This paper is an account of the conference titled Kanade, di goldene medine? Perspectives on Canadian-Jewish Literature and Culture / Perspectives sur la littérature et la culture juives canadiennes, which took place in Łódź in April, 2014 as a result of collaboration between the University of Łódź and Concordia University. As a venue for discussing Canadian Jewish identity and its links with Poland, the conference supported a dialogue between Canadians, Polish Canadianists, and European scholars from further afield. Established and young (...) scholars attended from Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Canada, in addition to many Polish participants. The presence of scholars such as Goldie Morgentaler or Sherry Simon as well as curator Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett contributed to an examination of both past and present Canadian and Polish Jewish life and led to an examination of Polish and Canadian literature and history from a highly personal perspective. Conference-goers took advantage of the opportunity to get to know Łódź, via walking tours and a visit to the Łódź Jewish community’s Lauder-funded centre on Narutowicza. The paper aims, as well, to investigate how the history of Jewish Łódź is conveyed in the novels of Joseph Roth and Chava Rosenfarb. (shrink)

This volume explores two traditions in practical philosophy: action theory, which concerns the nature of motivation for human action, and praxiology, the study of human action. By bringing different perspectives together, the volume strives to contribute to the international debate on theories of reasons for action as a philosophy of action. The volume consists of three main parts. The first part, “Reasons for Action," bridges the gap between reasons for action theories and praxiology. The second part of the volume, titled (...) “Theories of Action," explores philosophical approaches to action. Finally, in the third part, “Applications," the contributors show several ways of applying praxiological ways of thinking and acting to the problems of reflection assessment, solving action incompleteness, and knowledge management. The ultimate goal of this volume is to broaden the scientific view of action: to establish a perspective on action that is permeated by moral theories on the one hand, and accounts focused on efficiency and economy of action on the other hand. (shrink)

As part of a European Erasmus Plus project entitled Death Education for Palliative Psychology, this study assessed the ways in which Master’s Degree students in psychology and the creative arts therapies self-rated their confidence and interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care. In five countries (Austria, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania), 344 students completed an online questionnaire, and 37 students were interviewed to better understand their views, interest, and confidence. The results revealed some significant differences between countries, and showed (...) that older respondents with previous experience as formal caregivers for end-of-life clients showed greater interest in obtaining practical clinical competence in these fields. A mediation analysis indicated that students’ previous care experiences and past loss experiences were related to students’ current interest in death education and palliative and bereavement care through the mediation of their sense of confidence in this field. The qualitative findings identified five shared themes: life and death, learning about death, the psychological burden, personal experience and robust training, and four key training needs. Overall, students’ interest in studying and working with terminal illness and death are rooted in internal resources, a preliminary sense of confidence, but also external requirements. (shrink)

This article examines the use of mathematical concepts in philosophy, focusing on topology, which may be viewed as a modern supplement to geometry. We show that Plato and Parmenides were already employing geometric ideas in their research, and discuss three examples of the application of topology to philosophical problems: the first concerns the analysis of the Cartesian distinction between res extensa and res cogitans, the second the ontology of possible worlds of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and the third Leibniz's monadology. We also (...) consider the role of topology in mathematical explanations of the sort found in science, arguing that it can perform a role in philosophy that is of comparable importance. (shrink)

We give examples of (i) a simple theory with a formula (with parameters) which does not fork over [Formula: see text] but has [Formula: see text]-measure 0 for every automorphism invariant Keisler measure [Formula: see text] and (ii) a definable group [Formula: see text] in a simple theory such that [Formula: see text] is not definably amenable, i.e. there is no translation invariant Keisler measure on [Formula: see text]. We also discuss paradoxical decompositions both in the setting of discrete groups (...) and of definable groups, and prove some positive results about small theories, including the definable amenability of definable groups. (shrink)

The introspective devices framework proposed by Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) offers an attractive conceptual tool for evaluating and developing accounts of introspection. However, the framework assumes that different views about the nature of introspection can be easily evaluated against a set of common criteria. In this paper, I set out to test this assumption by analysing two formal models of introspection using the introspective device framework. The question I aim to answer is not only whether models developed outside of (...) philosophy can be successfully evaluated against the set of conceptual criteria proposed by Kammerer and Frankish, but also whether this kind of evaluation can reveal some limitations inherent to the framework. (shrink)

