In this article, I show that the semantics one adopts for mass terms constrains the metaphysical claims one can make about mixtures. I first expose why mixtures challenge a singularist approach based on mereological sums. After discussing an alternative, non-singularist approach, I take chemistry into account and explain how it changes our perspective on these issues.
{"title":"Mixtures and Mass Terms","authors":"David Nicolas","doi":"10.48106/dial.v75.i1.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v75.i1.01","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000\u0000\u0000In this article, I show that the semantics one adopts for mass terms constrains the metaphysical claims one can make about mixtures. I first expose why mixtures challenge a singularist approach based on mereological sums. After discussing an alternative, non-singularist approach, I take chemistry into account and explain how it changes our perspective on these issues.\u0000\u0000\u0000","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46807282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many prominent arguments for epistemic relativism take their departure from the observation that a certain kind of epistemic symmetry is present in particular empirical cases. In this paper, we seek to attain further clarity about the kind of symmetry at issue, and the sort of relativism to which such symmetry can reasonably be taken to give rise. The need for such an investigation is made apparent, we believe, by the fact that prominent anti-relativist arguments such as that advanced by Boghossian in his influential book Fear of Knowledge (2006) yield distorted pictures of the matter. Following Boghossian, we present our argument through a detailed consideration of the dispute between Bellarmine and Galileo concerning heliocentrism. Contrary to what Boghossian claims, the relevant sort of symmetry does not concern a difference in fundamental epistemic principles between Bellarmine and Galileo, but rather a much more localized difference in procedures for adjudication between shared principles in the novel epistemic circumstances generated by Galileo's telescopic observations. Bellarmine and Galileo advance fundamentally different procedures of adjudication that are nevertheless equally rational. The upshot is not so much the denial that there are absolute epistemic facts as such, as Boghossian thinks, but rather the denial that there is an absolute fact of the matter as to which was the most rational way to proceed: Bellarmine's or Galileo's. What this gives us, is the denial that there is a certain kind of absolute epistemic fact.
{"title":"Boghossian, Bellarmine, and Galileo: Adjudication and epistemic relativism","authors":"Wim Vanrie, Maarten Van Dyck","doi":"10.48106/dial.v75.i1.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v75.i1.05","url":null,"abstract":"Many prominent arguments for epistemic relativism take their departure from the observation that a certain kind of epistemic symmetry is present in particular empirical cases. In this paper, we seek to attain further clarity about the kind of symmetry at issue, and the sort of relativism to which such symmetry can reasonably be taken to give rise. The need for such an investigation is made apparent, we believe, by the fact that prominent anti-relativist arguments such as that advanced by Boghossian in his influential book Fear of Knowledge (2006) yield distorted pictures of the matter. Following Boghossian, we present our argument through a detailed consideration of the dispute between Bellarmine and Galileo concerning heliocentrism. Contrary to what Boghossian claims, the relevant sort of symmetry does not concern a difference in fundamental epistemic principles between Bellarmine and Galileo, but rather a much more localized difference in procedures for adjudication between shared principles in the novel epistemic circumstances generated by Galileo's telescopic observations. Bellarmine and Galileo advance fundamentally different procedures of adjudication that are nevertheless equally rational. The upshot is not so much the denial that there are absolute epistemic facts as such, as Boghossian thinks, but rather the denial that there is an absolute fact of the matter as to which was the most rational way to proceed: Bellarmine's or Galileo's. What this gives us, is the denial that there is a certain kind of absolute epistemic fact.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49001017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
My aim in this paper is to explore some metaphysical and psychological implications of the (contentious) idealist interpretation of the belief in external objects ("bodies") Hume ascribes to us in the Treatise. More specifically, I will argue that the interpretation commits Hume to the claim that space is spatially fragmented, both synchronically and (even more so) diachronically, and renders Hume incapable of allowing for all the spatial thoughts we think we can have. But (perhaps surprisingly) it does not impugn Hume's view of causation.
