Kantian non-conceptualism

There are perceptual states whose representational content cannot even in principle be conceptual. If that claim is true, then at least some perceptual states have content whose semantic structure and psychological function are essentially distinct from the structure and function of conceptual content. Furthermore the intrinsically “orientable” spatial character of essentially non-conceptual content entails not only that all perceptual states contain non-conceptual content in this essentially distinct sense, but also that consciousness goes all the way down into so-called unconscious or subpersonal mental states. Both my argument for the existence of essentially non-conceptual content and my theory of its structure and function have a Kantian provenance.

Holism and Horizon: Husserl and McDowell on Non-conceptual Content

John McDowell rejects the idea that non-conceptual content can rationally justify empirical claims—a task for which it is ill-fitted by its non-conceptual nature. This paper considers three possible objections to his views: he cannot distinguish empty conception from the perceptual experience of an object; perceptual discrimination outstrips the capacity of concepts to keep pace; and experience of the empirical world is more extensive than the conceptual focusing within it. While endorsing McDowell’s rejection of what he means by non-conceptual content, and appreciating his insight into the experiential synthesis of intuition and conception (in particular, its role in grasping objects), I will argue that Edmund Husserl presents an even more comprehensive account of perceptual experience that explains how we experience the contribution of receptivity and sensibility and how they cooperate in perceptual discrimination. Further, it reveals “horizons”—a unique kind of contents, surplus content (rather than independent non-conceptual content)—beyond the synthesis of intuitive and conceptual contents through which objects are grasped. Such horizons play a constitutive role, making experience with its conceptual dimensions and justificatory potential possible; they in no way function like a bare given that is to fulfill some independent justificatory role. Whereas McDowell focuses on how experience does not take place in isolation from the exercise of conceptual capacities, Husserl complements his view by situating experience in a more encompassing whole and by elucidating the surplus-horizons that exceed the conceptual content of experience; play an inseparable, constitutive role within it; and indicate the limits of conceptual comprehension.

Mr. Magoo’s mistake

Timothy Williamson has famously argued that the (KK) principle (roughly, that if one knows that p, then one knows that one knows that p) should be rejected. We analyze Williamson’s argument and show that its key premise is ambiguous, and that when it is properly stated this premise no longer supports the argument against (KK). After canvassing possible objections to our argument, we reflect upon some conclusions that suggest significant epistemological ramifications pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge from prior knowledge by deduction.

The Epistemological Approach to Mental Causation

Epistemological approaches to mental causation argue that the notorious problem of mental causation as captured in the question “How can irreducible, physically realized, and potentially relational mental properties be causally efficacious in the production of physical effects?” has a very simple solution: One merely has to abandon any metaphysical considerations in favor of epistemological considerations and accept that our explanatory practice is a much better guide to causal relevance than the metaphysical reasoning carried out from the philosophical armchair. I argue that epistemological approaches to mental causation do not enjoy any genuine advantage over theories which treat the problem of mental causation as a genuinely metaphysical problem.

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Construction, reconstruction, deconstruction: The fall of the Soviet Union from the point of view of conceptual history

The fall of the Soviet Union is analysed in conceptual terms, drawing on Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte. The author seeks to interpret the instrumental role of the concepts perestrojka, glasnost′, reform, revolution, socialist pluralism, and acceleration in the Soviet collapse. The semantics and pragmatics are related to a wider intellectual and political context, and the conceptual perspective is used to help explain the progress of events. The author argues that the common notion of the reform policy concepts as clichés is not valid.

