Yet Another Run around the Circle

In a recent article, D. A. Truncellito (2004, ‘Running in Circles about Begging the Question’, Argumentation 18, 325–329) argues that the discussion between Robinson (1971, ‘Begging the Question’, Analysis 31, 113–117), Sorensen (1996, ‘Unbeggable Questions’, Analysis 56, 51–55) and Teng (1997, ‘Sorensen on Begging the Question’, Analysis 57, 220–222) shows that we need to distinguish between logical fallacies, which are mistakes in the form of the argument, and rhetorical fallacies, which are mistakes committed by the arguer. While I basically agree with Truncellito’s line of thinking, I believe this distinction is not tenable and offer a different view. In addition, I will argue that the conclusion to draw from the abovementioned discussion is that validity is not a sufficient criterion of begging the question, and that we should be wary of the containment-metaphor of a deductive argument.     

Van Inwagen and the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument

In this paper I do two things: (1) I support the claim that there is still some confusion about just what the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument is and the way it employs Quinean meta-ontology and (2) I try to dispel some of this confusion by presenting the argument in a way which reveals its important meta-ontological features, and include these features explicitly as premises. As a means to these ends, I compare Peter van Inwagen’s argument for the existence of properties with Putnam’s presentation of the indispensability argument. Van Inwagen’s argument is a classic exercise in Quinean meta-ontology and yet he claims – despite his argument’s conspicuous similarities to the Quine-Putnam argument – that his own has a substantially different form. I argue, however, that there is no such difference between these two arguments even at a very high level of specificity; I show that there is a detailed generic indispensability argument that captures the single form of both. The arguments are identical in every way except for the kind of objects they argue for – an irrelevant difference for my purposes. Furthermore, Putnam’s and van Inwagen’s presentations make an assumption that is often mistakenly taken to be an important feature of the Quine-Putnam argument. Yet this assumption is only the implicit backdrop against which the argument is typically presented. This last point is brought into sharper relief by the fact that van Inwagen’s list of the four nominalistic responses to his argument is too short. His list is missing an important – and historically popular – fifth option.

Physicalism,Emergence and Downward Causation

The development of a defensible and fecund notion of emergence has been dogged by a number of threshold issues neatly highlighted in a recent paper by Jaegwon Kim. We argue that physicalist assumptions confuse and vitiate the whole project. In particular, his contention that emergence entails supervenience is contradicted by his own argument that the ‘microstructure’ of an object belongs to the whole object, not to its constituents. And his argument against the possibility of downward causation is question-begging and makes false assumptions about causal sufficiency. We argue, on the contrary, for a rejection of the deeply entrenched assumption, shared by physicalists and Cartesians alike, that what basically exists are things (entities, substances). Our best physics tells us that there are no basic particulars, only fields in process. We need an ontology which gives priority to organization, which is inherently relational. Reflection upon the fact that all biological creatures are far-from-equilibrium systems, whose very persistence depend upon their interactions with their environment, reveals incoherence in the notion of an ‘emergence base’.     

Discussions Quinton’s Neglected Argument for Scientific Realism

Summary  This paper discusses an argument for scientific realism put forward by Anthony Quinton in The Nature of Things. The argument – here called the controlled continuity argument – seems to have received no attention in the literature, apparently because it may easily be mistaken for a better-known argument, Grover Maxwell’s “argument from the continuum”. It is argued here that, in point of fact, the two are quite distinct and that Quinton’s argument has several advantages over Maxwell’s. The controlled continuity argument is also compared to Ian Hacking’s “argument from coincidence”. It is pointed out that both arguments are to a large extent independent from considerations about high-level scientific theories, and that both are abductive arguments at the core. But these similarities do not dilute an important difference related to the fact that Quinton’s argument cleverly seeks to anchor belief in unobservable entities in realism about ordinary objects, which is a position shared by most contemporary scientific anti-realists.     

Disagreements about taste

I argue for the possibility of substantive aesthetic disagreements in which both parties speak truly. The possibility of such disputes undermines an argument mobilized by relativists such as Lasersohn (Linguist Philos 28:643–686, 2005) and MacFarlane (Philos Stud 132:17–31, 2007) against contextualism about aesthetic terminology. In describing the facts of aesthetic disagreement, I distinguish between the intuition of dispute on the one hand and the felicity of denial on the other. Considered separately, neither of those phenomena requires that there be a single proposition asserted by one party to an aesthetic dispute and denied by the other. I suggest instead that many such disputes be analyzed as disputes over the selection or appropriateness of a contextually salient aesthetic standard.     