{"title":"Dis-Unity of Humean Space","authors":"Ruth Weintraub","doi":"10.48106/dial.v75.i1.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v75.i1.04","url":null,"abstract":"My aim in this paper is to explore some metaphysical and psychological implications of the (contentious) idealist interpretation of the belief in external objects (\"bodies\") Hume ascribes to us in the Treatise. More specifically, I will argue that the interpretation commits Hume to the claim that space is spatially fragmented, both synchronically and (even more so) diachronically, and renders Hume incapable of allowing for all the spatial thoughts we think we can have. But (perhaps surprisingly) it does not impugn Hume's view of causation.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44831338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A-theorists and B-theorists debate whether the "Now" is metaphysically distinguished from other time slices. Analogously, one may ask whether the "I" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives. Few philosophers would answer the second question in the affirmative. An exception is Caspar Hare, who has devoted two papers and a book to arguing for such a positive answer. In this paper, I argue that those who answer the first question in the affirmative---A-theorists--- should also answer the second question in the affirmative. This is because key arguments in favor of the A-theory are more effective as arguments in favor of the resulting combined position, and key arguments against the A-theory are ineffective against the combined position.
{"title":"The Personalized A-Theory of Time and Perspective","authors":"Vincent Conitzer","doi":"10.48106/dial.v74.i1.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v74.i1.02","url":null,"abstract":"A-theorists and B-theorists debate whether the \"Now\" is metaphysically distinguished from other time slices. Analogously, one may ask whether the \"I\" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives. Few philosophers would answer the second question in the affirmative. An exception is Caspar Hare, who has devoted two papers and a book to arguing for such a positive answer. In this paper, I argue that those who answer the first question in the affirmative---A-theorists--- should also answer the second question in the affirmative. This is because key arguments in favor of the A-theory are more effective as arguments in favor of the resulting combined position, and key arguments against the A-theory are ineffective against the combined position.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48752186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Antonelli, Mauro. 2018. Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology: New Ideas of a Century Ago, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 21, Cham: Springer.
{"title":"Review of Antonelli (2018)","authors":"Hamid Taieb","doi":"10.48106/dial.v74.i1.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v74.i1.10","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Antonelli, Mauro. 2018. Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology: New Ideas of a Century Ago, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 21, Cham: Springer.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44722936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peregrin and Svoboda propose an inferential and holistic approach to formalization, and a similar approach (to correctness) is considered by Brun. However, while the inferential criteria of adequacy explicitly endorsed by these authors may be holistic "in spirit," they are formulated for single formulas. More importantly, they allow the trivialization of equivalence and face problems when materially correct arguments come into play. Against this background, this paper tries to motivate holistic inferential criteria that compel us to distinguish carefully between non-trivially equivalent formalizations as well as between materially and logically correct arguments on an inferential basis.
{"title":"Holistic Inferential Criteria of Adequate Formalization","authors":"Friedrich Reinmuth","doi":"10.48106/dial.v74.i2.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v74.i2.05","url":null,"abstract":"Peregrin and Svoboda propose an inferential and holistic approach to formalization, and a similar approach (to correctness) is considered by Brun. However, while the inferential criteria of adequacy explicitly endorsed by these authors may be holistic \"in spirit,\" they are formulated for single formulas. More importantly, they allow the trivialization of equivalence and face problems when materially correct arguments come into play. Against this background, this paper tries to motivate holistic inferential criteria that compel us to distinguish carefully between non-trivially equivalent formalizations as well as between materially and logically correct arguments on an inferential basis.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42180886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of this paper is threefold: First, I provide a framework – based on Sellars' distinction between the manifest and the scientific image – for illuminating the distinction between liberal and ‘orthodox’ scientific naturalism. Second, I level a series of objections against expanded liberal naturalism and its core commitment to the autonomy of manifest-image explanations. Further, I present a view which combines liberal and scientific naturalism, albeit construed in resolutely non-representationalist terms. Finally, I attempt to distinguish my own (Sellars- and Peirce-inspired) position from the very similar pragmatic liberal naturalist view, that of Huw Price. I do this by suggesting that a ‘monistic’ Peircian evolutionary naturalism which accepts the Sellarsian scientia mensura principle not only is consistent with ungrudging recognition of the irreducibility of normative facts and the plurality of our discursive practices, but also shows how this irreducibility, by being understood in terms of an evolution-by-selection of a population of perceptual-practical-inferential habits, can be at the same time considered as naturalistically explicable – without any appeal to an expanded manifest-image conception of nature.