Hobson & Friston (2014) outline a synthesis of Hobson's work on dreaming and consciousness with Friston’s work on the free energy principle and predictive coding. Whilst we are sympathetic with their claims about the function of dreaming and its relationship to consciousness, we argue that their endorsement of the Cartesian theatre metaphor is neither necessary nor desirable. Furthermore, if it were necessary then this endorsement would undermine their positive claims, as the Cartesian theatre metaphor is widely regarded as unsustainable. We (...) demonstrate this point and then develop an alternative formulation of their position that does not require the Cartesian theatre metaphor. Our positive goal is to clarify Hobson & Friston’s confusing usage of philosophical terminology, replacing it where possible with the more transparent language of the forward models framework. This will require some modifications to their account, which as it stands is philosophically and empirically unsustainable. (shrink)

The cross-cultural differences in epistemic intuitions reported by Weinberg, Nichols and Stich (2001; hereafter: WNS) laid the ground for the negative program of experimental philosophy. However, most of WNS’s findings were not corroborated in further studies. The exception here is the study concerning purported differences between Westerners and Indians in knowledge ascriptions concerning the Zebra Case, which was never properly replicated. Our study replicates the above-mentioned experiment on a considerably larger sample of Westerners (n = 211) and Indians (n = (...) 204). The analysis found a significant difference between the ethnic groups in question in the predicted direction: Indians were more likely to attribute knowledge in the Zebra Case than Westerners. In this paper, we offer an explanation of our result that takes into account the fact that replications of WNS’s other experiments did not find any cross-cultural differences. We argue that the Zebra Case is unique among the vignettes tested by WNS since it should not be regarded as a Gettier case but rather as a scenario exhibiting skeptical pressure concerning the reliability of sense-perception. We argue that skepticism towards perception as a means of gaining knowledge is a trope that is deeply rooted in Western epistemology but is very much absent from Classical Indian philosophical inquiry. This line of reasoning is based on a thorough examination of the skeptical scenarios discussed by philosophers of the Indian Nyaya tradition and their adversaries. (shrink)

Porter and Kramer :78–92, 2006; Harv Bus Rev 89, 62–77, 2011) introduced ‘shared value’ as a ‘new conception of capitalism,’ claiming it is a powerful driver of economic growth and reconciliation between business and society. The idea has generated strong interest in business and academia; however, its theoretical precepts have not been rigorously assessed. In this paper, we provide a systematic and thorough analysis of shared value, focusing on its ontological and epistemological properties. Our review highlights that ‘shared value’ has (...) spread into the language of multiple disciplines, but that its current conceptualization is vague, and it presents important discrepancies in the way it is defined and operationalized, such that it is more of a buzzword than a substantive concept. It also overlaps with many other concepts and lacks empirical grounding. We offer recommendations for defining and measuring the concept, take a step toward disentangling it from related concepts, and identify relevant theories and research methods that would facilitate extending the knowledge frontier on shared value. (shrink)

The proposal that probabilistic inference and unconscious hypothesis testing are central to information processing in the brain has been steadily gaining ground in cognitive neuroscience and associated fields. One popular version of this proposal is the new theoretical framework of predictive processing or prediction error minimization, which couples unconscious hypothesis testing with the idea of ‘active inference’ and claims to offer a unified account of perception and action. Here we will consider one outstanding issue that still looms large at the (...) core of the PEM framework: the lack of a clear criterion for distinguishing conscious states from unconscious ones. In order to fulfill the promise of becoming a unifying framework for describing and modeling cognition, PEM needs to be able to differentiate between conscious and unconscious mental states or processes. We will argue that one currently popular view, that the contents of conscious experience are determined by the ‘winning hypothesis’, falls short of fully accounting for conscious experience. It ignores the possibility that some states of a system can control that system’s behavior even though they are apparently not conscious. What follows from this is that the ‘winning hypothesis’ view does not provide a complete account of the difference between conscious and unconscious states in the probabilistic brain. We show how this problem for the received view can be resolved by augmenting PEM with Daniel Dennett’s multiple drafts model of consciousness. This move is warranted by the similar roles that attention and internal competition play in both the PEM framework and the multiple drafts model. (shrink)

