Frege's Puzzle is About Identity After All

Many philosophers have argued or taken for granted that Frege's puzzle has little or nothing to do with identity statements. I show that this is wrong, arguing that the puzzle can only be motivated relative to a thinker's beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the relevant object. The result is important, as it suggests that the puzzle can be solved, not by a semantic theory of names or referring expressions as such, but simply by a theory of identity statements. To show this, I sketch a framework for developing solutions of this sort. I also consider how this result could be implemented by two influential solutions to Frege's puzzle, Perry's referential‐reflexivism and Fine's semantic relationism.     

Achieving Transparency: An Argument For Enactivism

The transparency of perceptual experience has been invoked in support of many views about perception. I argue that it supports a form of enactivism—the view that capacities for perceptual experience and for intentional agency are essentially interdependent. I clarify the perceptual phenomenon at issue, and argue that enactivists should expect to find a parallel instance of transparency in our agentive experience, and that the two forms of transparency are constitutively interdependent (Section 1). I then argue that i) we do indeed find such parallels: the way in which an action is directed towards its goal through our bodily movements parallels the way in which an experience is directed towards its object through our perceptual sensation (Section 2), and ii) reflecting on sensorimotor skills shows why the two instances of transparency are constitutively interdependent (Section 3). Section 4 gives reasons for generalizing beyond the cases considered so far by applying the enactive view to Kohler's landmark studies of perceptual adaptation. The final section clarifies the form of enactivism to which the previous sections point. The view that emerges is one whereby our perceptual and practical skills are interrelated aspects of a single capacity to have one's mind intentionally directed upon the world. The transparency of experience, on this view, is achieved in virtue of our capacities as agents as much as it is given in virtue of our capacities as perceivers.     

ANALYSIS,ABSTRACTION PRINCIPLES,AND SLINGSHOT ARGUMENTS

Frege's views regarding analysis and synomymy have long been the subject of critical discussion. Some commentators, led by Dummett, have argued that Frege was committed to the view that each thought admits of a unique ultimate analysis. However, this interpretation is in apparent conflict with Frege's criterion of synonymy, according to which two sentence express the same thought if one cannot understand them without regarding them as having the same truth–value. In a recent article in this journal, Drai attempts to reconcile Frege's criterion of synonymy with unique ultimate analysis by holding that, for Frege, if two sentences satisfy the criterion without being intensionally isomorphic, at most one of them is a privileged representation of the thought expressed. I argue that this proposal fails, because it conflicts not only with Frege's views of abstraction principles but also with slingshot arguments (including one presented by Drai herself) that accurately reflect Frege's commitment to the view that sentences alike in truth–value have the same Bedeutung. While Drai helpfully connects Frege's views of abstraction principles with such slingshot arguments, this connection cannot become fully clear until we recognise that Frege rejects unique ultimate analysis.     

Remarks on Independence Proofs and Indirect Reference

In the last two decades, there has been increasing interest in a re-evaluation of Frege's stance towards consistency- and independence proofs. Papers by several authors deal with Frege's views on these topics. In this note, I want to discuss one particular problem, which seems to be a main reason for Frege's reluctant attitude towards his own proposed method of proving the independence of axioms, namely his view that thoughts, that is, intensional entities are the objects of metatheoretical investigations. This stands in contrast to more straightforward interpretations, which claim that Frege's hesitancy is mainly due to worries concerning the logical constants or what counts as a logical inference.     

Kant and Husserl on the Contents of Perception

This paper focuses on the contents of perception in Kant's first Critique and Husserl's later writings. Both Kant and Husserl are known for their appeal to synthesis in their transcendental accounts of perceptual experience and objective judgment. Especially regarding Kant, the precise nature of perceptual synthesis has recently been the cause of much debate. Whereas some argue that for Kant perception must have nonconceptual content, others believe he is a conceptualist. After offering an alternative solution to this interpretative problem in Kant's philosophy, I turn to Husserl's later theory of perception. My main claims here are that Husserl departs from Kant specifically regarding (i) the sort of synthetic contents that govern affective perception and (ii) the role of conceptual capacities in the contents of attentive perception.     