Simulation à la Goldman: pretend and collapse

Theories of mind draw on processes that represent mental states and their computational connections; simulation, in addition, draws on processes that replicate (Heal 1986) a sequence of mental states. Moreover, mental simulation can be triggered by input from imagination instead of real perceptions. To avoid confusion between mental states concerning reality and those created in simulation, imagined contents must be quarantined. Goldman bypasses this problem by giving pretend states a special role to play in simulation (Goldman 2006). We argue that this path leads to the resurgence of the threat of collapse (Davies 1994), diluting the principled distinction between simulation and theory use. Exploration of a related method of real-mental states operating in a pretend mode leads to a factually untenable model. Our main goal here is to raise this problem as a challenge for Goldman’s reconfigured simulation theory. Only at the end we will briefly sketch a possible alternative way of quarantine that preserves the replicative element of simulation and avoids collapse. Figure 1 provides a guide to our argument. Fig. 1 Structure of argument

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The Notion of Pseudo-Argument in Perelman’s Thought

According to Perelman (Rhétoriques, Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1989: 80), a pseudo-argument is an argument that is supposed to be convincing from a given audience viewpoint, while it is not from another audience viewpoint. Such a claim raises the traditional problem of the boundaries between the well known “convince versus persuade” dichotomy. This paper aims at investigating it from a contemporary rhetorical and argumentative perspective which will take into account the fictional dimension of persuasion. In this perspective, it will be claimed that the notion of an “as if” argument better fits to some rhetorical phenomena.

Brogaard and Salerno on antirealism and the conditional fallacy

Brogaard and Salerno (2005, Nous, 39, 123–139) have argued that antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth is flawed because it commits a conditional fallacy by entailing the absurdity that there is necessarily an epistemic agent. Brogaard and Salerno’s argument relies on a formal proof built upon the criticism of two parallel proofs given by Plantinga (1982, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 56, 47–70) and Rea (2000, Nous, 34, 291–301). If this argument were conclusive, antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth should probably be abandoned. I argue however that the antirealist is not committed to a controversial reading of counterfactuals presupposed in Brogaard and Salerno’s proof, and that the antirealist can in principle adopt an alternative reading that makes this proof invalid. My conclusion is that no reductio of antirealism resting on a counterfactual analysis of truth has yet been provided.

Beliefs in conditionals vs. conditional beliefs

On the basis of impossibility results on probability, belief revision, and conditionals, it is argued that conditional beliefs differ from beliefs in conditionals qua mental states. Once this is established, it will be pointed out in what sense conditional beliefs are still conditional, even though they may lack conditional contents, and why it is permissible to still regard them as beliefs, although they are not beliefs in conditionals. Along the way, the main logical, dispositional, representational, and normative properties of conditional beliefs are studied, and it is explained how the failure of not distinguishing conditional beliefs from beliefs in conditionals can lead philosophical and empirical theories astray.

Structural equations and causation: six counterexamples

Hall [(2007), Philosophical Studies, 132, 109–136] offers a critique of structural equations accounts of actual causation, and then offers a new theory of his own. In this paper, I respond to Hall’s critique, and present some counterexamples to his new theory. These counterexamples are then diagnosed.

An argument against Fregean that-clause semantics

I develop a problem for the Fregean Reference Shift analysis of that-clause reference. The problem is discussed by Stephen Schiffer in his recent book The Things We Mean (2003). Either the defender of the Fregean Reference Shift analysis must count certain counterintuitive inferences as valid, or else he must reject a plausible Exportation rule. I consider several responses. I find that the best response relies on a Kaplan-inspired analysis of quantified belief reports. But I argue that this response faces some serious problems.

The obscure act of perception

Finding disjunctivist versions of direct realism unexplanatory, Mark Johnston [(2004). Philosophical Studies, 120, 113–183] offers a non-disjunctive version of direct realism in its place and gives a defense of this view from the problem of hallucination. I will attempt to clarify the view that he presents and then argue that, once clarified, it either does not escape the problem of hallucination or does not look much like direct realism.

Who they are and what de se: Burge on quasi-memory

Tyler Burge has recently argued that quasi-memory-based psychological reductionist accounts of diachronic personal identity are deeply problematic. According to Burge, these accounts either fail to include appropriately de se elements or presuppose facts about diachronic personal identity—facts of the very kind that the accounts are supposed to explain. Neither of these objections is compelling. The first is based in confusion about the version of reductionism to which it putatively applies. The second loses its force when we recognize that reductionism is a metaphysical thesis, not an epistemological one.

