A powers theory of modality: or,how I learned to stop worrying and reject possible worlds

Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, properties-based theory of modality and explore several specific ways to flesh the general proposal out, including my favored version, the powers theory. And, fourth, I offer a powers semantics for counterfactuals that each version of the properties-based theory of modality can accept, mutatis mutandis. Together with a definition of possibility and necessity in terms of counterfactuals, the powers semantics of counterfactuals generates a semantics for modality that appeals to causal powers and not possible worlds.     

Dispositional Essentialism and the Possibility of a Law-Abiding Miracle

An objection to dispositional essentialism has been that it yields an implausible semantics for counterfactuals if determinism happens to be true. I claim that an adequate remedy to this objection would be to endorse the metaphysical possibility of 'law-abiding miracles', i.e., uncaused spontaneous events. This proposal entails that determinism de jure is meta-physically impossible; I argue that this is not a serious disadvantage. I discuss consequences of the proposal for the logical form of laws, and consider a possible objection to the proposal on epistemic grounds.     

An Extended Lewis/Stalnaker Semantics and the New Problem of Counterpossibles

Abstract

Closest-possible-world analyses of counterfactuals suffer from what has been called the ‘problem of counterpossibles’: some counterfactuals with metaphysically impossible antecedents seem plainly false, but the proposed analyses imply that they are all (vacuously) true. One alleged solution to this problem is the addition of impossible worlds. In this paper, I argue that the closest possible or impossible world analyses that have recently been suggested suffer from the ‘new problem of counterpossibles’: the proposed analyses imply that some plainly true counterpossibles (viz., ‘counterlogicals’) are false. After motivating and presenting the ‘new problem’, I give reasons to think that the most plausible objection to my argument is not compelling.     

Agent Reliabilism,Subjective Justification,and Epistemic Credit

In this paper I examine John Greco's agent reliabilism, in particular, his requirement of subjective justification. I argue that his requirement is too weak as it stands to disqualify as knowledge claims some true beliefs arrived at by reliable processes and that it is vulnerable to the “value problem” objection. I develop a more robust account of subjective justification that both avoids the objection that agents require beliefs about their dispositions in order to be subjectively justified and explains why knowledge is more valuable than true belief.     

Stalnaker on Mathematical Information

Robert Stalnaker has argued that mathematical information is information about the sentences and expressions of mathematics. I argue that this metalinguistic account is open to a variant of Alonzo Church's translation objection and that Stalnaker's attempt to get around this objection is not successful. If correct, this tells not only against Stalnaker's account of mathematical truths, but against any metalinguistic account of truths that are both necessary and informative.     

Realizing the Good: Hegel's Critique of Kantian Morality

Although the best‐known Hegelian objection against Kant's moral philosophy is the charge that the categorical imperative is an ‘empty formalism’, Hegel's criticisms also include what we might call the realizability objection. Tentatively stated, the realizability objection says that within the sphere of Kantian morality, the good remains an unrealizable ‘ought’ – in other words, the Kantian moral ‘ought’ can never become an ‘is’. In this paper, I attempt to come to grips with this objection in two steps. In the first section of the paper, I provide an initial reading of the objection, according to which Hegel agrees with Kant's formulation of the realizability problem but disagrees with the specific Kantian solution, namely, with the Kantian idea of the highest good and the doctrine of the postulates. In the second section, I go on to argue that this reading is potentially too superficial and offer a more far‐reaching interpretation whereby Hegel is ultimately targeting fundamental distinctions (between, for instance, reason and sensibility) of Kant's moral theory. I end by employing these more far‐reaching results of Hegel's objection to sketch some features of Hegel's alternative ethical view.     

Consciousness in Spinoza's Philosophy of Mind

Spinoza's philosophy of mind is thought to lack a serious account of consciousness. In this essay I argue that Spinoza's doctrine of ideas of ideas has been wrongly construed, and that once righted it provides the foundation for an account. I then draw out the finer details of Spinoza's account of consciousness, doing my best to defend its plausibility along the way. My view is in response to a proposal by Edwin Curley and the serious objection leveled against it by Margaret Wilson and Jonathan Bennett.     

KAUFMAN'S RESPONSE TO LUCRETIUS

Abstract: The symmetry argument is an objection to the ‘deprivation approach’– the account of badness favored by nearly all philosophers who take death to be bad for the one who dies. Frederik Kaufman's recent response to the symmetry argument is a development of Thomas Nagel's suggestion that we could not have come into existence substantially earlier than we in fact did. In this paper, I aim to show that Kaufman's suggestion fails. I also consider several possible modifications of his theory, and argue that they are unsuccessful as well.     

Memory,Quasi-memory,and Pseudo-quasi-memory

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize McDowell's stance, drawing on a distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification.     

Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons

In this paper, I argue that the fetishism objection to moral hedging fails. The objection rests on a reasons‐responsiveness account of moral worth, according to which an action has moral worth only if the agent is responsive to moral reasons. However, by adopting a plausible theory of non‐ideal moral reasons, one can endorse a reasons‐responsiveness account of moral worth while maintaining that moral hedging is sometimes an appropriate response to moral uncertainty. Thus, the theory of moral worth upon which the fetishism objection relies does not, in fact, support that objection.     

Essence and Possibility in the Leibniz‐Arnauld Correspondence

In the 1680s, Gottfried Leibniz and Antoine Arnauld engaged in a philosophically rich correspondence. One issue they discuss is modal metaphysics – questions concerning necessity, possibility, and essence. While Arnauld's contributions to the correspondence are considered generally astute, his contributions on this issue have not always received a warm treatment. I argue that Arnauld's criticisms of Leibniz are sophisticated and that Arnauld offers his own Cartesian account in its place. In particular, I argue that Arnauld offers an account of possibility that is actualist (only actual things exist), modal actualist (modality is irreducible) and essence‐based (essences ground de re counterfactuals).     

General-purpose content

In this paper, I consider the objection, raised by Radu Bogdan, that a teleological theory of content is unable to ascribe content to a general-purpose, doxastic system. I begin by giving some attention to the notion of general-purpose representation, and suggest that this notion can best be understood as what I term "interest-independent" representation. I then outline Bogdan's objection in what I take to be its simplest form. I attempt to counter the objection by explaining how a teleologist might ascribe content in a particular case - the case of a perceptual judgement whose content is learned. I reject the idea that the teleologist can appeal to the way in which the subject has used the judgement, or its constituent concepts, in the past, on the grounds that it is possible for the subject to produce judgements and concepts that never help her to satisfy any of her interests. Instead, my account depends on the idea that the process of learning is regulated by a mechanism whose function is to produce a harmony between the information carried by perceptual judgements and the way in which they are used in inference.     

Is Longino's Conception of Objectivity Feminist?

Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti‐feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her view requires even the active cultivation of Nazi scientists in objective inquiry. In this paper I consider one response to the Nazi problem, which I call the good faith argument. I show that the good faith argument itself is just as objectionable, on feminist grounds, as the Nazi problem it is meant to address.     

Self-Affection and Pure Intuition in Kant

Are the pure intuitions of space and time, for Kant, dependent upon the understanding's activity? This paper defends the recently popular Self-Affection Thesis (SAT): namely, that the pure intuitions require an activity of self-affection—an influence of the understanding on the inner sense. Two systematic objections to this thesis have been raised: The Independence objection claims that SAT undermines the independence of sensibility; the Compatibility objection claims that certain features of space and time are incompatible with being the products of the understanding's activity. I show that the resources to rebut these objections can be found in Kant's account of causal influence.     

Hume and Peirce on the Ultimate Stability of Belief

Louis Loeb has argued that Hume is pessimistic while Peirce is optimistic about the attainment of fully stable beliefs. In contrast, we argue that Hume was optimistic about such attainment but only if the scope of philosophical investigation is limited to first‐order explanatory questions. Further, we argue that Peirce, after reformulating the pragmatic maxim to accommodate the reality of counterfactuals, was pessimistic about such attainment. Finally, we articulate and respond to Peirce's objection that Hume's skeptical arguments in T 1.4.1 and his commitment to common sense indicate that Hume was confused about whether we could have stable beliefs at all.     

Agent-causation and agential control

According to what I call the reductive standard-causal theory of agency, the exercise of an agent's power to act can be reduced to the causal efficacy of agent-involving mental states and events. According to a non-reductive agent-causal theory, an agent's power to act is irreducible and primitive. Agent-causal theories have been dismissed on the ground that they presuppose a very contentious notion of causation, namely substance-causation. In this paper I will assume, with the proponents of the agent-causal approach, that substance-causation is possible, as I will argue against that theory on the ground that it fails as a theory of agency. I will argue that the non-reductive agent-causal theory fails to account for agency, because it fails to account for agential control: it cannot explain why the stipulated irreducible relation between the agent and an action constitutes the agent's exercise of control over the action. This objection, I will argue, applies to the agent-causal theory in particular, and to the non-reductive approach in general.     

Lange on essentialism,counterfactuals, and explanation

Marc Lange objects to scientific essentialists that they can give no better account of the counterfactual invariance of laws than Humeans. While conceding this point succeeds ad hominem against some essentialists, I show that it does not undermine essentialism in general. Moreover, Lange's alternative account of the relation between laws and counterfactuals is—with minor modification—compatible with essentialism.     

HOW TO ANALYSE SUBSTANCE: A REPLY TO SCHNIEDER

In a recent issue of this journal, Benjamin Schnieder has presented an objection to the account of individual substance that we have developed and put to various uses in our works on metaphysics. According to Schnieder's objection, our proposal to analyse this notion of substantiality suffers from a special kind of circularity. In this paper, we give two replies to Schnieder's objection. The first is that a successful analysis is not, in fact, required to avoid the sort of circularity about which Schnieder complains. The second is that our analysis does not involve the alleged circularity.