Enlightening the Fully Informed

This paper develops a response to the knowledge argument against physicalism. The response is both austere, in that it does not concede the existence of non-physical information (much less non-physical facts), and natural, in that it acknowledges the alethic character of phenomenal knowledge and learning. I argue that such a response has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of existing objections to the knowledge argument. Throughout, the goal is to develop a response that is polemically effective in addition to theoretically sound.     

Transmission Failure Failure

I set out the standard view about alleged examples of failure of transmission of warrant, respond to two cases for the view, and argue that the view is false. The first argument for the view neglects the distinction between believing a proposition on the basis of a justification and merely having a justification to believe a proposition. The second argument for the view neglects the position that one 9s justification for believing a conclusion can be one 9s premise for the conclusion, rather than simply one 9s justification for the premise. Finally, the view is false since it is inconsistent with the closure of knowledge as closure is properly understood.     

A Contextualist Reply to the Direct Argument

The Direct Argument for the incompatibility of moral responsibility and determinism is designed to side-step complaints given by compatibilist critiques of the so-called Transfer Argument. I argue that while it represents an improvement over the Transfer Argument, it loses some of its plausibility when we reflect on some metalogical issues about normal modal modeling and the semantics of natural language. More specifically, the crucial principle on which the Direct Argument depends appears doubtful where context plays a role in evaluation of normative claims.     

A Light Theory with Heavy Burdens

In “ A Light Theory of Color”, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and David Sparrow argue that color is neither a primary quality of objects, nor a disposition that objects have, nor a property of our visual fields. Rather, according to the view they present, color is a property of light. The present paper aims to show, first, that the light theory is vulnerable to many of the very same objections that Sinnott-Armstrong and Sparrow raise against rival views. Second, the paper argues that the strategies that Sinnott-Armstrong and Sparrow use to avoid certain objections are also available to proponents of rival accounts. This might only seem to show that the light theory is in the same shaky boat as other theories: suffering from the same problems but having the same tools for solving them. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to why this is not the case, but why the existence of the light theory is nevertheless likely to bring increased clarity to the debate about color realism.     

Even zombies Can be Surprised: A Reply to Graham And Horgan

In their paper “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” (2000), George Graham and Terence Horgan argue, contrary to a widespread view, that the so- called Knowledge Argument may after all pose a problem for certain materialist accounts of perceptual experience. I propose a reply to Graham and Horgan on the materialist’s behalf, making use of a distinction between knowing what it’s like to see something F and knowing how F things look.