Sortals for Dummies

Advocates of sortal essentialism have argued that concepts like “thing” or “object” lack the unambiguous individuative criteria necessary to play the role of genuine sortals in reference. Instead, they function as “dummy sortals” which are placeholders or incomplete designations. In disqualifying apparent placeholder sortals, however, these philosophers have posed insuperable problems for accounts of childhood conceptual development. I argue that recent evidence in psychology demonstrates that children do possess simple or basic sortals of physical objects or things. I contend that these concepts provide the genuine individuative criteria necessary for reference. As a consequence, sortalism can be made compatible with the developmental facts of conceptual development.

How to Understand Communicative Musicality?

Music is to a large extent understood as if it is a language. This is also true when it comes to the recently published book Communicative Musicality edited by Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Trevarthen (2009a). In this essay it is demonstrated that a lingocentric understanding of music is strongly connected to modernity, but also that early experimental psychology presupposed a distinction between music and language. Polyphony, therefore, is here presented as a characteristic for the musical system.

Husserl on Analyticity and Beyond

Quine’s criticism of the notion of analyticity applies, at best, to Carnap’s notion, not to those of Frege or Husserl. The failure of logicism is also the failure of Frege’s definition of analyticity, but it does not even touch Husserl’s views, which are based on logical form. However, some relatively concrete number-theoretic statements do not admit such a formalization salva veritate. A new definition of analyticity based not on syntactical but on semantical logical form is proposed and argued for.

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Has 60 Years of Research in Psychology Really Gone Astray?

The author presents several arguments against Toomela’s (Culture of science: Strange history of the methodological thinking in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 2007a, doi:, History of methodology in psychology: Starting point, not the goal. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 2007b, doi:) pessimistic thesis: “The last 60 years of research in psychology seems to have gone astray.” Nevertheless he admits that Toomela’s article despite the excessively categorical assessments contained in it and the undue pessimism crowing its conclusion, represents a substantial contribution to the highlighting of socio-cultural impact on various models of psychological cognition, which lurks behind the international unification of globalizing science.

Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Correlates of Internalization of Regulations for Religious Activities

The main goal of this study was to examine the relationship between different types of extrinsic motivation for religious behaviors as conceptualised within self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and Wulff's (1991) framework of literal versus symbolic approaches of religious contents. Results from a Belgian sample of active believers (N=186) show that the internalization of one's reasons for performing religious behaviors was positively associated with an open, symbolic interpretation of religious belief contents and a stronger adherence to Christian beliefs. Moreover, internalization was also positively related to general well-being and frequency of prayer but unrelated to church attendance. It is concluded that individuals who engage in religious behaviors because of its perceived personal significance will show more cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness towards Christian belief contents, a stronger adherence to this message, higher well-being and more frequent engagement in specific religious behaviors.

Psychology is About Processes

Out of the eight points of methodological criticism against contemporary psychology formulated by Watson (Psychological Bulletin 31:755–776, 1934) and put forward by Toomela in this issue, the overemphasis on prediction, the neglect of individual differences, the habit of the differences between the mental states of subjects in objective experimental conditions are particularly important. Modern cognitive psychology has began to remedy those problems, in part by proposing broad, integrative theories. It is not useful to subdivide psychology into “schools of thought” defined by their methodological practices.

Personal Respect, Private Property, And Market Economy: What Critical Theory Can Learn From Hegel

The aim of the present paper is to show that Hegel’s concept of personal respect is of great interest to contemporary Critical Theory. The author first analyzes this notion as it appears in the Philosophy of Right and then offers a new interpretation of the conceptual relation between personal respect and the institutions of (private) property and (capitalist) markets. In doing so, he shows why Hegel’s concept of personal respect allows us to understand markets as possible institutionalizations of this kind of recognition, and why it is compatible with a critique of neoliberal capitalism. He argues that due to these features Hegel’s notion of personal respect is of great interest to theoreticians within the tradition of critical theory.