The notion of more truth, or of more truth and less falsehood, is central to epistemology. Yet, I argue, we have no idea what this consists in, as the most natural or obvious thing to say—that more truth is a matter of a greater number of truths, and less falsehood is a matter of a lesser number of falsehoods—is ultimately implausible. The issue is important not merely because the notion of more truth and less falsehood is central to epistemology, but (...) because an implicit, false picture of what this consists in underpins and gives shape to much contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

Regulatory science, which generates knowledge relevant for regulatory decision-making, is different from standard academic science in that it is oriented mainly towards the attainment of non-epistemic aims. The role of uncertainty and the limits to the relevance of academic science are being recognized more and more explicitly in regulatory decision-making. This has led to the introduction of regulation-specific scientific methodologies in order to generate decision-relevant data. However, recent practical experience with such non-standard methodologies indicates that they, too, may be subject (...) to important limitations. We argue that the attainment of non-epistemic values and aims requires not only control of the quality of the data and the methodologies, but also the selection of the level of regulation deemed adequate in each specific case. (shrink)

This article argues that philosophers tend to employ a particular method in constructing their theories and critiquing their opponents. To substantiate this claim, the article examines the work of Nietzsche and Locke, the Empiricists and Rationalists, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, and Russell and Wittgenstein, showing how each relies on a method the article labels “revolution-through-return.” The method consists in identifying the authority behind your opponent's theory, then appealing to something “prior to” that authority, from which you then proceed to derive (...) your own theory. The article distinguishes between several senses of priority, argues that modern philosophers tend to rely on temporal priority, and discusses the questions in priority theory that need to be addressed in order evaluate and construct revolution-through-return arguments. (shrink)

As a response to what I see as the challenge posed by constructivist and narrative pedagogies, this paper seeks to sympathetically reconstruct Bernard Williams’ Absolute Conception from the scattered texts in which he briefly sketched it While ultimately defending the Absolute Conception or something close enough to it, the paper criticizes and distances itself from some aspects of Williams’ version, notably his conception of philosophy as insurmountably perspectival. Williams’ understanding of perspectival knowledge as contrasted to absolute knowledge is illustrated with (...) the concrete, if fictional case of the Dr Manhattan character from Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009). Adrian Moore’s reading, and Hilary Putnam’s criticisms of Williams’ Absolute Conception are amongst the positions engaged with. (shrink)

The source of the following considerations is the observation that academic philosophy at universities does not fit well with philosophy education processes, e.g., those at school. Both sides seem to be separate from each other. I assume that the two areas rely on two very different concepts of philosophy. To work out a concept of philosophy more appropriate to the educational context, I methodically apply the practical turn to our philosophising in very different contexts. Moreover, I elaborate that it is (...) precisely the modern scientific paradigm that underlies philosophy as scientific practice and that the former represents a problematic con-striction of philosophising in educational contexts. For where the ideal is objective scientific knowledge — from which everything subjective has been removed — there can be no deeper transformation of the subject through philosophy. My thesis is that philosophy is better suited to the educational context as transformative and not as scientific practice. As a consequence, the question arises as to whether the study of philosophy on teacher training courses needs a new impulse in the direction of philosophy as transformative practice. (shrink)

Despite the otherwise-dominant trends towards physicalism and naturalism in philosophy, it has become increasingly common for metaphysicians to accept the existence either of modal facts and properties, or of Lewisian possible worlds. This paper raises the historical question: why did these heavyweight realist views come into prominence? The answer is that they have arisen in response to the demand to find truthmakers for our modal statements. But this demand presupposes that modal statements are descriptive claims in need of truthmakers. This (...) presupposition was, however, rejected by many earlier analytic philosophers, including the logical positivists, Wittgenstein, Ryle and Sellars, all of whom denied that modal statement were descriptive at all. Yet the non-descriptivist approach has largely fallen out of discussion and out of philosophical consciousness. In this paper I examine why non-descriptivist views first came into and then fell out of favor, and consider what the prospects are for reviving this more deflationary approach to modality. (shrink)