According to a prevailing view, conceptual engineering introduces a revolutionary philosophical methodology, challenging traditional conceptual analysis. However, in our paper, we argue that closer scrutiny reveals not only the falsity but also the inherent ambiguity of this narrative. We explore four interpretations of the "Anti-Novelty Claim", the claim that conceptual engineering is not a new way of doing philosophy. Discussing the Anti-Novelty Claim from the perspective of a text’s producer, the text’s consumers, and the exegetical potential of the text, we (...) examine each perspective’s metaphilosophical implications and demonstrate that taking each perspective requires different methods. Adopting these different methods, we argue that the different interpretations of the Anti-Novelty Claim range from nearly trivially true to unlikely but untested. Importantly, we emphasize that each interpretation offers unique philosophical insights, yet addressing them requires diverse types of evidence, preventing a singular, straightforward answer to whether conceptual engineering is new. (shrink)

Sixteen years ago, Prahalad and Hart introduced the possibility of both profitably serving the poor and alleviating poverty. This first iteration of the Bottom/Base of the Pyramid approach focused on selling to the poor. In 2008, after ethical criticisms leveled at it, the field moved to BoP 2.0, instead emphasizing business co-venturing. Since 2015, we have witnessed some calls for a new iteration, with the focus broadening to a more sustainable development approach to poverty alleviation. In this paper, we seek (...) to answer the question: How has the BoP approach evolved over the past 16 years, and has it delivered on its early promise? We conducted a systematic review of 276 papers published in journals in this period, utilizing a rigorous correspondence analysis method to map key trends, and then further examined the 22 empirical studies conducted on the BoP approach. Our results suggest that the field has evolved, passing through a number of trends and coming full circle—with our analysis pointing to more recent BoP literature emphasizing similar themes to those espoused in the initial BoP iteration, rather than reflecting the principles espoused in either BoP 2.0 or BoP 3.0. Our analysis also points to a lack of clear evidence that the BoP concept has delivered on its promise either to businesses or to BoP participants. (shrink)

This article examines the question: How do local organizations deal with competing temporal dynamics when building and implementing base/bottom of the pyramid initiatives? Time has been neglected in the BoP literature to date, yet, addressing poverty in a developing country requires a complex perspective of time. An analysis of 21 semi-structured interviews with locally based organizations implementing BoP initiatives in the Philippines revealed that the organizations had an ambitemporal perspective. In particular, we discover that they harmonize multiple temporal pacers by (...) making strategic decisions about the best mechanism of entrainment to utilize to move their community and any stakeholders to a long-term temporal horizon. We find that organizations manage this process by generating what we term a “third time” via a process of push-and-pull entrainment between the communities, the business, and the different temporal pacers. This article develops a conceptual framework for helping organizations to harmonize competing temporal dynamics to generate a bespoke “third time” for each community they work with. (shrink)

Let [Formula: see text] be a monster model of an arbitrary theory [Formula: see text], let [Formula: see text] be any tuple of bounded length of elements of [Formula: see text], and let [Formula: see text] be an enumeration of all elements of [Formula: see text]. By [Formula: see text] we denote the compact space of all complete types over [Formula: see text] extending [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] is defined analogously. Then [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see (...) text] are naturally [Formula: see text]-flows. We show that the Ellis groups of both these flows are of bounded size, providing an explicit bound on this size. Next, we prove that these Ellis groups do not depend on the choice of the monster model [Formula: see text]; thus, we say that these Ellis groups are absolute. We also study minimal left ideals of the Ellis semigroups of the flows [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. We give an example of a NIP theory in which the minimal left ideals are of unbounded size. Then we show that in each of these two cases, boundedness of a minimal left ideal is an absolute property and that whenever such an ideal is bounded, then in some sense its isomorphism type is also absolute. Under the assumption that [Formula: see text] has NIP, we give characterizations of when a minimal left ideal of the Ellis semigroup of [Formula: see text] is bounded. Then we adapt the proof of Theorem 5.7 in Definably amenable NIP groups, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 31 609–641 to show that whenever such an ideal is bounded, a certain natural epimorphism 863–932]) from the Ellis group of the flow [Formula: see text] to the Kim–Pillay Galois group [Formula: see text] is an isomorphism. We also obtain some variants of these results, formulate some questions, and explain differences which occur when the flow [Formula: see text] is replaced by [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

"Working from newly available texts in Heidegger's Complete Works, Krzysztof Ziarek presents Heidegger at his most radical and demonstrates how the thinker's daring use of language is an integral part of his philosophical expression. Ziarek emphasizes the liberating potential of language as an event that discloses being and amplifies Heidegger's call for a transformative approach to poetry, power, and ultimately, philosophy."--Publisher's website.