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Puzzles about persistence and change through time, i.e., about identity across time, have foundered on confusion about what it is for ‘two things’ to be have ‘the same thing’ at a time. This is most directly seen in the dispute over whether material objects can occupy exactly the same place at the same time. This paper defends the possibility of such coincidence against several arguments to the contrary. Distinguishing a temporally relative from an absolute sense of ‘the same’, we see that the intuition, ‘this is only one thing’, and the dictum, ‘two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time’, are individuating things at a time rather than absolutely and are therefore compatible with coincidence. Several other objections philosophers have raised ride on this same ambiguity. Burke, originating what has become the most popular objection to coincidence, argues that if coincidence is possible there would be no explanation of how objects that are qualitatively the same at a time could belong to different sorts. But we can explain an object’s sort by appealing to its properties at other times. Burke’s argument to the contrary equivocates on different notions of ‘cross-time identity’ and ‘the statue’. From a largely negative series of arguments emerges a positive picture of what it means to say multiple things coincide and of why an object’s historical properties explain its sort rather than vice versa – in short, of how coincidence is possible.     

Baumann on the Monty Hall problem and single-case probabilities

Peter Baumann uses the Monty Hall game to demonstrate that probabilities cannot be meaningfully applied to individual games. Baumann draws from this first conclusion a second: in a single game, it is not necessarily rational to switch from the door that I have initially chosen to the door that Monty Hall did not open. After challenging Baumann’s particular arguments for these conclusions, I argue that there is a deeper problem with his position: it rests on the false assumption that what justifies the switching strategy is its leading me to win a greater percentage of the time. In fact, what justifies the switching strategy is not any statistical result over the long run but rather the “causal structure” intrinsic to each individual game itself. Finally, I argue that an argument by Hilary Putnam will not help to save Baumann’s second conclusion above. See Moser and Mulder (1994, pp. 115–116, 118).     

Cartwright On Explanation And Idealization

Nancy Cartwright (1983, 1999) argues that (1) the fundamental laws of physics are true when and only when appropriate ceteris paribus modifiers are attached and that (2) ceteris paribus modifiers describe conditions that are almost never satisfied. She concludes that when the fundamental laws of physics are true, they don't apply in the real world, but only in highly idealized counterfactual situations. In this paper, we argue that (1) and (2) together with an assumption about contraposition entail the opposite conclusion — that the fundamental laws of physics do apply in the real world. Cartwright extracts from her thesis about the inapplicability of fundamental laws the conclusion that they cannot figure in covering-law explanations. We construct a different argument for a related conclusion — that forward-directed idealized dynamical laws cannot provide covering-law explanations that are causal. This argument is neutral on whether the assumption about contraposition is true. We then discuss Cartwright's simulacrum account of explanation, which seeks to describe how idealized laws can be explanatory. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Trivalent Semantics and the Vaguely Vague

Michael Tye responds to the problem of higher-order vagueness for his trivalent semantics by maintaining that truth-value predicates are “vaguely vague”: it’s indeterminate, on his view, whether they have borderline cases and therefore indeterminate whether every sentence is true, false, or indefinite. Rosanna Keefe objects (1) that Tye’s argument for this claim tacitly assumes that every sentence is true, false, or indefinite, and (2) that the conclusion is any case not viable. I argue – contra (1) – that Tye’s argument needn’t make that assumption. A version of her objection is in fact better directed against other arguments Tye advances, though Tye can absorb this criticism without abandoning his position’s core. On the other hand, Keefe’s second objection does hit the mark: embracing ‘vaguely vague’ truth-value predicates undermines Tye’s ability to support validity claims needed to defend his position. To see this, however, we must develop Keefe’s remarks further than she does.     

I—Derek Matravers

ABSTRACT Jerrold Levinson maintains that he is a realist about aesthetic properties. This paper considers his positive arguments for such a view. An argument from Roger Scruton, that aesthetic realism would entail the absurd claim that many aesthetic predicates were ambiguous, is also considered and it is argued that Levinson is in no worse position with respect to this argument than anyone else. However, Levinson cannot account for the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy: namely, that we cannot be put in a position to make an aesthetic judgement by testimony alone. Finally, Levinson's views on the ontology of aesthetic properties are considered and found wanting.     