Modality presents notorious philosophical problems, including the epistemic problem of how we could come to know modal facts and metaphysical problems about how to place modal facts in the natural world. These problems arise from thinking of modal claims as attempts to describe modal features of this world that explain what makes them true. Here I propose a different view of modal discourse in which talk about what is “metaphysically necessary” does not aim to describe modal features of the world, (...) but, rather, provides a particularly useful way of expressing constitutive semantic and conceptual rules in the object language. The result is a “modal normativist” view that enables us to avoid the epistemic problems of modality and mitigate the metaphysical worries, while also leaving open the possibility of a unified account of the function of modal language. Finally, I address a serious challenge: we have the norms we do in order to track the modal facts of the world, so that the order of explanation must go in the opposite direction. I close by showing how the normativist may answer that challenge. (shrink)

Those who aim to give an account of modal knowledge face two challenges: the integration challenge of reconciling an account of what is involved in knowing modal truths with a plausible story about how we can come to know them, and the reliability challenge of giving a plausible account of how we could have evolved a reliable capacity to acquire modal knowledge. I argue that recent counterfactual and dispositional accounts of modal knowledge cannot solve these problems regarding specifically metaphysical modal (...) truths—leaving us with the threat of skepticism about large portions of metaphysics, and certain other areas of philosophy. I argue, however, that both of these problems look insuperable only if we assume that metaphysical modal discourse serves a describing or tracking function. If we adopt instead a normativist approach to metaphysical modal discourse, which sees the basic function of modal discourse as giving us perspicuous ways of conveying, reasoning with, and renegotiating semantic rules, the problems show up very differently. The modal normativist can give a plausible response to both of the classic problems of how we can come to know metaphysical modal truths. (shrink)

In Paradoxes of Delusion, Sass aims to use passages from Wittgenstein to characterize the feeling of “mute particularity” that forms a part of delusional atmosphere. I argue that Wittgenstein’s discussion provides no helpful positive account. But his remarks on more everyday cases of the uncanny and the feeling of unreality might seem to promise a better approach via the expressive use of words in secondary sense. I argue that this also is a false hope but that, interestingly, there can be (...) no interesting or substantial explanation of this failure. (shrink)

The standard epistemic justification for inclusiveness in political decision making is the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which states that the probability of a correct decision using majority rule increases in group size (given certain assumptions). Informally, majority rule acts as a mechanism to pool the information contained in the judgements of individual agents. I aim to extend the explanation of how groups of political agents track the truth. Before agents can pool the information, they first need to find truth-conducive information. Increasing (...) group size is also important in the initial search for truth-conducive information. (shrink)

At a time in which religion is breaking away from the normative power of its traditions and new forms of spiritual experience are emerging, religious philosophy must find criteria for what a religious experience is and how to judge its truth. In their empirical critique of religion L. Wittgenstein and R. Carnap accepted two forms of religious experience, which they described with an optical and acoustic metaphor. They denied their cognitive truth value, but not their value for life. However, an (...) extended concept of truth, which encompasses every correspondence between experience and reality, can also find truth in religious experiences of “transparency” and “resonance”. They differ from aesthetic experience not only by the depth of transparency and resonance, but also by their cognitive interpretation. What is experienced is cognitively referred to a final reality: either to a “summum ens” in this world, or to the whole of this world or something unknown beyond of this world. This final point of reference is a unity of “being” and “value”. Religion makes experiences of the everyday transparent for both aspects of an ultimate reality und motivates to a life full of resonance with this reality. (shrink)

Contrary to common views that philosophy is extraneous to cognitive science, this paper argues that philosophy has a crucial role to play in cognitive science with respect to generality and normativity. General questions include the nature of theories and explanations, the role of computer simulation in cognitive theorizing, and the relations among the different fields of cognitive science. Normative questions include whether human thinking should be Bayesian, whether decision making should maximize expected utility, and how norms should be established. These (...) kinds of general and normative questions make philosophical reflection an important part of progress in cognitive science. Philosophy operates best, however, not with a priori reasoning or conceptual analysis, but rather with empirically informed reflection on a wide range of findings in cognitive science. (shrink)

Para la estética, la creatividad es la emergencia del instante que la vuelve irrepetible o un transitar pendular que la hace resurgir como reminiscencia cegada por un ocaso repetitivo. Haciendo coincidir proceso y teleología, Peirce aglutina estas dos dimensiones, sin atisbar realmente un atisbo de humanidad para disfrutar de lo ínfimo. De ahí que propongamos un momento oportuno que nos dirija hacia una temporalidad más humana.