Index and icon, metaphor and metonym in music – In this paper, it is argued that the widespread attempts to use notions taken from semiotics, linguistics or literary theory – such as symbol, index, iconic sign, metaphor and metonym – to analyze the meanings of music are most often misguided. Index in particular – contrary to popular belief – does not occur in music. Of all the notions considered here – metaphor and metonym, index and icon – only the last (...) may be applied to music in any essential way. That does not mean, however, that all musical meanings are so uniform in character. On the contrary: they are highly diverse, but notions mechanically imported from other fields are not suited to describing that diversity. The paper concludes with the suggestion that in order to produce such a description, one must endeavour to construct specifically musical distinctions and categorizations of meanings. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman (1906–1998) is one of the leading American philosophers of the twentieth century. His well-known book Languages of Art is considered a major contribution to analytical aesthetics. While his views on particular issues have often been criticized, on the whole, he is considered to be a leading figure in twentieth-century aesthetics. Contrary to such a stance, I intend to argue that Goodman’s overall contribution to aesthetics is not as outstanding and valuable as is often maintained. Rather, I will try (...) to show that his aesthetic views are grounded on a distorted representation of the earlier aesthetic tradition, without which they lose the novelty and originality ascribed to them. Once that representation is corrected, some of Goodman’s proposals turn out to be derivative and redundant. Additionally, where they do actually diverge from the earlier tradition and might stake a claim to originality, they turn out to be simply erroneous and misconceived, and sometimes even logically flawed. To conclude, Goodman’s lofty reputation as an aesthetician certainly requires major revision. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of infodemics during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the propagation of false or inaccurate information proliferating worldwide throughout the SARS-CoV-2 health crisis. We provide an overview of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation and discuss the notion of “fake news”, and highlight the threats these phenomena bear for health policies and national and international security. We discuss the mis-/disinformation as a significant challenge to the public health, intelligence, and policymaking communities and highlight the necessity to design measures (...) enabling the prevention, interdiction, and mitigation of such threats. We then present an overview of selected opportunities for applying technology to study and combat disinformation, outlining several approaches currently being used to understand, describe, and model the phenomena of misinformation and disinformation. We focus specifically on complex networks, machine learning, data- and text-mining methods in misinformation detection, sentiment analysis, and agent-based models of misinformation spreading and the detection of misinformation sources in the network. We conclude with the set of recommendations supporting the World Health Organization’s initiative on infodemiology. We support the implementation of integrated preventive procedures and internationalization of infodemic management. We also endorse the application of the cross-disciplinary methodology of Crime Science discipline, supplemented by Big Data analysis and related information technologies to prevent, disrupt, and detect mis- and disinformation efficiently. (shrink)

The Flame of Eternity provides a reexamination and new interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy and the central role that the concepts of eternity and time, as he understood them, played in it. According to Krzysztof Michalski, Nietzsche's reflections on human life are inextricably linked to time, which in turn cannot be conceived of without eternity. Eternity is a measure of time, but also, Michalski argues, something Nietzsche viewed first and foremost as a physiological concept having to do with the body. (...) The body ages and decays, involving us in a confrontation with our eventual death. It is in relation to this brute fact that we come to understand eternity and the finitude of time. Nietzsche argues that humanity has long regarded the impermanence of our life as an illness in need of curing. It is this "pathology" that Nietzsche called nihilism. Arguing that this insight lies at the core of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole, Michalski seeks to explain and reinterpret Nietzsche's thought in light of it. Michalski maintains that many of Nietzsche's main ideas--including his views on love, morality (beyond good and evil), the will to power, overcoming, the suprahuman (or the overman, as it is infamously referred to), the Death of God, and the myth of the eternal return--take on new meaning and significance when viewed through the prism of eternity. (shrink)

Based on a small research project conducted in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in July - August 2017, the paper discusses places and practices of young heterosexual Malaysian Muslims dating in KL. In Malaysia, the law (Khalwat law) does not allow for two unrelated people (where at least one of them is Muslim) of opposite sexes to be within ‘suspicious proximity’ of one another in public. This law significantly influences behaviours and activities in urban spaces in KL. However, apart from the legal (...) framework, the faith of urban users seems to influence significantly the way they perceive space and how they behave in the city. The paper questions the analytical usefulness of the notion of public space (as the Western construct) in an attempt to formulate new intellectual coordinates to discuss urban space in a context of the Islamic, post-colonial, tropical, and global city. The ultimate aim of this paper is to start discussing how religious imagination and narratives could lead to formulating a new typology of urban spaces. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to explain economic dualism in the history of modern Europe. The emergence of the manorial-serf economy in the Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary in the 16th and the 17th centuries was the result of a cumulative impact of various circumstantial factors. The weakness of cities in Central Europe disturbed the social balance – so characteristic for Western-European societies – between burghers and the nobility. The political dominance of the nobility hampered the development of cities and (...) limited the influence of burghers, paving the way to the rise of serfdom and manorial farms. These processes were accompanied by increased demand for agricultural products in Western Europe. (shrink)

