This paper defends a version of epistemic contextualism that accounts for the ordinary judgements and theoretical principles that motivate pragmatic encroachment. Adopting this contextualist view, we can avoid the counterintuitive consequences of pragmatic encroachment, while still preserving its attractive applications.
{"title":"How to Do Without Encroachment","authors":"Sarah Moss","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae029","url":null,"abstract":"This paper defends a version of epistemic contextualism that accounts for the ordinary judgements and theoretical principles that motivate pragmatic encroachment. Adopting this contextualist view, we can avoid the counterintuitive consequences of pragmatic encroachment, while still preserving its attractive applications.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141918921","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}
Over the past two decades, modal epistemology has turned its attention to ordinary modal knowledge. This paper brings to the fore a neglected but central form of ordinary modal knowledge: knowledge of agentive modality, and in particular of our own abilities, which I call ‘ability knowledge’. I argue that modal epistemology as it is does not account for ability knowledge, by looking at the most promising candidate theories: perception-based, counterfactual-based, and similarity-based modal epistemologies. I then outline a more promising epistemology for our ability knowledge, which relies on the experience of our own agency, and draw out some lessons for modal epistemology in general.
{"title":"Abilities and the Epistemology of Ordinary Modality","authors":"Barbara Vetter","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae037","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past two decades, modal epistemology has turned its attention to ordinary modal knowledge. This paper brings to the fore a neglected but central form of ordinary modal knowledge: knowledge of agentive modality, and in particular of our own abilities, which I call ‘ability knowledge’. I argue that modal epistemology as it is does not account for ability knowledge, by looking at the most promising candidate theories: perception-based, counterfactual-based, and similarity-based modal epistemologies. I then outline a more promising epistemology for our ability knowledge, which relies on the experience of our own agency, and draw out some lessons for modal epistemology in general.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141877348","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 topic of this paper is Aristotle’s ‘proof by refutation’ of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics Γ 4, 1006a11–1007a20). I consider a worry which has often been raised in connection with this proof. The worry is that, faced with an opponent who is prepared to tolerate contradictions, the argument is dialectically powerless: it is incapable of getting them to abandon their position. In reply, I argue that the proof needs to be seen in its proper context, that is, as part of Aristotle’s response to an opponent who demands a demonstration of the principle. This allows us to clarify the purpose of the argument and answer the worry about its effectiveness.
{"title":"Who Needs a Proof of the Principle of Non-Contradiction?","authors":"Timothy Clarke","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae030","url":null,"abstract":"The topic of this paper is Aristotle’s ‘proof by refutation’ of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics Γ 4, 1006a11–1007a20). I consider a worry which has often been raised in connection with this proof. The worry is that, faced with an opponent who is prepared to tolerate contradictions, the argument is dialectically powerless: it is incapable of getting them to abandon their position. In reply, I argue that the proof needs to be seen in its proper context, that is, as part of Aristotle’s response to an opponent who demands a demonstration of the principle. This allows us to clarify the purpose of the argument and answer the worry about its effectiveness.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141315673","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 essay argues for a relationist treatment of intentional identity sentences like (1): (1) Hob believes that a witch blighted Bob’s mare and Nob believes that she killed Cob’s sow. According to relationism, facts of the form a believes that ϕ and b believes that ψ are not in general reducible to facts of the form c believes that χ. I first argue that extant, non-relationist treatments of intentional identity are unsatisfactory, and then go on to motivate and explore a relationist alternative in some detail. I show that the general thesis of relationism can be directly motivated via cases already discussed in the literature, and then develop a particular version of relationism couched in the possible worlds framework. The resulting theory avoids the problems facing its non-relationist rivals, and yields a natural account of the truth conditions of (1), truth conditions which can be generated in a compositional manner by a version of dynamic semantics. The theory also helps us to cleanly separate semantic questions about intentional identity from metasemantic ones.