Interpreters are divided on the question of whether the phrase ‘form of life’ is used univocally in Wittgenstein’s later writings. Some univocal interpreters suggest that, for Wittgenstein, ‘form of life’ captures a uniquely biological notion: the biologically human form of life. Others suggest that it captures a cultural notion: the notion of differently enculturated forms of human life. Non-univocal interpreters, in contrast, argue that Wittgenstein does not use ‘form of life’ univocally, but that he uses it sometimes to highlight a (...) cluster of biological notions and sometimes a cluster of cultural ones. The debate between univocal and non-univocal readers has generated a raft of intricate, illuminating literature on both sides. If it remains to an extent open, it is partly as a result of the fact that the textual evidence available on this matter, in Wittgenstein’s later published and unpublished writings, is so limited. In this paper, I argue that considering Wittgenstein’s earlier treatment of ‘form’ can help to shed light on his later treatment of ‘form of life’. More specifically I argue that revisiting the Tractatus ’ treatment of ‘form’ gives us – perhaps surprisingly – reasons to support a non-univocal later reading of ‘forms of life’. (shrink)

I defend a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's notion of religious attitude in the Tractatus , one that rejects three key views from the secondary literature: firstly, the view that, for Wittgenstein, the willing subject is a transcendental condition for the religious attitude; secondly, the view that the religious attitude is an emotive response to the world or something closely modelled on this notion of emotive response; and thirdly, the view that, although the religious and ethical pseudo-propositions of the Tractatus are (...) nonsensical, they nevertheless succeed in expressing the religious attitude endorsed by Wittgenstein. In connection to the first, I argue that the notion of willing subject as transcendental condition is abandoned by Wittgenstein in the Notebooks and is no longer a feature of his position in the Tractatus . In connection to the second, I argue that the religious attitude is dispositional rather than emotive for Wittgenstein: it is a disposition to use signs in a way that demonstrates one's conceptual clarity. Finally, in connection to the third, I argue that the religious or ethical attitude is strongly ineffable in that it cannot be described, expressed or conveyed by language at all. (shrink)

Meinertsen’s unifier is discussed on the background of Aristotle’s distinction between four kinds of unity. It argued that Meinertsen combines two different kinds of unity that exclude each other. Only Aristotle’s first meaning of unity seems to be relevant for Meinertsen’s unifier. But this meaning applies literally only to spatial complexes. Its application to states of affairs is problematic because they are mostly not spatial. It is also problematic because unity in the first sense requires an agent. Meinertsen’s unifiers are (...) connectors between particulars and universals in states of affairs. It is objected that connectors in a state of affairs lead to a vicious infinite regress of further states of affairs. Meinertsen argues for his unifiers that states of affairs without them are non-mereological, that is, their existence is not entailed by the existence of their constituents. That does not seem a good argument if it is realised that a complex is not an additional entity and thus not existent if the existence of its parts is sufficient for its existence. It is also pointed out that the meaning of “mereological” involved is not related to the classical mereological calculus. (shrink)

In this essay, I engage in ontological analysis beginning with questions like “What is a project?”, “What is a process?”, and “What is project failure?” In search of a basic ontology of projects, primarily critiquing and expanding on parts of Frame (2006), I propose a novel theory of projects as sets of propositions, contrast it with a current (albeit informal) theory of projects, and suggest that a project is best understood as a sort of propositional entity, a particular set of (...) statements that stand in logical relation to one another. I then go on to discuss the philosophical distinction between “projects” and “processes” and suggest that the most common reason for project failures (“scope creep”) arises from a specific and persistent logical error relative to the propositions which make up a project. Accounting for the ontology of the basic components of projects, logically speaking, makes those components more amenable to practical analysis, empowering the project manager to successfully navigate the often-difficult landscape of daily decision-making in their particular role. This exercise in not only an example of how philosophy (and metaphysics/ontology in particular) can inform managerial practices but how it might positively advance the intersection of philosophy and project management. (shrink)

