In the Meno, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, Plato outlines the controversial thesis of a priori knowledge that all learning is a form of recollection—anamnesis. He uses this as an argument for the immortality of the soul via reincarnation. Because of this latter claim, the thesis is widely mocked by contemporary evolutionarily-informed materialists. But we can safely reject the metaphysical claim without abandoning the insight of the epistemological one. And indeed, modern evolutionary theory can explain how learning—at least of the sort that (...) depends on certain a priori concepts—can be a kind of recollection. Through this metaphor, natural selection is a process by which information about the world is transmitted across time. When we learn by reasoning about a priori knowledge, then, we in an important sense rely on information in our genomes—if not our souls—information acquired by the process of natural selection—if not conscious acquisition. Thinking of a priori knowledge with the metaphor of anamnesis elucidates two essential features of the relationship between epistemology and ontology. First, it emphasizes that there is necessarily a time-delay between our a priori knowledge and the universe to which it bears a relationship, if any. Second, it clarifies that a priori knowledge is knowledge that enhances reproductive fitness—which could well be because it reflects ontology faithfully, but could as easily be a kind of innate nominalism. (shrink)

In his first paper, ‘Must We Mean What We Say?’, Stanley Cavell defended the methods of ordinary language philosophy against various charges made by his senior colleague, Benson Mates, under the influence of the empirical semantics of Arne Naess.1 Cavell’s argument hinges on the claim that native speakers are a source of evidence for 'what is said' in language and, accordingly, need not base their claims about ordinary language upon evidence. In what follows, I maintain that this defence against empirical (...) semantics applies equally well to experimental philosophy's attack on doing philosophy from the armchair. In so doing, I attempt to clarify – and adjust – Cavell's claim that statements about ordinary language are rule-descriptions that are neither analytic nor synthetic. (shrink)