Minima sensibilia: Against the dynamic snapshot model of temporal experience

In our wakeful conscious lives, the experience of time and dynamic temporal phenomena—such as continuous motion and change—appears to be ubiquitous. How is it that temporality is woven into our conscious experience? Is it through perceptual experience presenting a series of instantaneous states of the world, which combine together—in a sense which would need to be specified—to give us experience of dynamic temporal phenomena? In this paper, I argue that this is not the case. Several authors have recently proposed dynamic snapshot models of temporal experience—such as Prosser and Arstila, building upon Le Poidevin—according to which, perceptual experience has no temporal content of a non‐zero extent. I argue that there is an absence of motivation for such a view; I develop and defend the claim that perceptual experience minimally presents something of some non‐zero temporal extent as such.     

Sellars and Nonconceptual Content

In this paper I take up the question of whether Wilfrid Sellars has a notion of non‐conceptual perceptual content. The question is controversial, being one of the fault lines along which so‐called left and right Sellarsians diverge. In the paper I try to make clear what it is in Sellars' thought that leads interpreters to such disparate conclusions. My account depends on highlighting the importance of Sellars' little discussed thesis that perception involves a systematic form of mis‐categorization, one where perceivers mistake their sensory states to be properties of physical objects. I argue that the counterpart color and shape attributes of these states, which become ‘point of viewish’ when organized by the productive imagination, provides perceptual experience with its non‐conceptual representational content. I then argue that this content is not a form of the mythical Given because one can only have a non‐conceptual point of view on an object when an object is introduced into one's perceptual experience through the conceptual mis‐taking of one's sensory states. So, while Sellars has a notion of non‐conceptual representational content, it can only be salient in the context of a perceptual act that is conceptual overall.     

Frege on Indirect Proof

Frege's account of indirect proof has been thought to be problematic. This thought seems to rest on the supposition that some notion of logical consequence – which Frege did not have – is indispensable for a satisfactory account of indirect proof. It is not so. Frege's account is no less workable than the account predominant today. Indeed, Frege's account may be best understood as a restatement of the latter, although from a higher order point of view. I argue that this ascent is motivated by Frege's conception of logic.     

Schellenberg on the epistemic force of experience

According to Schellenberg, our perceptual experiences have the epistemic force they do because they are exercises of certain sorts of capacity, namely capacities to discriminate particulars—objects, property-instances and events—in a sensory mode. She calls her account the “capacity view.” In this paper, I will raise three concerns about Schellenberg’s capacity view. The first is whether we might do better to leave capacities out of our epistemology and take content properties as the fundamental epistemically relevant features of experiences. I argue we would. The second is whether Schellenberg’s appeal to factive and phenomenal evidence accommodates the intuitive verdicts about the bad case that she claims it does. I argue it does not. The third is whether Schellenberg’s account of factive evidence is adequate to capture nuances concerning the justification for singular but nondemonstrative perceptual beliefs, such as the belief that’s NN, where NN is a proper name. I argue it is not. If I am right, these points suggest a mental-state-first account of perceptual justification, rather than a capacity-first account, and one which treats the good and bad cases alike in respect of justification and complicates the relation between perceptual content and what one is justified in believing.     

Beltrami's model and the independence of the parallel postulate

In their correspondence in 1902 and 1903, after discussing the Russell paradox, Russell and Frege discussed the paradox of propositions considered informally in Appendix B of Russell's Principles of Mathematics. It seems that the proposition, p, stating the logical product of the class w, namely, the class of all propositions stating the logical product of a class they are not in, is in w if and only if it is not. Frege believed that this paradox was avoided within his philosophy due to his distinction between sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung). However, I show that while the paradox as Russell formulates it is ill-formed with Frege's extant logical system, if Frege's system is expanded to contain the commitments of his philosophy of language, an analogue of this paradox is formulable. This and other concerns in Fregean intensional logic are discussed, and it is discovered that Frege's logical system, even without its naive class theory embodied in its infamous Basic Law V, leads to inconsistencies when the theory of sense and reference is axiomatized therin. therein.     