Dualism and Secondary Quality Eliminativism: Putting a New Spin on the Knowledge Argument

Frank Jackson formulated his knowledge argument as an argument for dualism. In this paper I show how the argument can be modified to also establish the irreducibility of the secondary qualities to the properties of physical theory, and ultimately “secondary quality eliminativism”–the view that the secondary qualities are physically uninstantiated. In addition to being of interest in its own right, this new argument provides a perspective to better see that certain popular would-be refutations of the knowledge argument do not work (against either version). But it also introduces some complications that will force us to take an unexpected detour through the pros and cons of naturalizing intentionality before (tentatively) embracing Jackson’s dualist conclusion.     

The Discrimination Argument Revisited

The first explicit argument for the incompatibility of externalism in the philosophy of mind and a priori self-knowledge is Boghossian’s discrimination argument. In this essay, I oppose the third premise of this argument, trying to show by means of a thought experiment that possessing the “twater thought” is not an alternative, a fortiori not a relevant alternative, to having the “water thought.” I then examine a modified version of Boghossian’s argument. The attempt is made to substantiate the claim that the standard incompatibilist support for its second premise is untenable. Furthermore, a third Boghossian-style argument is rejected on the ground that either its second premise cannot be warranted in the way suggested by incompatibilists or its third premise is mistaken because having the “twater thought” instead of the “water thought” is not relevant. Finally, it is argued that the discrimination argument cannot be saved by invoking closure. The upshot of my discussion is that a compatibilist can dismiss Boghossian-style arguments for incompatibilism without having to deal with fundamental issues concerning self-knowledge and the nature of slow switching.     

Rawls and Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients: A Reply to Maio

In his paper, “The Relevance of Rawls’ Principle of Justice for Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients” (Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 23 (2002):45–53), Giovanni Maio has developed athought-provoking argument for the permissibility of non-therapeutic research on cognitively impaired patients. Maio argues that his conclusion follows from the acceptance of John Rawls’s principles of justice, specifically, Rawls’s “liberty principle” Maio has misinterpreted Rawls’s “libertyprinciple” – correctly interpreted it does notsupport non-therapeutic research on cognitivelyimpaired patients. Three other ‘Rawlsian’ arguments are suggested by Maio’s discussion –two “self-respect” arguments and a “presumed consent” argument – but none of them are convincing. However, an alternative argument developed from Rawls’s discussion of “justice in health care” in his most recent book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, may justify certain kinds of non-therapeutic research on some cognitively impaired patients in special circumstances. We should not expect anything more permissive from a liberal theory of justice. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Why Science cannot be Value-Free

Against the ideal of value-free science I argue that science is not––and cannot be––value-free and that relevant values are both cognitive and moral. I develop an argument by indicating various aspects of the value-ladenness of science. The recognition of the value-ladenness of science requires rethinking our understanding of the rationality and responsibility of science. Its rationality cannot be seen as merely instrumental––as it was seen by the ideal of value-free science––for this would result in limiting the autonomy of science and reducing scientists to “minds to hire”. The scientific rationality must be seen as practical rationality which takes into account the full horizon of values. The scientific responsibility must also be broaden in scope and type. On this basis I draw three practical conclusions concerning the organization of research and training of young scientists, appealing to Plato’s claim that those most capable of healing are also those most capable of harming.     

Rule-following, ideal conditions and finkish dispositions

This paper employs some outcomes (for the most part due to David Lewis) of the contemporary debate on the metaphysics of dispositions to evaluate those dispositional analyses of meaning that make use of the concept of a disposition in ideal conditions. The first section of the paper explains why one may find appealing the notion of an ideal-condition dispositional analysis of meaning and argues that Saul Kripke’s well-known argument against such analyses is wanting. The second section focuses on Lewis’ work in the metaphysics of dispositions in order to call attention to some intuitions about the nature of dispositions that we all seem to share. In particular, I stress the role of what I call ‘Actuality Constraint’. The third section of the paper maintains that the Actuality Constraint can be used to show that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by ‘+’ do not exist (in so doing, I develop a suggestion put forward by Paul Boghossian). This immediately implies that ideal-condition dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work. The last section discusses a possible objection to my argument. The point of the objection is that the argument depends on an illicit assumption. I show (1) that, in fact, the assumption in question is far from illicit and (2) that even without this assumption it is possible to argue that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by ‘+’ do not exist.     