{"title":"Towards a Reformed Liberal and Scientific Naturalism","authors":"Dionysis Christias","doi":"10.1111/1746-8361.12279","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1746-8361.12279","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The purpose of this paper is threefold: First, I provide a framework – based on Sellars' distinction between the manifest and the scientific image – for illuminating the distinction between liberal and ‘orthodox’ scientific naturalism. Second, I level a series of objections against expanded liberal naturalism and its core commitment to the autonomy of manifest-image explanations. Further, I present a view which combines liberal and scientific naturalism, albeit construed in resolutely non-representationalist terms. Finally, I attempt to distinguish my own (Sellars- and Peirce-inspired) position from the very similar pragmatic liberal naturalist view, that of Huw Price. I do this by suggesting that a ‘monistic’ Peircian evolutionary naturalism which accepts the Sellarsian scientia mensura principle not only is consistent with ungrudging recognition of the irreducibility of normative facts and the plurality of our discursive practices, but also shows how this irreducibility, by being understood in terms of an evolution-by-selection of a population of perceptual-practical-inferential habits, can be at the same time considered as naturalistically explicable – without any appeal to an expanded manifest-image conception of nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"73 4","pages":"507-534"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1746-8361.12279","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43606883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Those arguing for the existence of non-propositional content appeal to emotions for support, although there has been little engagement in those debates with developments in contemporary theory of emotion, specifically in connection with the kind of mental states that emotional experiences are. Relatedly, within emotion theory, one finds claims that emotional experiences per se have nonpropositional content without detailed argument. This paper argues that the content of emotional experience is propositional in a weak sense, associated with aspectual experience and correctness conditions. Furthermore, it provides an interpretation of purely-objectual emotional experiences which satisfies this weak view of propositional content. Introduction Propositionalism is often characterized as the view that all intentional attitudes, like belief, hope, and desire, are relations to propositions. As such, the class of intentional attitudes would be exhausted by the class of propositional attitudes. Whatever the status of that view, given its ostensible commitment to a relational view of intentionality and the metaphysical reality of the propositions to which a subject is related, there is a view in the vicinity we can call propositionalism about content. According to this less demanding view, the intentional content characteristic of the relevant intentional states has a propositional structure and therefore intentional states should be characterized as having propositional content. For propositionalism about content to be true, all intentional content should be propositional content. Non-propositionalism about content can be framed as a denial of the aforementioned view: some intentional states have a content which does not have a propositional structure – intentional content is not ipso facto propositional content. There is a further requirement to specify what non-propositional content amounts to (i.e. what its structure is, if not propositional). Perhaps the relevant intentional states have purely 1 See Perry 1994 387-8; Stoljar 1996: 191. 2 See Searle 1983; 2018: 259-71; Sinhababu 2015: 1-16.