Contemporary American medical ethics was born during a period of social ferment, a key theme of which was the espousal of individual rights. Driven by complex cultural forces united in the effort to protect individuality and self-determined choices, an extrapolation from case law to rights of patients was accomplished under the philosophical auspices of ‘autonomy’. Autonomy has a complex history; arising in the modern period as the idea of self-governance, it received its most ambitious philosophical elaboration in Kant's moral philosophy. (...) In examining the Kantian construction, it is evident that neither his universal moral imperative nor his rigorous application of self-legislated ethical action can sustain our own notions of moral agency in a pragmatic, pluralistic society. But the Kantian position is useful in highlighting that self-governance is not equivalent to ‘autonomy’, and this distinction defines the limits of autonomy in the clinical setting. A critique of Engelhardt's idea of ‘principle of permission’ is used to illustrate autonomy's eclipse as a governing principle for medical ethics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and analyze arguments provided for the Psychological Principle of Non-Contradiction which states that one cannot have, or cannot be described as having, contradictory beliefs. By differentiating two possible interpretations of PNC, descriptive and normative, and examining arguments provided for each of them separately I point out the flaws in reasoning in these arguments and difficulties with aligning PNC with the empirical data provided by research done in cognitive and clinical psychology. I claim (...) that PNC cannot be derived from any metaphysical stance regarding the mental phenomena and that having contradictory beliefs should be regarded as possible. Furthermore, I argue that interpreting a subject as having contradictory beliefs, and therefore abandoning PNC, can be more effective in explaining the phenomena of contradictory beliefs and irrational behaviour than solutions consistent with the PNC. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Average utilitarianism and several related axiologies, when paired with the standard expectational theory of decision-making under risk and with reasonable empirical credences, can find their practical prescriptions overwhelmingly determined by the minuscule probability that the agent assigns to solipsism—that is, to the hypothesis that there is only one welfare subject in the world, namely, herself. This either (i) constitutes a reductio of these axiologies, (ii) suggests that they require bespoke decision theories, or (iii) furnishes an unexpected argument for ethical (...) egoism. (shrink)

In this new book, Alessandra Tanesini demonstrates that feminist thought has a lot to offer to the study of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, and that -at the same time-that work can inspire feminist reflection in new directions. In Wittgenstein, Tanesini offers a highly original interpretation of several themes in Wittgenstein's philosophy. She argues that when we look at his work through feminist eyes we discover that he is not primarily concerned with providing solutions to technical problems in the philosophy of mind, (...) mathematics, and language. Instead, his remarks on these topics are intended to offer insights about human finitude, the loneliness of the modern autonomous self, and our relations to other human beings. Thus, the modern conception of the individual emerges as the critical target of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, both early and late. This conception has also been one of the dominant concerns of contemporary feminist philosophy. In this book, Wittgenstein's insights are deployed to further feminist debates on issues such as identity, difference, the masculine character of the modern self. (shrink)

A dualism characteristic of modern philosophy is the conception of the inner and the outer as two independently intelligible domains. Wittgenstein’s attack on this dualism contains deep insights. The main insight (excavated from §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations) is this: our sensory consciousness is deeply shaped by language and this shaping plays a fundamental role in the etiology of the dualism. I locate this role in the learning of a sensation-language (as described in §244), by showing that this (...) learning is, under another aspect, the incision of language, namely the infliction of cuts upon certain natural-primitive unities between the inner and the outer. These cuts, driven by powerful forces, eventually harden into an entrenched division between the inner and the outer, thereby providing a constant soil for the dualism. That this dualism is rooted in the very learning of a language is cause for ambivalence about language. (shrink)

