Abilities, one might think, are essentially modal: they are about powers, potentials, and possibilities, but not directly about what is in fact happening. However, our ability talk sometimes comes with a surprising kind of inference which casts doubt on this. When one says ‘I was finally able to lift the chair’ the hearer will infer that the speaker lifted the chair, not merely that they had the power to do so. In this paper I develop a detailed semantic account which explains those so-called actuality entailments for ability modals. I will not assume a particular semantics for ability modals, although I will show in detail how one could explain the phenomenon based on the influential conditional analysis of abilities. I will argue that actuality entailments arise because of the essential temporal structure of abilities, and briefly discuss what this might mean for the debate about the fixity of the past and the open future.
{"title":"Actual Abilities","authors":"Philipp Mayr","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf056","url":null,"abstract":"Abilities, one might think, are essentially modal: they are about powers, potentials, and possibilities, but not directly about what is in fact happening. However, our ability talk sometimes comes with a surprising kind of inference which casts doubt on this. When one says ‘I was finally able to lift the chair’ the hearer will infer that the speaker lifted the chair, not merely that they had the power to do so. In this paper I develop a detailed semantic account which explains those so-called actuality entailments for ability modals. I will not assume a particular semantics for ability modals, although I will show in detail how one could explain the phenomenon based on the influential conditional analysis of abilities. I will argue that actuality entailments arise because of the essential temporal structure of abilities, and briefly discuss what this might mean for the debate about the fixity of the past and the open future.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145478280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many metaphysical theories of identity, existence, and so on, are formulated using higher-order languages like the simply typed lambda calculus. But as I argue, for the purposes of metaphysical theorizing, a different language would be better: the calculus of constructions. Since this language—like many pure type systems—allows for quantification over types, it is preferable to the languages currently being used in the philosophical literature. For the purposes of metaphysical theorizing, in other words, the calculus of constructions is the better language.
{"title":"Talk About Types","authors":"Isaac Wilhelm","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf044","url":null,"abstract":"Many metaphysical theories of identity, existence, and so on, are formulated using higher-order languages like the simply typed lambda calculus. But as I argue, for the purposes of metaphysical theorizing, a different language would be better: the calculus of constructions. Since this language—like many pure type systems—allows for quantification over types, it is preferable to the languages currently being used in the philosophical literature. For the purposes of metaphysical theorizing, in other words, the calculus of constructions is the better language.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145188449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the relationship between graded, probabilistic representations of partial belief (that is, credences) and binary representations of outright belief. It is often argued that outright beliefs simplify our credal reasoning. However, Staffel (2019) complicates this picture by arguing that if outright beliefs help us to update our credences through a process called pseudo-conditionalization, then beliefs do not actually simplify credal reasoning. This is because Staffel’s model of pseudo-conditionalization is just as computationally intractable as the exact Bayesian process of credal updating via conditionalization. I put forward a different model of pseudo-conditionalization that is computationally tractable. My model depends crucially on the existence of outright beliefs whose objects are not individual propositions but are instead probabilistic influence relations between propositions. Thus I provide a new account of the belief–credence relation according to which beliefs simplify our credal reasoning via a process of pseudo-conditionalization.