这篇文章主张用关系论的方法来处理像（1）这样的意向性身份句：(1) Hob 认为女巫玷污了 Bob 的母马，Nob 认为女巫杀死了 Cob 的母猪。根据关系论，a 认为 ϕ 和 b 认为 ψ 这两种形式的事实一般不能还原为 c 认为 χ 这种形式的事实。我首先论证了现有的、非关系主义的意向同一性处理方法是不能令人满意的，然后详细地提出并探讨了关系主义的替代方法。我表明，关系论的一般论点可以直接通过文献中已经讨论过的案例来激发，然后在可能世界框架中发展出关系论的一个特殊版本。由此产生的理论避免了非关系论对手所面临的问题，并对(1)的真值条件做出了自然的解释，真值条件可以通过动态语义学的一个版本以组合的方式生成。该理论还帮助我们将意向同一性的语义问题与元语义问题干净利落地分开。
{"title":"A Relationist Theory of Intentional Identity","authors":"Dilip Ninan","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae021","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues for a relationist treatment of intentional identity sentences like (1): (1) Hob believes that a witch blighted Bob’s mare and Nob believes that she killed Cob’s sow. According to relationism, facts of the form a believes that ϕ and b believes that ψ are not in general reducible to facts of the form c believes that χ. I first argue that extant, non-relationist treatments of intentional identity are unsatisfactory, and then go on to motivate and explore a relationist alternative in some detail. I show that the general thesis of relationism can be directly motivated via cases already discussed in the literature, and then develop a particular version of relationism couched in the possible worlds framework. The resulting theory avoids the problems facing its non-relationist rivals, and yields a natural account of the truth conditions of (1), truth conditions which can be generated in a compositional manner by a version of dynamic semantics. The theory also helps us to cleanly separate semantic questions about intentional identity from metasemantic ones.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141185137","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 is a discussion note on Isaacs, Hájek and Hawthorne (2022), which claims to offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities, based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurability. In this note, I clarify some consequences of that proposal. In particular, I show that if the proposal is applied to a bounded 3-dimensional space, then one has to reject at least one of the following: If A is at most as probable as B and B is at most as probable as C, then A is at most as probable as C. • Let A∩C=B∩C=∅. A is at most as probable as B if and only if (A∪C) is at most as probable as (B∪C). But rejecting either statement seems unattractive.
{"title":"Consequences of Assigning Non-Measurable Sets Imprecise Probabilities","authors":"Joshua Thong","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae023","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is a discussion note on Isaacs, Hájek and Hawthorne (2022), which claims to offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities, based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurability. In this note, I clarify some consequences of that proposal. In particular, I show that if the proposal is applied to a bounded 3-dimensional space, then one has to reject at least one of the following: If A is at most as probable as B and B is at most as probable as C, then A is at most as probable as C. • Let A∩C=B∩C=∅. A is at most as probable as B if and only if (A∪C) is at most as probable as (B∪C). But rejecting either statement seems unattractive.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141079357","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}
Schopenhauer repeatedly claims that suicide is both foolish and futile. But while many commentators express sympathy for his charge of foolishness, most regard his charge of futility as indefensible even within his own system. In this paper, I offer a defence of Schopenhauer’s futility charge, based on metaphysical and psychological considerations. On the metaphysical front, Schopenhauer’s view implies that psychological connections extend beyond the death of an individual. Drawing on Parfit’s discussion of personal identity, I argue that those connections have personal significance, such that suicide does not allow one, as Hamlet hopes, simply ‘not to be’. On the psychological front, I argue that a distinction between agents’ intentions and underlying desires makes room for Schopenhauer’s claim that paradigmatic suicidal agents ultimately desire the opposite of what suicide accomplishes. I conclude by showing how this understanding of futility can buttress Schopenhauer’s charge of foolishness. My interpretation still leaves Schopenhauer vulnerable to certain objections, but shows that his account is more defensible than previous commentators have realized.
{"title":"Schopenhauer on the Futility of Suicide","authors":"Colin Marshall","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae020","url":null,"abstract":"Schopenhauer repeatedly claims that suicide is both foolish and futile. But while many commentators express sympathy for his charge of foolishness, most regard his charge of futility as indefensible even within his own system. In this paper, I offer a defence of Schopenhauer’s futility charge, based on metaphysical and psychological considerations. On the metaphysical front, Schopenhauer’s view implies that psychological connections extend beyond the death of an individual. Drawing on Parfit’s discussion of personal identity, I argue that those connections have personal significance, such that suicide does not allow one, as Hamlet hopes, simply ‘not to be’. On the psychological front, I argue that a distinction between agents’ intentions and underlying desires makes room for Schopenhauer’s claim that paradigmatic suicidal agents ultimately desire the opposite of what suicide accomplishes. I conclude by showing how this understanding of futility can buttress Schopenhauer’s charge of foolishness. My interpretation still leaves Schopenhauer vulnerable to certain objections, but shows that his account is more defensible than previous commentators have realized.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140919860","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}
How is Nietzsche’s genealogy of morality relevant to his revaluation of values? I consider and reject three accounts: contingency accounts, pedigree accounts, and unmasking accounts. I then propose an alternative account. On this view, Nietzsche provides a ‘deconstructive genealogy’ that indicates whether and where we should expect to find unity in our current moral practices. Moreover, Nietzsche’s history contributes to a critique of contemporary morality because it reveals that morality is unlikely to have the kind of unity required by many of its defenders. After explaining and defending this account of genealogical critique in GM, I show how it can be generalized to domains besides morality.
