Ginsborg on a Kantian-Brandomian View of Concepts

ABSTRACT

According to a Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the use of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the relevant conceptual norms. Recently, Ginsborg raises two important objections against this view. According to her, the normativity Brandom ascribes to concepts lacks the internalist or first-person character of normativity that Kant’s view demands, and the relevant normativity belongs properly not to concepts as such, but rather to belief or assertion. The purpose of this paper is to defend a Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts against these objections.     

Two Conceptions of Psychological Continuity

Abstract

In this article, I develop and defend a conception of psychological continuity that differs from the ‘orthodox’ conception in terms of overlapping chains of strongly connected mental states. By recognizing the importance of the (narrative) interrelatedness of qualitatively dissimilar mental contents, as well as the role of the body in psychological continuity, I argue, serious problems confronting the orthodox view can be solved.     

Epistemology shmepistemology: moral error theory and epistemic expressivism

Some philosophers object to moral error theory by arguing that there a parity between moral and epistemic normativity. They maintain that moral and epistemic error theory stand or fall together, that epistemic error theory falls, and that moral error theory thus falls too. This paper offers a response to this objection on behalf of moral error theorists. I defend the view that moral and epistemic error theory do not stand or fall together by arguing that moral error theory can be sustained alongside epistemic expressivism. This unusual combination of theories can be underpinned by differences in the foundational norms that guide moral and epistemic inquiry. I conclude that the problem of epistemic normativity fails to show that it is compulsory for us to reject moral error theory.     

Replication without replicators

According to a once influential view of selection, it consists of repeated cycles of replication and interaction. It has been argued that this view is wrong: replication is not necessary for evolution by natural selection. I analyze the nine most influential arguments for this claim and defend the replication–interaction conception of selection against these objections. In order to do so, however, the replication–interaction conception of selection needs to be modified significantly. My proposal is that replication is not the copying of an entity, the replicator, but the copying of a property. Thus, we can have a replication process without there being a replicator that is being copied.     

A Law of One's Own: Self‐Legislation and Radical Kantian Constructivism

Radical constructivists appeal to self‐legislation in arguing that rational agents are the ultimate sources of normative authority over themselves. I chart the roots of radical constructivism and argue that its two leading Kantian proponents are unable to defend an account of self‐legislation as the fundamental source of practical normativity without this legislation collapsing into a fatal arbitrariness. Christine Korsgaard cannot adequately justify the critical resources which agents use to navigate their practical identities. This leaves her account riven between rigorism and voluntarism, such that it will not escape a paradox that arises when self‐legislation is unable to appeal to external normative standards. Onora O'Neill anchors self‐legislation more firmly to the self‐disciplining structures of reason itself. However, she ultimately fails to defend sufficiently unconditional practical norms which could guide legislation. These endemic problems with radical constructivist models of self‐legislation prompt a reconstruction of a neglected realist self‐legislative tradition which is exemplified by Christian Wolff. In outlining a rationalist and realist account of self‐legislation, I argue that it can also make sense of our ability to overcome anomie and deference in practical action. Thus, I claim that we need not make laws but can make them our own.     

VALUES,DESIRES, AND LOVE: REFLECTIONS ON WOLLHEIM'S MORAL PSYCHOLOGY

In The Thread of Life, Richard Wollheim argues that a person's sense of value is grounded in the power of love to generate certain favourable perceptions of an object. Following from his view is a psychoanalytic conception of valuing as constituted by the imaginative force of phantasy, rather than rational deliberation. In this paper, I shall defend this conception with a view to explaining the relation between values and desires. I suggest that valuing qua phantasy‐making can ‘tune up’ a person's desires to fit his perception of the good. Such power of phantasy is to be contrasted with various types of motivational failure in moral imagination. Finally, I argue that ‘effective valuing’, which makes us capable of desiring what we perceive to be good, requires an affective kind of imagination which assures us that we have the ability to love and to be loved.     

The Normativity of Meaning: Guidance and Justification

Abstract

The thesis that meaning is normative has come under much scrutiny of late. However, there are aspects of the view that have received comparatively little critical attention which centre on meaning’s capacity to guide and justify linguistic action. Call such a view ‘justification normativity’ (JN). I outline Zalabardo’s (1997) account of JN and his corresponding argument against reductive-naturalistic meaning-factualism and argue that the argument presents a genuine challenge to account for the guiding role of meaning in linguistic action. I then present a proposal regarding how this challenge may be met. This proposal is then compared to recent work by Ginsborg (2011; 2012), who has outlined an alternative view of the normativity of meaning that explicitly rejects the idea that meanings guide and justify linguistic use. I outline how Ginsborg utilises this notion of normativity in order to provide a positive account of what it is to mean something by an expression which is intended to serve as a response to Kripke’s semantic sceptic. Finally, I argue that Ginsborg’s response to the sceptic is unsatisfactory, and that, insofar as it is able to preserve our intuitive view of meaning’s capacity to guide linguistic action, my proposal is to be preferred.     

