In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

According to Arti Dhand, it can be argued that all Indian ethics have been primarily virtue ethics. Many have indeed jumped on the virtue bandwagon, providing prima facie interpretations of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist canons in virtue terms. Others have expressed firm skepticism, claiming that virtues are not proven to be grounded in the nature of things and that, ultimately, the appeal to virtue might just well be a mere façon de parler. In this paper, we aim to advance the (...) discussion of Indian virtue ethics. Our intent is not to provide a catch-all interpretation of the different Indian schools. Our goal is, more modestly, to offer a theory of virtues in Indian philosophies, as a framework for theorists and interpreters who see these diverse traditions as amenable to systematic virtue analysis. Our theory grounds virtues in the reality of genuine moral dispositions and in a system of beliefs where morality is understood as transformative in nature. (shrink)

Causal Dispositionalism provides an account of causation based on an ontology of causal powers, properties with causal essence. According to the account, causation can be analysed in terms of the interaction of powers and its subsequent production of their effect. Recently, Baltimore, J. A. has raised a challenge against two competing approaches, the compositional view and the mutual manifestation view, to explain what makes powers interactive – the interaction gap. In this paper, we raise the challenge of explaining what makes (...) powers productive – the production gap. While Baltimore’s verdict is tentatively favouring, we find both approaches wanting. Our conclusion is that Causal Dispositionalists should take Baltimore’s and our critique seriously. Powers cannot cause their effects just by bearing the name “causal”. To deserve their names, more metaphysical details are needed. (shrink)

Armstrong famously argued in favour of introducing totality facts in our ontology. Contrary to fully negative (absence) facts, totality facts yield a theory of “moderate” or “partial” negativity, which allegedly provides an elegant solution to the truthmaking problem of negative claims and, at the same time, avoids postulating (many) first-order absences. Friends of totality facts argue that partial negativity is (i) tolerable vis-à-vis the Eleatic principle qua mark of the real, and (ii) achieves a significant advantage in terms of ontological (...) parsimony. But are totality facts, which are partially negative, really more ontologically acceptable than fully negative facts? In this paper, we argue that, comparatively, the case for totality facts is weaker than commonly assumed and that, ultimately, the answer is negative. (shrink)

In this thesis, I offer a study of a metaphysical theory that has acquired popularity in recent years: Dispositionalism. Dispositionalism is first and foremost an actualist, property-based theory of modality. The ontology of dispositionalism postulates, primus inter pares, that there are properties with a modal nature. Dispositionalists call these properties powers, mostly because of the role they play in doing what the argument says they should do: explaining natural modalities, i.e. first-order physical regularities. Albeit the view has increased in popularity (...) in recent years, not much attention has been dedicated to investigating which theory of properties best fits the requirements from the metaphysics. The present thesis aims​ to remedy this. (shrink)

Who wouldn’t want to hear it said of their new book, ‘nothing would improve this’? Stephen Mumford wouldn’t! His Absence & Nothing: The Philosophy of What T.

As Price (2009) famously mused, if a philosopher were to be magically transported, perhaps through means of time travel, from the 1950s to the modern day, they would indeed be shocked by the resurgence of metaphysics in the analytic tradition. Most of all, perhaps, they would be shocked by the popularity of power metaphysics. What a strange item to have in a philosopher’s curriculum, they might think: after all, didn’t David Hume claim that “[t]here are no ideas which can occur (...) in metaphysics more obscure and uncertain than those of power, force, energy, or necessary connection”? Indeed, much has changed since then. At the pain of using overly vague terminology, we can call “power metaphysics” the subdiscipline of metaphysics interested in the development and evaluation of a family of positions which we will refer to under the umbrella term of “dispositionalism”. According to dispositionalists, the world we inhabit is also populated by genuine and irreducible powers, dispositions, and capacities of objects. (shrink)