Is it possible to speak about God in the context of contemporary science? The question of God, neglected in the philosophy of the twentieth century, emerges unexpectedly in contemporary science. However, the access to the notion of God through scientific rationality does not imply a demonstration of its existence, but rather a question on his significance within such context: there must be a space available for a discourse about the Logos which the scientific rationality can recognize. This space can be (...) instantiated in four semantic areas marked by: the incomplete nature of the formal language; the incomplete nature of the ontologically contingent physical reality; the rationality, order and intelligibility of the cosmos; the personalist-existential dimension of scientific activity. The question about meaning and the opening to the “ineffable” arise within the analysis of scientific knowledge because the method and tools of scientific work can be transcended without being contradicted. (shrink)

This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowell’s influential reading of Wittgenstein’s attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identifies a primary target of Wittgenstein’s attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two important but notoriously difficult (...) sections in the so-called Private Language Argument, namely §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, maximally charitably read, commits no overkill in these two sections. This correction strengthens McDowell’s overall reading, but it is only a first step toward fully bringing out the deep but obscurely expressed insights in §304 and §293, the full treatment of which must await another occasion. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s N-operator is a ‘primitive sign’ which shows every complex proposition is the result of the truth-functional combination of a finite number of component propositions, and thus provid...

In this paper, I explore how bio-hybrid forms can be created and combined starting from organic forms. The thesis put forward is epistemological: the combinatorial practice of bionics, biomimetics, biorobotics, and all design strategies inspired by nature is not based on a kind of biomimetic inspiration, i. e., on a kind of imitation of nature, but on a practice of translation. To develop this thesis, I focus on the practices of contemporary biorobotics, first examining the practice of translating natural forms (...) into technical artefacts as developed by Raoul Heinrich Francé at the beginning of the 20th century, secondly, analysing the production of robots capable of replicating complex locomotion systems and, finally, investigating the interaction between robots and living organisms (fish). In the last part of the paper, I reflect on the philosophical payoff and broader conditions of possibility for this translational practice. I discuss when and to what extent a translation of biological forms into biotechnical ones is acceptable and point out the notion of form that underlies this practice. Moreover, I draw attention to the need to philosophically investigate what happens between different domains of knowledge – and especially between science and technology. This article is thus an invitation to philosophers to develop a philosophy in the interstices of knowledge production. (shrink)

In the 1930s, Carnap set out to incorporate psychology into the unity of science, by showing that all cognitively meaningful sentences of psychology can be translated into the language of physics. I will argue that Carnap, relying on his notion of protocol languages, defends a physicalistic philosophy of psychology that shows due appreciation to 'introspection' as a strictly subjective, but reliable way to verify sentences about one’s own mind. Second, I will point out that Carnap’s philosophy of psychology not only (...) takes into account overt behaviour, but must comprise neurophysiological processes as well. Last, I will show that Carnap aims to develop a philosophy of psychology that does justice to the ongoing changeability of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

According to methodological anti-exceptionalism, logic follows a scientific methodology. There has been some discussion about which methodology logic has. Authors such as Priest, Hjortland and Williamson have argued that logic can be characterized by an abductive methodology. We choose the logical theory that behaves better under a set of epistemic criteria. In this paper, I analyze some important discussions in the philosophy of logic, and I show that they presuppose different methodologies, involving different notions of evidence and different epistemic values. (...) I argue that, rather than having a specific methodology such as abductivism, logic can be characterized by methodological pluralism. This position can also be seen as the application of scientific pluralism to the realm of logic. (shrink)

Gödel regarded the Dialectica interpretation as giving constructive content to intuitionism, which otherwise failed to meet reasonable conditions of constructivity. He founded his theory of primitive recursive functions, in which the interpretation is given, on the concept of computable function of finite type. I will (1) criticize this foundation, (2) propose a quite different one, and (3) note that essentially the latter foundation also underlies the Curry-Howard type theory, and hence Heyting's intuitionistic conception of logic. Thus the Dialectica interpretation (in (...) so far as its aim was to give constructive content to intuitionism) is superfluous. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Despite all fundamental divergences, the similarities formed between some interpretations of the later-Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion and the tradition of Islamic Mysticism, can yet be philosophically recognized. These basic analogies are as follows: 1) The inextricability of belief and practice and the priority of practice over knowledge 2) The characterization of the core religious beliefs as the primal ground of man’s perception and understanding, in contrast to the view that considers fundamental religious beliefs as theoretical conclusions derived from purely (...) rational courses of reflection 3) A new practice-laden narrative of religious realism. Given that, one can even shed a new Wittgensteinian light on even the most abstract and metaphysical elements of the mystical worldview. If fundamental religious beliefs are interpreted not as metaphysical doctrines but as a set of descriptions arising from a specific form of practical life, then the ability to see a sort of transcendent and sacred unity in the whole universe will be based on a way of purposive engagement and wayfaring in the natural and social world. (shrink)