What time travelers may be able to do

Kadri Vihvelin, in “What time travelers cannot do” (Philos Stud 81:315–330, 1996), argued that “no time traveler can kill the baby who in fact is her younger self”, because (V1) “if someone would fail to do something, no matter how hard or how many times she tried, then she cannot do it”, and (V2) if a time traveler tried to kill her baby self, she would always fail. Theodore Sider (Philos Stud 110:115–138, 2002) criticized Vihvelin’s argument, and Ira Kiourti (Philos Stud 139:343–352, 2008) criticized both Vihvelin’s argument and Sider’s critique. I present a critique of Vihvelin’s argument different from both Sider’s and Kiourti’s critiques: I argue in a novel way that both V1 and V2 are false. Since Vihvelin’s argument might be understood as providing a challenge to the possibility of time travel, if my critique succeeds then time travel survives such a challenge unscathed.     

Non-cognitivism and rational inference

Non-cognitivism might seem to offer a plausible account of evaluative judgments, at least on the assumption that there is a satisfactory solution to the Frege–Geach problem. However, Cian Dorr has argued that non-cognitivism remains implausible even assuming that the Frege–Geach problem can be solved, on the grounds that non-cognitivism still has to classify some paradigmatically rational inferences as irrational. Dorr’s argument is ingenious and at first glance seems decisive. However, in this paper I will show that Dorr’s argument equivocates between two different notions of evidence, and that once this equivocation is noted there is no reason to doubt that non-cognitivism is consistent with the rationality of such inferences, at least if it is assumed that the Frege–Geach problem can be solved. In particular, I will show that non-cognitivists can endorse the same explanation of the rationality of such inferences that cognitivists should endorse, and that there is thus no need for non-cognitivists to offer any sort of idiosyncratic account of the epistemology of such cases, in contrast to what other commentators on Dorr’s argument have thought.     

Non-reflexivity and Revenge

Journal of Philosophical Logic - We present a revenge argument for non-reflexive theories of semantic notions – theories which restrict the rule of assumption, or (equivalently) initial...     

The ‘Gray’s Elegy’ Argument, and The Prospects for the Theory of Denoting Concepts

Russell’s new theory of denoting phrases introduced in “On Denoting” in Mind 1905 is now a paradigm of analytic philosophy. The main argument for Russell’s new theory is the so-called ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument, which purports to show that the theory of denoting concepts (analogous to Frege’s theory of senses) promoted by Russell in the 1903 Principles of Mathematics is incoherent. The ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument rests on the premise that if a denoting concept occurs in a proposition, then the proposition is not about the concept. I argue that the premise is false. The ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument does not exhaust Russell’s ammunition against the theory of denoting concepts. Another reason Russell rejects the theory is, as he says, that it cannot provide an adequate account of non-uniquely denoting concepts. In the last section of the paper, I argue that even though Russell was right in thinking that the theory of denoting concepts cannot provide an adequate account of non-uniquely denoting concepts, Russell’s new theory does not succeed in eliminating the occurrence of all denoting concepts, as it requires a commitment to the existence of variables that indirectly denote their values. However, the view that variables are denoting concepts is unproblematic once the ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument is blocked.     

Warrant without truth?

This paper advances the debate over the question whether false beliefs may nevertheless have warrant, the property that yields knowledge when conjoined with true belief. The paper’s first main part—which spans Sections 2–4—assesses the best argument for Warrant Infallibilism, the view that only true beliefs can have warrant. I show that this argument’s key premise conflicts with an extremely plausible claim about warrant. Sections 5–6 constitute the paper’s second main part. Section 5 presents an overlooked puzzle about warrant, and uses that puzzle to generate a new argument for Warrant Fallibilism, the view that false beliefs can have warrant. Section 6 evaluates this pro-Fallibilism argument, finding ultimately that it defeats itself in a surprising way. I conclude that neither Infallibilism nor Fallibilism should now constrain theorizing about warrant.