{"title":"Nietzsche and the Significance of Genealogy","authors":"Alexander Prescott-Couch","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae008","url":null,"abstract":"How is Nietzsche’s genealogy of morality relevant to his revaluation of values? I consider and reject three accounts: contingency accounts, pedigree accounts, and unmasking accounts. I then propose an alternative account. On this view, Nietzsche provides a ‘deconstructive genealogy’ that indicates whether and where we should expect to find unity in our current moral practices. Moreover, Nietzsche’s history contributes to a critique of contemporary morality because it reveals that morality is unlikely to have the kind of unity required by many of its defenders. After explaining and defending this account of genealogical critique in GM, I show how it can be generalized to domains besides morality.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140819979","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}
Mill advocates plural voting on instrumentalist grounds: the more competent are to have more votes. At the same time, he regards it as a ‘personal injustice’ to withhold from anyone ‘the ordinary privilege of having his voice reckoned in the disposal of affairs in which he has the same interest as other people’ (Mill 1861a, p. 469). But if electoral voice is justified by its contribution to good governance, why would it be an injustice to deny the vote to those whose use of it would disserve this end? I propose the dual justification view to resolve this tension. Mill holds that electoral voice is to be justified in two complementary ways: both as communicating a person’s interests and perspective in order that they be accommodated in policy deliberations, and as advancing a vision of the common good and influencing the policy of the legislature.
{"title":"What Justifies Electoral Voice? J. S. Mill on Voting","authors":"Jonathan Turner","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae013","url":null,"abstract":"Mill advocates plural voting on instrumentalist grounds: the more competent are to have more votes. At the same time, he regards it as a ‘personal injustice’ to withhold from anyone ‘the ordinary privilege of having his voice reckoned in the disposal of affairs in which he has the same interest as other people’ (Mill 1861a, p. 469). But if electoral voice is justified by its contribution to good governance, why would it be an injustice to deny the vote to those whose use of it would disserve this end? I propose the dual justification view to resolve this tension. Mill holds that electoral voice is to be justified in two complementary ways: both as communicating a person’s interests and perspective in order that they be accommodated in policy deliberations, and as advancing a vision of the common good and influencing the policy of the legislature.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140551925","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}
Throughout his lectures and published writings on anthropology, Kant describes a form of unintentional, unstructured, obscure, and pleasurable imaginative mental activity, which he calls fantasy (Phantasie), where we ‘take pleasure in letting our mind wander about in obscurity’ (LA 25:480). In the context of his pragmatic anthropology, Kant is concerned not only to describe this form of mental activity as a fact of human psychology, but more importantly, to criticize and discourage it. But must we share Kant’s negative evaluation? Could fantasy play a positive role in some kinds of experience? In this paper I first reconstruct Kant’s conception of fantasy, and then consider what role fantasy might play in aesthetic experience. Precisely because of his anxieties about fantasy, Kant is careful to distinguish between the lawless freedom of the imagination in fantasy and the ‘free lawfulness’ of the imagination in aesthetic judgment. Departing from Kant, and with help from Susan Sontag, I argue that certain aesthetic objects, especially certain works of modernist art, positively invite fantasy, making fantasy part of proper aesthetic appreciation. I conclude by suggesting that while fantasy can indeed play a positive role in aesthetic appreciation, there is still reason to regard fantasy as ‘normatively ambiguous’.
{"title":"Kant’s Fantasy","authors":"Francey Russell","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzae003","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout his lectures and published writings on anthropology, Kant describes a form of unintentional, unstructured, obscure, and pleasurable imaginative mental activity, which he calls fantasy (Phantasie), where we ‘take pleasure in letting our mind wander about in obscurity’ (LA 25:480). In the context of his pragmatic anthropology, Kant is concerned not only to describe this form of mental activity as a fact of human psychology, but more importantly, to criticize and discourage it. But must we share Kant’s negative evaluation? Could fantasy play a positive role in some kinds of experience? In this paper I first reconstruct Kant’s conception of fantasy, and then consider what role fantasy might play in aesthetic experience. Precisely because of his anxieties about fantasy, Kant is careful to distinguish between the lawless freedom of the imagination in fantasy and the ‘free lawfulness’ of the imagination in aesthetic judgment. Departing from Kant, and with help from Susan Sontag, I argue that certain aesthetic objects, especially certain works of modernist art, positively invite fantasy, making fantasy part of proper aesthetic appreciation. I conclude by suggesting that while fantasy can indeed play a positive role in aesthetic appreciation, there is still reason to regard fantasy as ‘normatively ambiguous’.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140533262","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}
In this paper, I argue against recent modifications of the Knowledge Condition on intentional action that weaken the condition. My contention is that the condition is best understood in the context of Anscombe’s Intention and, when so understood, can be maintained in its strongest form.
{"title":"The Knowledge Condition on Intentional Action in Its Proper Home","authors":"Laura Tomlinson Makin","doi":"10.1093/mind/fzad045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzad045","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I argue against recent modifications of the Knowledge Condition on intentional action that weaken the condition. My contention is that the condition is best understood in the context of Anscombe’s Intention and, when so understood, can be maintained in its strongest form.","PeriodicalId":48124,"journal":{"name":"MIND","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139407818","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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