Paolo Bozzi developed his «experimental phenomenology» from the Gestalt psychology tradition, particularly from Gaetano Kanizsa’s method. The distinction between «phenomenal description» and «causal explanation» of the «perception» springs up from the analysis of Bozzi’s «S-D psychophysical scheme». What Frege, who was well-known by Bozzi, deals with in paragraph 71 of The Thought theoretically mirrors what is outlined in the Scheme and could also be intended as its source. The juxtaposition between a «science of observable things» or «experimental phenomenology» – conceived (...) as a science which is autonomous from what happens in the brain – and logics, which is set up autonomously from the thinking processes, is a programmatic element that is openly indicated by the author. Frege’s anti-psychologism and realism are both widely shared by Bozzi. The realism and the «naïve physics» Bozzi was a pioneer of lie at the basis of the so-called «New Realism». The following essay aims to localize and highlight some theoretical implications – up to their phenomenological origins – which can be detected particularly in paragraph 71 of The Thought. The present work tries to sketch out the boundaries and the autonomy of the «first person» perceptive experience and to define the scientific explanation that we can give of it. The distinction between science and experience, and the autonomy of experience from science and of the immediate experience of the content of consciousness from neuroscience, entail the impossibility of a naturalization of the phenomenological experience. In the examples taken from Frege can be found a theoretical bridge which connects the Gestalt perceptological tradition, Wittgenstein’s investigations of the philosophy of psychology, and the so called «New Realism». (shrink)

The two different layers of logical theory—epistemological and ontological—are considered and explained. Special attention is given to epistemic assumptions of the kind that a judgement is granted as known, and their role in validating rules of inference, namely to aid the inferential preservation of epistemic matters from premise judgements to conclusion judgement, while ordinary Natural Deduction assumptions serve to establish the holding of consequence from antecedent propositions to succedent proposition.

Inference versus consequence , an invited lecture at the LOGICA 1997 conference at Castle Liblice, was part of a series of articles for which I did research during a Stockholm sabbatical in the autumn of 1995. The article seems to have been fairly effective in getting its point across and addresses a topic highly germane to the Uppsala workshop. Owing to its appearance in the LOGICA Yearbook 1997 , Filosofia Publishers, Prague, 1998, it has been rather inaccessible. Accordingly it is (...) republished here with only bibliographical changes and an afterword. (shrink)

In the present paper I wish to regard constructivelogic as a self-contained system for the treatment ofepistemological issues; the explanations of theconstructivist logical notions are cast in anepistemological mold already from the outset. Thediscussion offered here intends to make explicit thisimplicit epistemic character of constructivism.Particular attention will be given to the intendedinterpretation laid down by Heyting. This interpretation, especially as refined in the type-theoretical work of Per Martin-Löf, puts thesystem on par with the early efforts of Frege andWhitehead-Russell. This quite (...) recent work, however,has proved valuable not only in the philosophy andfoundations of mathematics, but has also foundpractical application in computer science, where thelanguage of constructivism serves as an implementableprogramming language, and within the philosophy oflanguage.\footnote{Nordstr\"{o}m et al. give an overview of the work in computerscience, whereas Ranta provides an impressiveconstructivist alternative to Montague Grammar usingthe richer type structure of Martin-L\"{o}f in placeof the simple classical type theory of Church.} Mypresentation will be carried out through a contrastwith standard metamathematical work.\footnote{Troelstra and van Dalen give an encyclopedictreatment of the metamathematics of constructivism.}In the course of the development I have occasion tooffer some novel considerations on thenature of proof and inference. (shrink)