II. The origin of Frege's realism

An explanation of Frege's change from objective idealism to platonism is offered. Frege had originally thought that numbers are transparent to reason, but the character of his Axiom of Courses of Values undermined this view, and led him to think that numbers exist independently of reason. I then use these results to suggest a view of Frege's mathematical epistemology.     

What is my evidence that here is a cup?

This paper is about Susanna Schellenberg's view on the explanatory role of perceptual experience. I raise a basic question about what the argument for her view might be. Then I develop two new problem cases: one involving “seamless transitions” between perception and hallucination and another involving the graded character of perceptual evidence and justification.     

The Contents of Perception and the Contents of Emotion

Several philosophers think there are important analogies between emotions and perceptual states. Furthermore, considerations about the rational assessibility of emotions have led philosophers—in some cases, the very same philosophers—to think that the content of emotions must be propositional content. If one finds it plausible that perceptual states have propositional contents, then there is no obvious tension between these views. However, this view of perception has recently been attacked by philosophers who hold that the content of perception is object‐like. I shall argue for a view about the content of emotions and perceptual states which will enable us to hold both that emotional content is analogous to perceptual content and that both emotions and perceptual states can have propositional contents. This will involve arguing for a pluralist view of perceptual content, on which perceptual states can have both contents which are proposition‐like and contents which are object‐like. I shall also address two significant objections to the claim that emotions can have proposition‐like contents. Meeting one of these objections will involve taking on a further commitment: the pluralist account of perceptual content will have to be one on which the contents of perception can be non‐conceptual.     

Perceptual consciousness plays no epistemic role

It is often assumed that perceptual experience provides evidence about the external world. But much perception can occur unconsciously, as in cases of masked priming or blindsight. Does unconscious perception provide evidence as well? Many theorists maintain that it cannot, holding that perceptual experience provides evidence in virtue of its conscious character. Against such views, I challenge here both the necessity and, perhaps more controversially, the sufficiency of consciousness for perception to provide evidence about the external world. In addition to motivating and defending the idea that unconscious perception can and does often provide evidence, I observe that whether or not perceptual phenomenology is relevant to the evidentiary status of perception depends on the nature of consciousness. And I argue that a well‐supported theory of consciousness—higher‐order thought theory—invites a striking conclusion: that perceptual phenomenology is not on its own sufficient to provide for evidence of the external world.     

‘The Echo of a Thought in Sight’: Property Perception,Universals and Wittgenstein

Contemporary philosophers of perception, even those with otherwise widely differing beliefs, often hold that universals enter into the content of perceptual experience. This doctrine can even be seen as a trivial inference from the observation that we observe properties – ways that things are – as well as things. I argue that the inference is not trivial but can and should be resisted. Ordinary property perception does not involve awareness of universals. But there are visual (and aural) experiences which do involve determinate universals: following Wittgenstein, I call these ‘aspect experiences’. The common view of perceptual content effectively conflates aspect experiences with mere property perceptions. Wittgenstein’s later writings on the philosophy of psychology provide an alternative way to think about both aspects and properties. It also forms a contrast with Wittgenstein’s own early treatment of perception in the Tractatus, the doctrine of which is much closer to the contemporary norm among philosophers of perception. In seeing how Wittgenstein moved away from his early view, we can see how we might move away from that norm.     