{"title":"How (Relational) Beliefs Simplify Reasoning","authors":"David Kinney","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf048","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the relationship between graded, probabilistic representations of partial belief (that is, credences) and binary representations of outright belief. It is often argued that outright beliefs simplify our credal reasoning. However, Staffel (2019) complicates this picture by arguing that if outright beliefs help us to update our credences through a process called pseudo-conditionalization, then beliefs do not actually simplify credal reasoning. This is because Staffel’s model of pseudo-conditionalization is just as computationally intractable as the exact Bayesian process of credal updating via conditionalization. I put forward a different model of pseudo-conditionalization that is computationally tractable. My model depends crucially on the existence of outright beliefs whose objects are not individual propositions but are instead probabilistic influence relations between propositions. Thus I provide a new account of the belief–credence relation according to which beliefs simplify our credal reasoning via a process of pseudo-conditionalization.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145127674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper argues that the standard semantics for ‘ought’ is, as it stands, incorrect. I begin by arguing that the standard semantics is morally tendentious, in precisely the way ethicists have suspected it to be: it rules out substantive alternatives to consequentialism. The problem is in the very inclusive inheritance principle that the standard semantics validates. I then review a number of classic paradoxes and puzzles that afflict (a particular part of) that inheritance principle, and introduce one new puzzle of my own. Those arguments give cause to examine the closure rules for ‘intention’; I argue that the restricted contours of an inheritance rule for intention solve a number of the problems that the unrestricted inheritance rule for ‘ought’ faces. Using the similarities between ‘intention’ and ‘ought’, I propose a unified explanation for the inheritance failures of ‘ought’, and offer two conjectures about how an adequate semantic account of ‘ought’ should be developed.
{"title":"Intention and the Meaning of ‘Ought’","authors":"Laura Tomlinson Makin","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf047","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that the standard semantics for ‘ought’ is, as it stands, incorrect. I begin by arguing that the standard semantics is morally tendentious, in precisely the way ethicists have suspected it to be: it rules out substantive alternatives to consequentialism. The problem is in the very inclusive inheritance principle that the standard semantics validates. I then review a number of classic paradoxes and puzzles that afflict (a particular part of) that inheritance principle, and introduce one new puzzle of my own. Those arguments give cause to examine the closure rules for ‘intention’; I argue that the restricted contours of an inheritance rule for intention solve a number of the problems that the unrestricted inheritance rule for ‘ought’ faces. Using the similarities between ‘intention’ and ‘ought’, I propose a unified explanation for the inheritance failures of ‘ought’, and offer two conjectures about how an adequate semantic account of ‘ought’ should be developed.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"156 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145127715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To deadname is to call a trans person by a name they have rejected due to their gender transition. Deadnaming has a visceral impact, and is presumptively blameworthy. I offer an account of these properties in terms of taboo violations and acts of linguistic authority. Linguistic authority is posited to derive from a fundamental interest in being the author of one’s own social persona(e). I also consider, and reject, a semantic account of the behaviour of deadnames.
To deadname是指用变性人因性别转换而拒绝使用的名字来称呼他们。假名会产生发自内心的影响，而且理应受到谴责。我从违反禁忌和语言权威行为的角度对这些特性进行了描述。语言权威被假定为源于成为自己社会角色的作者的基本兴趣(e)。我还考虑并拒绝对deadnames行为的语义解释。
{"title":"Deadnaming, Taboo, and Linguistic Authority","authors":"Elek Lane","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf045","url":null,"abstract":"To deadname is to call a trans person by a name they have rejected due to their gender transition. Deadnaming has a visceral impact, and is presumptively blameworthy. I offer an account of these properties in terms of taboo violations and acts of linguistic authority. Linguistic authority is posited to derive from a fundamental interest in being the author of one’s own social persona(e). I also consider, and reject, a semantic account of the behaviour of deadnames.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145017490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lots of things are usefully modelled in science as dynamical systems: growing populations, flocking birds, engineering apparatus, cognitive agents, distant galaxies, Turing machines, neural networks. We argue that relevant logic is ideal for reasoning about dynamical systems, including interactions with the system through perturbations. Thus dynamical systems provide a new applied interpretation of the abstract Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logic: the worlds in the model are the states of the system, while the (in)famous ternary relation is a combination of perturbation and evolution in the system. Conversely, the logic of the relevant conditional provides sound and complete laws of dynamical systems.
