LMX quality through individualized consideration, even after controlling for Big Five personality traits, emotional intelligence, and narcissism. In contrast, intellectual stimulation and the other two dimensions of transformational leadership (idealized influence and inspirational motivation) did not mediate the positive relationship between leaders’ personal wisdom and LMX quality. Implications for future research on personal wisdom and leadership are discussed, and some tentative suggestions for leadership development are outlined. (shrink)

"[W]ritten by writer and landscape architect Thomas Oles... his ideas about the landscape architecture profession has [been] brought together in one handy handbook."--.

Originally presented as the author's thesis, Bonn, 1976.

Am Beispiel des lutherischen Erbauungsschriftstellers Johann Arndt (1555-1621) läßt sich ein naturtheologisches Frömmigkeitsverständnis aufzeigen, das vom Florentiner Neuplatonismus, von Paracelsus, vom Paracelsismus und von der Alchemie Heinrich Khunraths beeinflußt ist. Der Autor vorliegender Studie zeichnet die relevanten Traditionslinien quellennah nach und analysiert deren Einbindung und Interpretation in Arndts Schriften. Eine systematische Darstellung der Kohärenz von Naturphilosophie und Mystik in der frühen Neuzeit beschließt vorliegende Studie.

Recently, several scholars have argued that scientists can accept scientific claims in a collective process, and that the capacity of scientific groups to form joint acceptances is linked to a functional division of labor between the group members. However, these accounts reveal little about how the cognitive content of the jointly accepted claim is formed, and how group members depend on each other in this process. In this paper, I shall therefore argue that we need to link analyses of joint (...) acceptance with analyses of distributed cognition. To sketch how this can be done, I shall present a detailed case study, and on the basis of the case, analyze the process through which a group of scientists jointly accept a new scientific claim and at a later stage jointly accept to revise previously accepted claims. I shall argue that joint acceptance in science can be established in situations where an overall conceptual structure is jointly accepted by a group of scientists while detailed parts of it are distributed among group members with different areas of expertise, a condition that I shall call a heterogeneous conceptual consensus. Finally, I shall show how a heterogeneous conceptual consensus can work as a constraint against scientific change and address the question how changes may nevertheless occur. (shrink)

Logical pluralism has been in vogue since JC Beall and Greg Restall 2006 articulated and defended a new pluralist thesis. Recent criticisms such as Priest 2006a and Field 2009 have suggested that there is a relationship between their type of logical pluralism and the meaning-variance thesis for logic. This is the claim, often associated with Quine 1970, that a change of logic entails a change of meaning. Here we explore the connection between logical pluralism and meaning-variance, both in general and (...) for Beall and Restall's theory specifically. We argue that contrary to what Beall and Restall claim, their type of pluralism is wedded to meaning-variance. We then develop an alternative form of logical pluralism that circumvents at least some forms of meaning-variance. (shrink)

This chapter tries to make sense of a particular aspect of our contemporary experience: the so-called “post-truth era.” This era is characterized by strong polarization where it seems like the arguments and opinions of the opposing sides are informed by different realities. When beliefs are still held despite being debunked by contradicting evidence, it is easy to dismiss the opponent as “irrational,” resulting in breakdown of communication. This chapter argues that such beliefs may still feel right because they connect to (...) something deeper in the bodily awareness and lived experience, which Eugene Gendlin calls the “felt sense” or “felt meaning.” When we are disconnected from this bodily sense, it can result in various articulations which do not make sense at a surface level but critiquing the surface level articulations while ignoring their source often results in frustration and anger. Rather than dismissing people’s rationality, we should assume they have reasons for holding their beliefs, although they may not be able to articulate those reasons. Drawing on the works of Gendlin I argue for a sympathetic yet critical listening to the bodily sense which requires attention to the whole situation of our social environment. (shrink)

In some philosophical arguments an important role is played by the claim that certain situations differ from each other with respect to phenomenology. One class of such arguments are minimal pair arguments. These have been used to argue that there is cognitive phenomenology, that high-level properties are represented in perceptual experience, that understanding has phenomenology, and more. I argue that facts about our mental lives systematically block such arguments, reply to a range of objections, and apply my critique to some (...) examples from the literature. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What do we disagree about when we disagree about logic? On the face of it, classical and nonclassical logicians disagree about the laws of logic and the nature of logical properties. Yet, sometimes the parties are accused of talking past each other. The worry is that if the parties to the dispute do not mean the same thing with ‘if’, ‘or’, and ‘not’, they fail to have genuine disagreement about the laws in question. After the work of Quine, this (...) objection against genuine disagreement about logic has been called the meaning-variance thesis. We argue that the meaning-variance thesis can be endorsed without blocking genuine disagreement. In fact, even the type of revisionism and nonapriorism championed by Quine turns out to be compatible with meaning-variance. (shrink)

Nonclassical theories of truth have in common that they reject principles of classical logic to accommodate an unrestricted truth predicate. However, different nonclassical strategies give up different classical principles. The paper discusses one criterion we might use in theory choice when considering nonclassical rivals: the maxim of minimal mutilation.

In bilateral systems for classical logic, assertion and denial occur as primitive signs on formulas. Such systems lend themselves to an inferentialist story about how truth-conditional content of connectives can be determined by inference rules. In particular, for classical logic there is a bilateral proof system which has a property that Carnap in 1943 called categoricity. We show that categorical systems can be given for any finite many-valued logic using $n$-sided sequent calculus. These systems are understood as a further development (...) of bilateralism—call it multilateralism. The overarching idea is that multilateral proof systems can incorporate the logic of a variety of denial speech acts. So against Frege we say that denial is not the negation of assertion and, with Mark Twain, that denial is more than a river in Egypt. (shrink)