The Role of Structural Reasoning in the Genesis of Graph Theory

The concept of quantity (Größe) plays a key role in Frege's theory of real numbers. Typically enough, he refers to this theory as ‘theory of quantity’ (‘Größenlehre’) in the second volume of his opus magnum Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Frege 1903). In this essay, I deal, in a critical way, with Frege's treatment of the concept of quantity and his approach to analysis from the beginning of his academic career until Frege 1903. I begin with a few introductory remarks. In Section 2, I first analyze Frege's use of the term ‘source of knowledge’ (‘Erkenntnisquelle’) with particular emphasis on the logical source of knowledge. The analysis includes a brief comparison between Frege and Kant's conceptions of logic and the logical source of knowledge. In a second step, I examine Frege's theory of quantity in Rechnungsmethoden, die sich auf eine Erweiterung des Größenbegriffes gründen (Frege 1874). Section 3 contains a couple of critical observations on Frege's comments on Hankel's theory of real numbers in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Frege 1884). In Section 4, I consider Frege's discussion of the concept of quantity in Frege 1903. Section 5 is devoted to Cantor's theory of irrational numbers and the critique deployed by Frege. In Section 6, I return to Frege's own constructive treatment of analysis in Frege 1903 and succinctly describe what I take to be the quintessence of his account.     

Naïve realism without disjunctivism about experience

I argue that the possibility of non-perceptual experience need not compel a naïve realist to adopt a disjunctive conception of experience. Instead, they can maintain that the nature of perceptual and hallucinatory experience is the same, while still claiming that perceptual experience is presentational of the objects of perception. On such a view the difference between perceptual and non-perceptual experience will lie in the nature of the objects that are so presented. I will defend a view according to which in non-perceptual experience one is presented with mere universals, while in perceptual experience one is presented with the instantiation of a universal by a particular. This is to adopt disjunctivism about the objects of experience, about that which is apparently present in experience.     

Frege's Elucidatory Holism

I argue against the two most influential readings of Frege's methodology in the philosophy of logic. Dummett's “semanticist” reading sees Frege as taking notions associated with semantical content—and in particular, the semantical notion of truth—as primitive and as intelligible independently of their connection to the activity of judgment, inference, and assertion. Against this, the “pragmaticist” reading proposed by Brandom and Ricketts sees Frege as beginning instead from the independent and intuitive grasp that we allegedly have on the latter activity and only then moving on to explain semantical notions in terms of the nature of such acts. Against both readings, I argue, first, that Frege gives clear indication that he takes semantical and pragmatical notions to be equally primitive, such that he would reject the idea that either sort of notion could function as the base for a non-circular explanation of the other. I argue, secondly, that Frege's own method for conveying the significance of these primitive notions—an activity that Frege calls “elucidation”—is, in fact, explicitly circular in nature. Because of this, I conclude that Frege should be read instead as conceiving of our grasp of the semantical and pragmatical dimensions of logic as far more of a holistic enterprise than either reading suggests.     

Moral Perception

Abstract: In this paper, I defend the view that we can have perceptual moral knowledge. First, I motivate the moral perception view by drawing on some examples involving perceptual knowledge of complex non‐moral properties. I argue that we have little reason to think that perception of moral properties couldn't operate in much the same way that our perception of these complex non‐moral properties operates. I then defend the moral perception view from two challenging objections that have yet to be adequately addressed. The first objection is that the moral perception view has implausible commitments concerning the morally blind, people who would claim not to perceive wrongness. The second objection is that the moral perception view is not really compatible with a wide range of the main candidate moral theories. I argue that the moral empiricist has plausible responses to both of these objections. I then address three residual concerns that my defense raises.     

Affectively Driven Perception: Toward a Non-representational Phenomenology

While classical phenomenology, as represented by Edmund Husserl’s work, resists certain forms of representationalism about perception, I argue that in its theory of horizons, it posits representations in the sense of content-bearing vehicles. As part of a phenomenological theory, this means that on the Husserlian view such representations are part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. I believe that, although the intuitions supporting this idea are correct, it is a mistake to maintain that there are such representations defining the phenomenal character of low-level perception. What these representations are called on to explain, i.e., the phenomenal character of perceiving objects in their full presence, can be more parsimoniously explained by appealing to certain affective states or affect schemas that shape the intentional directedness of low-level perceptual experience and define its phenomenal character in a non-representational way. This revision of the Husserlian view, it is shown, also helps us understand the normative character of perception.