That Wittgenstein in the Tractatus likens logic to geometry has been noticed; however, the extent and force of the analogy he develops between logical form and a broadly Kantian account of geometry has not been sufficiently appreciated. In this paper, I trace Wittgenstein's analogy in detail by looking closely at the relevant texts. I then suggest that we regard the fact that Wittgenstein develops his account of logical form by analogy with a Kantian account of geometry as evidence for the (...) bold thesis that Wittgenstein belongs within a Kantian epistemological tradition. Finally, I supply two small pieces of the interpretive puzzle needed to support the larger thesis: first, evidence that Wittgenstein's concern with logical form involves a crucial epistemological component; second, a sketch of how Wittgenstein's account of logical and mathematical knowledge can be viewed as continuing a Kantian tradition. (shrink)

What I will call “the deviant logician objection” [DLO] is one line of attack against the common and compelling tenet that our justification for logical truths is grounded in our understanding of their constituent concepts. This objection seeks to undermine the possibility of any deep constitutive connection, in the epistemology of logic, between understanding and justification. I will consider varieties of the deviant logician objection developed by Horwich and by Williamson. My thesis is that while the deviant logician objection falls (...) short of proving that this traditional tenet must be rejected, nonetheless it serves to bolster some important refinements. (shrink)

In recent work on a priori justification, one thing about which there is considerable agreement is that the notion of truth in virtue of meaning is bankrupt and infertile. (For the sake of more readable prose, I will use ‘TVM’ as an abbreviation for ‘the notion of truth in virtue of meaning’.) Arguments against the worth of TVM can be found across the entire spectrum of views on the a priori, in the work of uncompromising rationalists (such as BonJour (1998)), (...) of centrist moderates (such as Boghossian (1997)), and of uncompromising empiricists (such as Devitt (2004)). My aim is to dispute this widespread opinion. The outline is as follows: First, §§2-3 consist of preliminary stage-setting. Then, in §4 I will argue that some of the most prevalent arguments against the worth of TVM – in particular, one which is given clear expression by Quine (1970), and is recently reinforced by Boghossian (1997) – do not engage with the core idea motivating TVM. After deflecting this charge of incoherence, the aim of §§5-8 is to work toward developing a useful conception of TVM. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Universals: The Metaphysical Origins of Analytic Philosophy, by MacBrideFraser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 263.

The paper is concerned with the idea that the world is the totality of facts, not of things – with what is involved in thinking of the world in that way, and why one might do so. It approaches this issue through a comparison between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the identity theory of truth proposed by Hornsby and McDowell.The paper’s positive conclusion is that there is a genuine affinity between these two. A negative contention is that the modern identity theory is (...) vulnerable to a complaint of idealism that the Tractatus can deflect. (shrink)

Crispin Wright and Bob Hale have defended the strategy of defining the natural numbers contextually against the objection which led Frege himself to reject it, namely the so-called ‘Julius Caesar problem’. To do this they have formulated principles (called sortal inclusion principles) designed to ensure that numbers are distinct from any objects, such as persons, a proper grasp of which could not be afforded by the contextual definition. We discuss whether either Hale or Wright has provided independent motivation for a (...) defensible version of the sortal inclusion principle and whether they have succeeded in showing that numbers are just what the contextual definition says they are. (shrink)

In a recent book, Robert Trueman develops a version of the identity theory of truth, the theory that true propositions are not in some kind of correspondence with, but are rather identical with, facts. He claims that this theory ‘collapses the gap between mind and world’. Whether it does so will obviously depend on how the theory is to be understood, which in turn depends on the argumentative route to it. Trueman’s route is clear, rigorous, and free of extravagant assumptions. (...) Perhaps because of those merits it seems obvious that it falls short of the claim he makes for it. But there are difficult questions about the nature of the shortfall and about what in the character of Trueman’s philosophical approach prevents him from appreciating it. The paper explores those questions through a comparison with Moore’s ‘original’ identity theory and the Idealist philosophy he directed it against. (shrink)