Are physical events subject to mental influence? Even to raise the question suggests what the answer had better be. Deny mental causation and you are denying that anyone everdoes anything: answer a question or anything else. 2 Tongues may...
moreAre physical events subject to mental influence? Even to raise the question suggests what the answer had better be. Deny mental causation and you are denying that anyone everdoes anything: answer a question or anything else. 2 Tongues may wag and arms may wave about, but there is no action unless these things occur at the bidding of appropriate mental states. Nor is action the only casualty if mental states are physically inert. Smirking, beaming, moping about, shivering in anticipation, raising a skeptical eyebrow, favoring a ...
A development and defense of Kripke's secret doctrine, only hinted at in his work but repeatedly so, of nonexistence.
The title comes from a well-known paper of Putnam’s (Putnam [1980]). The content is very different. Putnam uses model theory1 to cast doubt on our ability to engage semantically with an objective world. The role of mathematics for him is...
moreThe title comes from a well-known paper of Putnam’s (Putnam [1980]). The content is very different. Putnam uses model theory1 to cast doubt on our ability to engage semantically with an objective world. The role of mathematics for him is to prove this pessimistic conclusion. I on the other hand am wondering how models can help us to engage semantically with the objective world. Mathematics functions for me as an analogy. Numbers among their many other accomplishments boost the language’s expressive power; they give us access to recondite physical facts. Models, among their many other accomplishments, do the same thing; they give us access to recondite physical facts. This anyway is the analogy I will try to develop in this paper.
Develops update rules for permissions and commands in the spirit of truthmaker semantics, taxonomizing them "prospectively" by their intended static semantical results.
I reply to comments on "If-Thenism" by Suki Finn, Katharina Felka, Amie Thomasson, Seahwa Kim, Daniel Dohrn, Gideon Rosen, Otavio Bueno, Brad Armour-Garb, Fred Kroon, Mary Leng, Joseph Ulatowski, Mark Colyvan, and Matteo Plebani.
for a volume on Unstructured Content edited by Andy Egan and Dirk Kindermann
Knowledge is closed under (known) implication, according to standard theories. Orthodoxy can allow, though, that *apparent* counterexamples to closure exist, much as Kripkeans recognize the existence of illusions of possibility...
moreKnowledge is closed under (known) implication, according to standard theories. Orthodoxy can allow, though, that *apparent* counterexamples to closure exist, much as Kripkeans recognize the existence of illusions of possibility (IPOs)which they seek to explain away. Should not everyone, orthodox or not, want tomake sense of ‘‘intimations of openness’’ (IONs)? This paper compares two stylesof explanation: (1) evidence that boosts P ’s probability need not boost that of its consequence Q; (2) evidence bearing on P’s subject matter may not bear on the subject matter of Q.
Introduction to thing/matter issues for the Norton Introduction to Philosophy , ed., Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen, Gideon Rosen, and Seana Shiffrin
"I am truthful" cannot be true in standard theories of truth. We explore why and propose a fix.
For a volume in honor of Raymond Smullyan
Closure fails not for probabilistic reasons but reasons of aboutness.
Philosophy of mind: classical and contemporary readings. Contents. Preface. 1 Foundations. A. Dualism. 1 Meditations on First Philosophy (11 and Vl). René Descartes. 2 Passions of the Soul (Excerpt). René Descartes. 3 On the Hypothesis...
morePhilosophy of mind: classical and contemporary readings. Contents. Preface. 1 Foundations. A. Dualism. 1 Meditations on First Philosophy (11 and Vl). René Descartes. 2 Passions of the Soul (Excerpt). René Descartes. 3 On the Hypothesis That Animals Are Automata,. and Its History (Excerpt). Thomas H. Huxley. 4 An Unfortunate Dualist. Raymond M. Smullyan. B. Behaviorism. 5 Descarts's Myth. 6 Psychology in physical Language (Excerpt). Rudolf Carnap. 7 Brains and Behavior. Hilary Putnam. C. The Identity Theory. ...
"Colyvan [2010] raises two problems for “easy road” nominalism about mathematical objects. The first is that a theory’s mathematical commitments may run too deep to permit the extraction of nominalistic content. Taking the math out is, or...
more"Colyvan [2010] raises two problems for “easy road” nominalism about mathematical objects. The first is that a theory’s mathematical commitments may run too deep to permit the extraction of nominalistic content. Taking the math out is, or could be,
like taking the hobbits out of Lord of the Rings. I agree with the “could be,” but not (or not yet) the “is.” A notion of logical subtraction is developed that supports the possibility, questioned by Colyvan, of bracketing a theory’s mathematical aspects to obtain, as remainder, what it says “mathematics aside.” The other problem concerns
explanation. Several grades of mathematical involvement in physical explanation are distinguished, by analogy with Quine’s three grades of modal involvement. The first two grades plausibly obtain, but they do not require mathematical objects. The third grade is likelier to require mathematical objects. But it is not clear from Colyvan’s example that the third grade really obtains."
The judgment 'Line a is parallel to line b', in symbols: a|| b, can be taken as an identity. If we do this, we obtain the concept of direction, and say:'The direction of line a is equal to the direction of line b.'Thus we replace the...
moreThe judgment 'Line a is parallel to line b', in symbols: a|| b, can be taken as an identity. If we do this, we obtain the concept of direction, and say:'The direction of line a is equal to the direction of line b.'Thus we replace the symbol|| by the more generic symbol=, through removing what is specific in the content of the former and dividing it between a and b. We carve up the content in a way different from the original way, and this yields us a new concept.(Frege 1997, 110–11)