Displaying: 121-140 of 2371 documents

0.168 sec

121. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Jason Bridges Davidson’s Transcendental Externalism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
One of the chief aims of Donald Davidson' s later work was to show that participation in a certain causal nexus involving two creatures and a shared environment-Davidson calls this nexus "triangulation"-is a metaphysically necessary condition for the acquisition of thought. This doctrine, I suggest, is aptly regarded as a form of what I call transcendental externalism. I extract two arguments for the transcendental-extemalist doctrine from Davidson's writings, and argue that neither succeeds. A central interpretive claim is that the arguments are primarily funded by a particular conception of the nature of non-human animal life. This conception turns out to be insupportable. The failure of Davidson's arguments presses the question of whether we could ever hope to arrive atfar-reaching claims about the conditions for thought if we deny, as does Davidson, the legitimacy of the naturalistic project in the philosophy of mind.
122. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Nick Zangwill Daydreams and Anarchy: A Defense of Anomalous Mental Causation
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Must mental properties figure in psychological causal laws if they are causally efficacious? And do those psychological causal laws give the essence of mental properties? Contrary to the prevailing consensus, I argue that, on the usual conception of laws that is in play in these debates, there are in fact lawless causally efficacious properties both in and out of the philosophy of mind. I argue that this makes a great difference to the philosophical relevance of empirical psychology. I begin by making the case that revolutions and hurricanes are lawless phenomena, before arguing for a similar thesis about creativity, love, courage, dreams, daydreams, and musings. Furthermore, the empirical research on thesc phenomena suggests that the philosophical issues may be independent of what empirical psychology can tell us.
123. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Kepa Korta Varieties of Minimalist Semantics
124. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Robert J. Stainton Terminological Reflections of an Enlightened Contextualist
125. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Keith Derose “Bamboozled by Our Own Words”: Semantic Blindness and Some Arguments Against Contextualism
126. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Eric T. Olson Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity
127. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Scott Campbell The Conception of a Person as a Series of Mental Events
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
It is argued that those who accept the psychological criterion of personal identity, such as Parfit and Shoemaker, should accept what I call the 'series' view of a person, according to which a person is a unified aggregate of mental events and states. As well as defending this view against objections, I argue that it allows the psychological theorist to avoid the two lives objection which the 'animalist' theorists have raised against it, an objection which causes great difficulties for the conception of a person that most psychological theorists favour, the constitution view. It is also argued that the series view allows that people can body swap and teleport, which the constitution view-which takes a person to be a physical object (but a distinct physical object from the human being)-has great trouble with.
128. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Kent Bach The Excluded Middle: Semantic Minimalism without Minimal Propositions
129. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Recent Publications
130. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Herman Cappelen, Ernie Lepore Replies
131. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Herman Cappelen, Ernie Lepore Précis of Insensitive Semantics
132. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 2
Robert Merrihew Adams Divine Motivation Theory
133. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Theodore J. Everett Antiskeptical Conditionals
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Empirical knowledge exists in the form of antiskeptical conditionals, which are propositions like [if I am not undetectably deceived, then I am holding a pen]. Such conditionals, despite their trivial appearance, have the same essential content as the categorical propositions that we usually discuss, and can serve the same functions in science and practical reasoning. This paper sketches out two versions of a general response to skepticism that employs these conditionals. The first says that our ordinary knowledge attributions can safely be replaced by statements using antiskeptical conditionals, which provides a way around the standard sort of skeptical argument while accepting its soundness with respect to the usual targets. The second analyzes the objects of our ordinary knowledge attributions as antiskeptical conditionals, which allows us to refute, not just evade, the skeptic's argument. Both versions compare favorably to the best-knowncurrent approaches to skepticism, including semantic contextualism.
134. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Elizabeth Fricker Second-Hand Knowledge
135. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Derk Pereboom Kant on Transcendental Freedom
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Transcendental freedom consists in the power of agents to produce actions without being causally determined by antecedent conditions, nor by their natures, in exercising this power. Kant contends that we cannot establish whether we are actually or even possibly free in this sense. He claims only that our conception of being transcendentally free involves no inconsistency, but that as a result the belief that we have this freedom meets a pertinent standard of minimal credibility. For the rest, its justification depends on practical reasons. I argue that this belief satisfies an appropriately revised standard of minimal credibility, but that the practical reasons Kant adduces for it are subject to scrious challenge.
136. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Roger Crisp Hedonism Reconsidered
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the 'philosophy of swine', reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's 'experience machine' objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined-intemalism, according to which enjoyment has some special 'feeling tone'. and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. lnternalism-the traditional view--is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections.
137. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Nuel Belnap Prosentence, Revision, Truth, and Paradox
138. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Anil Gupta Remarks on a Foundationalist Theory of Truth
139. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Robert Pasnau A Theory of Secondary Qualities
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The secondary qualities are those qualities of objects that bear a certain relation to our sensory powers: roughly, they are those qualities that we can readily detect only through a certain distinctive phenomenal experience. Contrary to what is sometimes supposed, there is nothing about the world itself (independent of our minds) that determines the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Instead, a theory of the secondary qualities must be grounded in facts about how we conceive of these qualities, and ultimately in facts about human perception.
140. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Volume > 73 > Issue: 3
Hartry Field Maudlin’s Truth and Paradox