{"title":"The Logic of Dynamical Systems Is Relevant","authors":"Levin Hornischer, Francesco Berto","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf012","url":null,"abstract":"Lots of things are usefully modelled in science as dynamical systems: growing populations, flocking birds, engineering apparatus, cognitive agents, distant galaxies, Turing machines, neural networks. We argue that relevant logic is ideal for reasoning about dynamical systems, including interactions with the system through perturbations. Thus dynamical systems provide a new applied interpretation of the abstract Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logic: the worlds in the model are the states of the system, while the (in)famous ternary relation is a combination of perturbation and evolution in the system. Conversely, the logic of the relevant conditional provides sound and complete laws of dynamical systems.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"152 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144153449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions serve the body’s needs. In this paper, I explain how the passions keep us alive by situating them in Malebranche’s account of ordinary bodily action. Malebranche holds a consent-based view of action. An agent translates her inclinations or motives into action only when she consents to them. The passions contribute to the preservation of life by helping the agent close the gap between inclination and action. The passions, according to Malebranche, are complex psychophysiological phenomena whose various elements—perceptions, shifts of attention, evaluations, bodily preparation, feelings, and so on—work together to elicit the agent’s consent.
{"title":"How To Eat a Peach: Malebranche on the Function of the Passions","authors":"Colin Chamberlain","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf011","url":null,"abstract":"Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions serve the body’s needs. In this paper, I explain how the passions keep us alive by situating them in Malebranche’s account of ordinary bodily action. Malebranche holds a consent-based view of action. An agent translates her inclinations or motives into action only when she consents to them. The passions contribute to the preservation of life by helping the agent close the gap between inclination and action. The passions, according to Malebranche, are complex psychophysiological phenomena whose various elements—perceptions, shifts of attention, evaluations, bodily preparation, feelings, and so on—work together to elicit the agent’s consent.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144133721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Paradoxes inspired by José Benardete have been used in arguments for temporal finitism and causal finitism. Joseph C. Schmid has argued that there is a symmetry between those arguments and a corresponding argument against an endless future with respect to Koons’ patchwork principle using intrinsically identical copies of situations involving God revealing a future. I argue that this symmetry argument has limitations a theist can exploit to avoid the problem. A precognitive grandfather paradox about using simple foreknowledge to reveal the future that is redolent of the grandfather paradox against time travel illustrates why one might prefer a type of subjunctive foreknowledge over simple foreknowledge with respect to revealing the future, and a test for intrinsicality reveals that the future-revealing quality need not be intrinsic to a situation containing a subjunctively foreknowing God revealing the future.
由jos benardette启发的悖论被用于时间有限主义和因果有限主义的论证中。约瑟夫·c·施密德（Joseph C. Schmid）认为，在这些论点和反对无限未来的相应论点之间存在对称性，这与昆斯的拼凑原则有关，该原则使用本质上相同的情况副本，包括上帝揭示未来。我认为，这种对称性论证有其局限性，有神论者可以利用它来避免这个问题。关于使用简单的预知来揭示未来的预知祖父悖论，让人联想到反对时间旅行的祖父悖论，这说明了为什么人们可能更喜欢一种虚拟预知而不是简单预知来揭示未来，而对内在性的测试表明，揭示未来的品质不一定是包含虚拟预知的上帝揭示未来的情况的内在品质。
{"title":"A Grim End Is at Hand: Schmid’s Grim Reaper Symmetry Argument, Precognitive Grandfather Paradoxes, and an Intrinsicality Test","authors":"Wade A Tisthammer","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf006","url":null,"abstract":"Paradoxes inspired by José Benardete have been used in arguments for temporal finitism and causal finitism. Joseph C. Schmid has argued that there is a symmetry between those arguments and a corresponding argument against an endless future with respect to Koons’ patchwork principle using intrinsically identical copies of situations involving God revealing a future. I argue that this symmetry argument has limitations a theist can exploit to avoid the problem. A precognitive grandfather paradox about using simple foreknowledge to reveal the future that is redolent of the grandfather paradox against time travel illustrates why one might prefer a type of subjunctive foreknowledge over simple foreknowledge with respect to revealing the future, and a test for intrinsicality reveals that the future-revealing quality need not be intrinsic to a situation containing a subjunctively foreknowing God revealing the future.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"123 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143940120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I present evidence for a systematic complexity–coherence trade-off in cognition. I show how feasible strategies for increasing cognitive complexity along three dimensions come at the expense of a heightened vulnerability to incoherence. I discuss two normative implications of the complexity–coherence trade-off: a novel challenge to coherence-based theories of bounded rationality and a new strategy for vindicating the rationality of seemingly irrational cognitions. I also discuss how the complexity–coherence trade-off sharpens recent descriptive challenges to dual process theories of cognition.