Against quietist normative realism

Recently, some philosophers have suggested that a form of robust realism about ethics, or normativity more generally, does not face a significant explanatory burden in metaphysics. I call this view metaphysically quietist normative realism. This paper argues that while this view can appear to constitute an attractive alternative to more traditional forms of normative realism, it cannot deliver on this promise. I examine Scanlon’s attempt to defend such a quietist realism, and argue that rather than silencing metaphysical questions about normative reasons, his defense at best succeeds only in shifting the focus of metaphysical enquiry. I then set aside the details of Scanlon’s view, and argue on general grounds that that the quietist realist cannot finesse a crucial metanormative task: to explain the contrast between the correct normative system and alternative putatively normative standards.     

Normative Force and Normative Freedom: Hume and Kant, But Not Hume versus Kant

Our notion of normativity appears to combine, in a way difficult to understand but seemingly familiar from experience, elements of force and freedom. On the one hand, a normative claim is thought to have a kind of compelling authority; on the other hand, if our respecting it is to be an appropriate species of respect, it must not be coerced, automatic, or trivially guaranteed by definition. Both Hume and Kant, I argue, looked to aesthetic experience as a convincing example exhibiting this marriage of force and freedom, as well as showing how our judgment can come to be properly attuned to the features that constitute value. This image of attunement carries over into their respective accounts of moral judgment. The seemingly radical difference between their moral theories may be traceable not to a different conception of normativity, but to a difference in their empirical psychological theories – a difference we can readily spot in their accounts of aesthetics.     

Methodological Incommensurability and Epistemic Relativism

This paper revisits one of the key ideas developed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In particular, it explores the methodological form of incommensurability which may be found in the original edition of Structure. It is argued that such methodological incommensurability leads to a form of epistemic relativism. In later work, Kuhn moved away from the original idea of methodological incommensurability with his idea of a set of epistemic values that provides a basis for rational theory choice, but do not constitute an algorithm for such choice. The paper also explores the sceptical basis for the epistemic relativism of the original view that Kuhn proposes in Structure. It suggests that the main sceptical rationale for such relativism may be avoided by a particularist and naturalist conception of epistemic normativity. When this approach is combined with the appeal to external methodological standards endorsed by the later Kuhn and his critics, the epistemic relativism of Structure may be completely repudiated.     

The Epistemology of Testimony: Fulfilling the Sincerity Condition

Abstract

In this paper I aim to defend the claim that we are a priori entitled to accept that a speaker is being sincere, unless there are positive reasons not to. I look initially at the trust approach to testimony, which claims affective trust plays an epistemic role in our coming to believe that a speaker is being sincere. My claim is that this view is mistaken, and yet has something important to say in recognising the essential difference between testimony and other forms of evidence. This difference is intentionality. It is my view that in exploring the real intentions behind assertions we can discover why it is that we have an a priori entitlement to accept that a speaker is being sincere. If we recognise that intending to communicate is intending to transfer belief, then we must recognise that intending to communicate entails sincerity. A hearer is entitled to accept that an assertion which is explicitly offered as communication is in fact sincere.     

Normativity and Interpersonal Reasons

What is one who takes normativity seriously to do if normativity can neither be discovered lurking out there in the world independently of us nor can it be sufficiently grasped from a merely explanatory perspective? One option is to accept that the normative challenge cannot be met and to retreat to some form of moral skepticism. Another possibility has recently been proposed by Christine Korsgaard in The Sources of Normativity where she aims to develop an account of normativity which is grounded in autonomy. Furthermore, she argues that on her account reasons are "essentially public" and that this captures how it is that we can obligate one another. In this paper I argue that there is a serious tension between her account of normativity and the publicity of reasons-namely, that if reasons are essentially public, then it is not possible for individuals to legislate laws for themselves. However, I then argue that if we revise her conception of normativity such that it is understood to involve collective rather than individual legislation that it may then be possible to account for interpersonal reasons.     

The gender puzzles

What is gender and how do we know what our gender is? These are the questions I propose to answer here. I review and reject several hypotheses: gender as sex or—a more careful version of the view—as subjective experiences that arise from sexual characteristics; gender as brain configuration; and gender as a historical kind. I express sympathy with an existentialist conception of gender but argue that such a conception, even according to its proponents, cannot help solve the problems of what gender is and how we know what our gender is. I then advance a new view.     