{"title":"Emotional Experience and Propositional Content","authors":"Jonathan Mitchell","doi":"10.1111/1746-8361.12285","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1746-8361.12285","url":null,"abstract":"Those arguing for the existence of non-propositional content appeal to emotions for support, although there has been little engagement in those debates with developments in contemporary theory of emotion, specifically in connection with the kind of mental states that emotional experiences are. Relatedly, within emotion theory, one finds claims that emotional experiences per se have nonpropositional content without detailed argument. This paper argues that the content of emotional experience is propositional in a weak sense, associated with aspectual experience and correctness conditions. Furthermore, it provides an interpretation of purely-objectual emotional experiences which satisfies this weak view of propositional content. Introduction Propositionalism is often characterized as the view that all intentional attitudes, like belief, hope, and desire, are relations to propositions. As such, the class of intentional attitudes would be exhausted by the class of propositional attitudes. Whatever the status of that view, given its ostensible commitment to a relational view of intentionality and the metaphysical reality of the propositions to which a subject is related, there is a view in the vicinity we can call propositionalism about content. According to this less demanding view, the intentional content characteristic of the relevant intentional states has a propositional structure and therefore intentional states should be characterized as having propositional content. For propositionalism about content to be true, all intentional content should be propositional content. Non-propositionalism about content can be framed as a denial of the aforementioned view: some intentional states have a content which does not have a propositional structure – intentional content is not ipso facto propositional content. There is a further requirement to specify what non-propositional content amounts to (i.e. what its structure is, if not propositional). Perhaps the relevant intentional states have purely 1 See Perry 1994 387-8; Stoljar 1996: 191. 2 See Searle 1983; 2018: 259-71; Sinhababu 2015: 1-16.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"73 4","pages":"535-561"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1746-8361.12285","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43932996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In her excellent monograph, Margherita Arcangeli offers a defense of supposition as a sui generis kind of imagination. Endorsing a simulationist account of imagination according to which every imaginative attitude simulates/re‐creates a genuine counterpart (visualizing re‐creates visual perception, for instance), she argues against this backdrop that supposition is a re‐creative state of acceptance. Arcangeli's inquiry concentrates on the most recent literature. She starts by critically examining certain putative features of supposition that place them outside of the realm of imagination (Part I. §1. Phenomenology, §2. Emotionality, §3. Participation). She then explores the positive features of supposition (Part I. §4. Features proper to supposition) and, then, the deflationists' attempts to define supposition in terms of non‐imaginative (Part II. §5. Supposition as non‐imaginative) or imaginative (Part II. §6. Supposition as imaginative) mental states. Through technical and yet crystal‐clear prose, Arcangeli provides what is, in my opinion, the best defense of the imaginative account of supposition to date.
{"title":"Margherita Arcangeli, Supposition and the Imaginative Realm. A Philosophical Inquiry, Routledge: New York, 2018, 148 pp., US$150 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1138223042","authors":"Steve Humbert-Droz","doi":"10.1111/1746-8361.12282","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1746-8361.12282","url":null,"abstract":"In her excellent monograph, Margherita Arcangeli offers a defense of supposition as a sui generis kind of imagination. Endorsing a simulationist account of imagination according to which every imaginative attitude simulates/re‐creates a genuine counterpart (visualizing re‐creates visual perception, for instance), she argues against this backdrop that supposition is a re‐creative state of acceptance. Arcangeli's inquiry concentrates on the most recent literature. She starts by critically examining certain putative features of supposition that place them outside of the realm of imagination (Part I. §1. Phenomenology, §2. Emotionality, §3. Participation). She then explores the positive features of supposition (Part I. §4. Features proper to supposition) and, then, the deflationists' attempts to define supposition in terms of non‐imaginative (Part II. §5. Supposition as non‐imaginative) or imaginative (Part II. §6. Supposition as imaginative) mental states. Through technical and yet crystal‐clear prose, Arcangeli provides what is, in my opinion, the best defense of the imaginative account of supposition to date.","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"73 4","pages":"598-602"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1746-8361.12282","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47742765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing the behaviour. Numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in various ways. The result: either various nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness.
{"title":"Causal Exclusion and Physical Causal Completeness","authors":"Dwayne Moore","doi":"10.1111/1746-8361.12281","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1746-8361.12281","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing the behaviour. Numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in various ways. The result: either various nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness.</p>","PeriodicalId":46676,"journal":{"name":"DIALECTICA","volume":"73 4","pages":"479-505"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1746-8361.12281","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45392756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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