{"title":"The Complexity–Coherence Trade-Off in Cognition","authors":"David Thorstad","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzaf015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaf015","url":null,"abstract":"I present evidence for a systematic complexity–coherence trade-off in cognition. I show how feasible strategies for increasing cognitive complexity along three dimensions come at the expense of a heightened vulnerability to incoherence. I discuss two normative implications of the complexity–coherence trade-off: a novel challenge to coherence-based theories of bounded rationality and a new strategy for vindicating the rationality of seemingly irrational cognitions. I also discuss how the complexity–coherence trade-off sharpens recent descriptive challenges to dual process theories of cognition.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143849676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The notion of causation that Mary Shepherd develops in her 1824 An Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect (ERCE) has a number of surprising features that have only recently begun to be studied by scholars. This relation is synchronic, rather than diachronic (ERCE pp. 49–50); it always involves a ‘mixture’ of pre-existing objects (ERCE pp. 46–7); and the effect must be ‘a new nature, capable of exhibiting qualities varying from those of either of the objects unconjoined’ (ERCE p. 63). In this essay, I argue for an emergentist interpretation of Shepherd’s causal theory. On the reading I defend, all effects have qualities that metaphysically emerge from the complex interactions of their constituents. This reading explains the structure of Shepherd’s causal relation and clarifies the central aims of her philosophical project. In response to the problems raised by the science of her time, Shepherd developed a theory of emergence and published it during the period when the concept was first being shaped and adopted by prominent philosophers. Her work thus merits a place in the history of emergentist ideas.
玛丽·谢泼德（Mary Shepherd）在1824年的《论因果关系》（ERCE）中提出的因果关系概念有许多令人惊讶的特征，这些特征直到最近才开始被学者们研究。这种关系是共时的，而不是历时的（ERCE第49-50页）；它总是涉及预先存在的对象的“混合”（ERCE第46-7页）；效果必须是“一种新的性质，能够表现出与未结合的任何物体不同的品质”（ERCE p. 63）。在这篇文章中，我论证了对谢泼德因果理论的一种涌现主义解释。在我为之辩护的阅读中，所有的效果都具有从其组成部分的复杂相互作用中形而上学地显现出来的品质。这篇阅读解释了谢泼德因果关系的结构，并阐明了她哲学研究的中心目标。作为对她那个时代科学提出的问题的回应，谢泼德发展了一种涌现理论，并在这个概念首次被著名哲学家形成和采纳的时期发表了这一理论。因此，她的工作值得在新兴主义思想史上占有一席之地。
{"title":"Shepherd’s Metaphysics of Emergence","authors":"Ariel Melamedoff","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae074","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of causation that Mary Shepherd develops in her 1824 An Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect (ERCE) has a number of surprising features that have only recently begun to be studied by scholars. This relation is synchronic, rather than diachronic (ERCE pp. 49–50); it always involves a ‘mixture’ of pre-existing objects (ERCE pp. 46–7); and the effect must be ‘a new nature, capable of exhibiting qualities varying from those of either of the objects unconjoined’ (ERCE p. 63). In this essay, I argue for an emergentist interpretation of Shepherd’s causal theory. On the reading I defend, all effects have qualities that metaphysically emerge from the complex interactions of their constituents. This reading explains the structure of Shepherd’s causal relation and clarifies the central aims of her philosophical project. In response to the problems raised by the science of her time, Shepherd developed a theory of emergence and published it during the period when the concept was first being shaped and adopted by prominent philosophers. Her work thus merits a place in the history of emergentist ideas.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143546413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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