Author: Rogucki Krzysztof Title: PERFORMATIVES IN PHILOSOPHY LANGUAGE OF EUGENIUSZ GRODZIŃSKI (Wypowiedzi performatywne w filozofii języka Eugeniusza Grodzińskiego) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2010, vol:.10, number: 2010/1, pages: 123-137 Keywords: JOHN L. AUSTIN, EUGENIUSZ GRODZIŃSKI, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGAUAGE, PERFORMATIVES Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The article is focused on the works of Eugeniusz Grodziński that concern performatives. The problem is if Austin’s theory of illocution is continuation of his theory of performatives (...) or to a degree contradicts it. Grodziński took the second. He claimed that the first theory is logically independent from the second and that it is possible to distinguish utterances that are informative (reporting, descriptive) from these that are performatives. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue against the claim that the term “belief”, as it functions in philosophical psychology, has natural-kind term semantics; this thesis is central to the famous Lycan–Stich argument against eliminative materialism. I will argue that the current debate concerning the discrepancy between the professed opinions and actions, especially the debate concerning the idea of aliefs, shows that the concept of belief is plastic and amenable to conceptual engineering. The plasticity and amenability to conceptual engineering (...) of the concept of belief give us, in turn, a reason to doubt that “belief” functions in a way that is presupposed in the Lycan–Stich argument. Finally, I point to an alternative to both eliminativism and the natural kind view, namely the idea that we should treat belief as a human kind. (shrink)

This article discusses places and practices of young heterosexual Malaysian Muslims dating in non-private urban spaces. It is based on research conducted in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in two consecutive summers 2016 and 2017. Malaysian law (Khalwat law) does not allow for two unrelated people (where at least one of them is Muslim) of opposite sexes to be within ‘suspicious proximity’ of one another in public. This law significantly influences behaviors and activities in urban spaces in KL. In addition to the (...) legal framework, the beliefs of Malaysian muslims significantly influence the way they perceive space and how they behave in the city. The article discusses the empirical theme, beginning with the participants’ narratives of their engagement with the dominant sexual and gender order in non-private spaces of KL. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews and observations, this paper draws upon a qualitative research project and questions the analytical usefulness of the notion of public space (as a Western construct) in the context of an Islamic, postcolonial, tropical, global city. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Curry’s recent defence of the interpretivist approach to beliefs is unsuccessful. Curry tries to argue that his version of interpretivism, which is based on the model-theoretic approach to folk-psychological attributions, is well-suited to resisting the epistemological argument that is directed at interpretivism. In this paper, I argue that even if Curry’s defence is successful in this case, his theory does not have enough resources to solve the metaphysical problems of interpretivism. In (...) particular, I argue that the model-theoretic version of interpretivism that Curry espouses does not explain the claim that beliefs are constituted by the process of attribution, which is central to the interpretivist project. In the final parts of the paper, I discuss the issue of the relation between interpretivism and other forms of the broadly superficial/deflationary approach to beliefs, especially dispositionalism. I contend that if one wants to adopt a superficial/deflationary approach, it is best not to adopt interpretivism as it is an unnecessarily complex and problematic version of this broad view. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a new conceptualization of the distinction between realism and anti-realism about beliefs that is based on the division between natural and non-natural properties, as defined by Lewis. It will be argued that although the traditional form of anti-realism about beliefs, namely eliminative materialism, has failed, there is a possibility to reformulate the division in question. The background assumption of the proposal is the framework of deflationism about truth and existence: it will be (...) assumed that beliefs can be said to exist and their attributions can said to be true. The aim is to show that even when we buy into such assumptions we can meaningfully distinguish between the realist and anti-realist approach to belief. According to the proposal, the paradigmatic anti-realist view on beliefs should be seen as a conjunction of three claims: that belief attributions do not track objective similarities, that beliefs are not causally active, and that there is no viable way of naturalizing content. It will be shown that seeing the debate in the proposed way has important advantages as it allows the issue of belief realism to be made non-trivial and tractable, and it introduces theoretical unity into contemporary metaphysics of beliefs. (shrink)