A Kantian-Brandomian View of Concepts and The Problem of a Regress of Norms

ABSTRACT

According to the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the application of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the norms governing its application. But this view faces some serious objections. In particular, according to Rosen, Glüer and Wikforss, this view leads to a vicious regress of norms. The purpose of this paper is to defend a version of the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts against this objection. I argue that we can deal with this problem along the lines of a coherentist account of justification.     

Spinoza's Thinking Substance and the Necessity of Modes

How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property. The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer‐functionalist. In §1 I motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson's no fundamental mentality constraint. In §2 I set out my preferred definition of ‘the physical’ and make my case that physicalism requires functionalism. In §3 I defend my proposal by attacking the leading alternative account of ‘the physical,’ the theory‐based conception. Finally, in §4 I draw on my definition, together with Jaegwon Kim's account of intertheoretic reduction, to defend the controversial view that physicalism requires a priori physicalism.     

Syntax in A Dynamic Brain

Proponents of the language of thought (LOT) thesis are realists when it comes to syntactically structured representations, and must defend their view against instrumentalists, who would claim that syntactic structures may be useful in describing cognition, but have no more causal powers in governing cognition than do the equations of physics in guiding the planets. This paper explores what it will take to provide an argument for LOT that can defend its conclusion from instrumentalism. I illustrate a difficulty in this project by discussing arguments for LOT put forward by Horgan and Tienson. When their evidence is viewed in the light of results in connectionist research, it is hard to see how a realist conception of syntax can be formulated and defended.

     

How Norms (Might) Guide Belief

Abstract

Belief normativism is roughly the view that judgments about beliefs are normative judgments. Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss (G&W) suggest that there are two ways one could defend this view: by appeal to what might be called ‘truth-norms’, or by appeal to what might be called ‘norms of rationality’ or ‘epistemic norms’. According to G&W, whichever way the normativist takes, she ends up being unable to account for the idea that the norms in question would guide belief formation. Plausibly, if belief normativism were true, the relevant norms would have to offer such guidance. I argue that G&W’s case against belief normativism is not successful. In section 1, I defend the idea that truth-norms can guide belief formation indirectly via epistemic norms. In section 2, I outline an account of how the epistemic norms might guide belief. Interestingly, this account may involve a commitment to a certain kind of expressivist view concerning judgments about epistemic norms.     

Inaugural lecture: Philosophy enough

Abstract

This inaugural lecture was delivered at the Howard College Campus of UKZN on 2 April 2008. In it I do three things. First I sketch some arguments in favour of a naturalist conception of philosophy. The conclusions that I’m after are that philosophy is not an autonomous enterprise, so that it had better be continuous with scientific enquiry if it is to get anywhere. A supplementary claim I defend briefly is that the natural and social sciences should be viewed as more integrated than they usually are. Second, I offer some reasons for rejecting all identifiable forms of social constructivism about knowledge. Finally, I say something about what ‘African Scholarship’ might mean, given the preceding considerations. There I briefly defend the claim that there is no epistemically interesting sense in which there is such a thing as African knowledge.     

Explaining Practical Normativity

Ethical non-naturalists often charge that their naturalist competitors cannot adequately explain the distinctive normativity of moral or more broadly practical concepts. I argue that the force of the charge is mitigated, because non-naturalism is ultimately committed to a kind of mysterianism about the metaphysics of practical norms that possesses limited explanatory power. I then show that focusing on comparative judgments about the explanatory power of various metaethical theories raises additional problems for the non-naturalist, and suggest grounds for optimism that a naturalistic realist about practical normativity will ultimately be able to explain the distinctive normativity of practical norms. I then show that radical pluralism or particularism about the structure of normative ethics would complicate the naturalistic strategy that I defend. This suggests a perhaps surprising way in which the resolution of the debate between ethical naturalists and non-naturalists may rest in part on the answers to substantive normative questions.     

Epistemic and Dialectical Regress

Dialectical egalitarianism holds that every asserted proposition requires defence when challenged by an interlocutor. This view apparently generates a vicious ‘regress of justifications’, since an interlocutor can challenge the premises through which a speaker defends her original assertion, and so on ad infinitum. To halt the regress, dialectical foundationalists such as Adler, Brandom, Leite, and Williams propose that some propositions require no defence in the light of mere requests for justification. I argue that the putative regress is not worrisome and that egalitarianism can handle it quite satisfactorily. I also defend a positive view that combines an anti-foundationalist conception of dialectical interaction with a foundationalist conception of epistemic justification.