Brentano’s suggestion that intentionality is the mark of the mental is typically spelled out in terms of the thesis that all and only mental states are intentional. An influential objection is that intentionality is not necessary for mentality. What about the idea that only mental states are intentional? In his 2008 paper published in Analysis, Nes shows that on a popular characterization of intentionality, notably defended by Crane, some non-mental states come out as intentional. Crane replies that the concept of (...) representation solves the problem. In this paper, I argue that no representational account of intentionality meets Nes’s challenge. After distinguishing between two notions of representation, I contend that there are two versions of Crane’s representational account, but neither of them is able to solve the problem posed by Nes. (shrink)

According to Millianism about proper names, what a proper name semantically contributes to the sentence in which it figures is simply its referent; therefore, co-referring proper names are intercheangable salva veritate and salva significatione. In their 2019 paper published in Topoi, Felappi and Santambrogio formulate a thought-provoking argument against Millianism. Their argument aims at establishing that our normal practice of translation shows that Millianism cannot be correct. I argue that Millians can successfully reply. I will address in turn two versions (...) of Felappi and Santambrogio’s argument, focusing especially on the second one, which apparently raises a more challenging problem for Millianism. Finally, I will consider two objections against my own strategy, and I will reply to them. (shrink)

According to the quotational theory of meaning ascriptions, sentences like “‘Bruder means brother” are abbreviated synonymy claims, such as “‘Bruder means the same as ‘brother’”. After discussing a problem with Harman’s version of the quotational theory, I present an amended version defended by Field. Then, I address Field’s responses to two arguments against the theory that revolve around translation and the understanding of foreign expressions. Afterwards, I formulate two original arguments against both Harman’s and Field’s versions of the theory. One (...) of them targets the hyperintensionality of quotations and the other raises a problem pertaining to variant spellings of words. (shrink)

Una tesi che è stata ultimamente discussa dai filosofi analitici del linguaggio è la tesi della normatività del significato linguistico (TNS). Secondo TNS, i significati delle espressioni delle lingue naturali hanno una componente normativa: essi fissano uno standard di correttezza per l’applicazione o l’uso (da parte dei parlanti) delle espressioni stesse e, in conseguenza di ciò, impegnano i parlanti a determinati obblighi semantici nell’applicazione o nell’uso delle espressioni. In questo articolo, ricostruisco e difendo alcune riflessioni di Wilfrid Sellars a favore (...) di questa tesi. In particolare, mi concentro sulle riflessioni contenute in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956) e sviluppate in “Language as Thought and as Communication” (1969) e “Meaning as Functional Classification. A Perspective on the Relation of Syntax to Semantics” (1974). La struttura dell’articolo è la seguente. Nella prima sezione, presento TNS nella sua versione più generale. Nella seconda sezione, mostro alcuni casi di enunciati descrittivi che sono in grado di trasmettere, in determinati contesti di proferimento, una forza normativa: sostengo che un fenomeno simile sia caratteristico anche degli enunciati semantici – enunciati della forma “L’espressione linguistica e significa M”. Questo è il cuore della versione di TNS che vado a discutere. Nella terza, quarta e quinta sezione, discuto l’analisi di Sellars degli enunciati semantici. La conclusione della sua analisi è che un enunciato semantico predica l’identità dei ruoli funzionali di due parole. Mostro come Sellars arrivi a questa analisi, dedicando ampio spazio alla critica ad un’analisi alternativa, secondo la quale gli enunciati semantici sono enunciati descrittivi che predicano una relazione di associazione tra un’espressione linguistica e un oggetto o proprietà. Mi soffermo sulle ragioni teoriche che giustificano il rifiuto di Sellars di questa analisi, concentrandomi su alcune tematiche classiche del progetto epistemologico sellarsiano. Nella sesta sezione, dopo aver argomentato che la nozione di pragmema proposta da Capone (2005, 2018) può aiutare a comprendere e ampliare la nozione sellarsiana di ruolo funzionale, mostro come tale analisi possa essere sfruttata per sostenere che gli enunciati semantici sono enunciati metalinguistici che hanno delle conseguenze normative sui comportamenti linguistici dei parlanti. Accenno infine al dibattito contemporaneo e alla formulazione di un argomento oggi discusso a favore di TNS, a partire da una rivisitazione della nozione di ruolo funzionale. (shrink)