The article presents the painter Stanisław Daczyński, a student of Jan Matejko, who having completed his art studies and leaving Krakow worked at a pottery school in Kolomyia in Pokuttia. There has been scarcely any research conducted about the life of Stanisław Daczyński. The present article is a continuation of the studies on this painter, previously published by the author, and aims to bring him back to the space of the history of Polish culture and bring closer the space in (...) which he functioned. The paper presents the outcome of the research conducted in the Jagiellonian Library and in several Polish archives, as well as information obtained from the author’s own collection. The study method used a historical and anthropological analysis of the source materials. The article reconstructs the social and cultural background of the Pokuttia, where the painter lived and worked. It also outlines his personal and professional life in Kolomyia, Vienna, Bochnia, Zakopane and Krakow. Moreover, it solves the dates of birth and death of the artist and his wife, Stefania Zajączkowska, and identifies the place of their burial. To illustrate the painter’s activity, the article is supplemented with iconography: his drawings and the photographs of him and the places he was associated with. They are meant to complement the presented profile of Stanisław Daczyński and the cultural context of the environment in which he lived and which he influenced. (shrink)

The article presents a problem of proper hedging strategy in expected utility model when forward contracts and options strategies are available. We consider a case of hedging when an investor formulates his own expectation on future price of underlying asset. In this paper we propose the way to measure effectiveness of hedging strategy, based on optimal forward hedge ratio. All results are derived assuming a constant absolute risk aversion utility function and a Black-Scholes framework.

Several authors have investigated the question of whether canonical logic-based accounts of belief revision, and especially the theory of AGM revision operators, are compatible with the dynamics of Bayesian conditioning. Here we show that Leitgeb's stability rule for acceptance, which has been offered as a possible solution to the Lottery paradox, allows to bridge AGM revision and Bayesian update: using the stability rule, we prove that AGM revision operators emerge from Bayesian conditioning by an application of the principle of maximum (...) entropy. In situations of information loss, or whenever the agent relies on a qualitative description of her information state - such as a plausibility ranking over hypotheses, or a belief set - the dynamics of AGM belief revision are compatible with Bayesian conditioning; indeed, through the maximum entropy principle, conditioning naturally generated AGM revision operators. This mitigates an impossibility theorem of Lin and Kelly for tracking Bayesian conditioning with AGM revision, and suggests an approach to the compatibility problem that highlights the information loss incurred by acceptance rules in passing from probabilistic to qualitative representations of beliefs. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to determine the role of intuitions in Gettier cases. Critics of the Method of Cases argue that arguments developed within this method contains a premise that is justified by its intuitiveness; they also argue that intuitions are unreliable source of evidence. By contrast, Max Deutsch argues that this critique is unsound since intuitions do not serve as evidence for premises. In Gettier cases, an intuitive premise is justified by other arguments called G-Grounds. I propose (...) a different view on the role of intuition in Gettier cases. I introduce a distinction between concept-revision arguments and concept-application arguments. On the basis of this distinction and Craig’s and Spicer’s distinction between intuitions of intension and intuitions of extension, I show that (1) intuitions of extension do not serve as evidence for any G-Grounds; (2) intuitions of intension do play an evidential role for all G-Grounds, but (3) in the case of G-Grounds which are used as concept-application arguments, they are a poor source of evidence, while (4) in the case of G-Grounds used as concept-revision arguments, they could be a reliable source of evidence if they are intuitions of intension of a speaker immersed in philosophical discourse. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the interpretivist account of propositional attitudes fails even at the most plausible reading that treats this theory as a version of the deflationary approach to existence coupled with a metaphysical claim about the judgement-dependence of propositional attitudes. It will be argued that adopting a deflationary reading of interpretivism allows this theory to avoid the common charge of fictionalism, according to which interpretivists cannot maintain realism about attitudes as their theory becomes a (...) covert form of mental fictionalism. However, as will be shown, the deflationary version of interpretivism faces a fatal dilemma: either it becomes indistinguishable from generic deflationism about the mental, or it must embrace the metaphysical thesis of judgement-dependence of propositional attitudes. The latter option leads to unacceptable epistemological consequences, as it cannot accommodate intuitions about possibility of error in attribution of attitudes. Thus, it turns out that even a subtle version of interpretivism is not a viable theory of intentional states. (shrink)