The “scientific essentialist” doctrine asserts that the following are examples of a posteriori necessary identities: water is H2O; gold is the element with atomic number 79; and heat is the motion of molecules. Evidence in support of this assertion, however, is difficult to find. Both Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke have argued convincingly for the existence of a posteriori necessities. Furthermore, Kripke has argued for the existence of a posteriori necessary identities in regard to a particular class of statements involving (...) proper names. Neither Kripke nor Putnam, however, has argued convincingly that sentences containing syntactically complex terms or descriptive phrases can express a posteriori necessary identities. I will argue by way of a hypothetical example that ‘water is H2O’ does not express a necessary identity. My argument is unique in that it attacks the relevant sufficiency claim needed to underwrite this putative necessary identity.1 That is, even if we grant that water is necessarily composed of H2O, we should not accept that H2O necessarily forms water. (shrink)

On two standard views of vagueness, vagueness as to whether Harry is bald entails that nobody knows whether Harry is bald—either because vagueness is a type of missing truth, and so there is nothing to know, or because vagueness is a type of ignorance, and so even though there is a truth of the matter, nobody can know what that truth is. Vagueness as to whether Harry is bald does entail that nobody clearly knows that Harry is bald and that (...) nobody clearly knows that Harry is not bald. But it does not entail that nobody knows that Harry is bald or that nobody knows that Harry is not bald. Hence, the two standard views of vagueness are mistaken. (shrink)

According to a traditional Cartesian epistemology of perception, perception does not provide one with direct knowledge of the external world. Instead, your immediate perceptual evidence is limited to facts about your own visual experience, from which conclusions about the external world must be inferred. Cartesianism faces well-known skeptical challenges. But this chapter argues that any anti-Cartesian view strong enough to avoid these challenges must license a way of updating one’s beliefs in response to anticipated experiences that seems diachronically irrational. To (...) avoid this result, the anti-Cartesian must either license an unacceptable epistemic chauvinism, or else claim that merely reflecting on one’s experiences defeats perceptual justification. This leaves us with a puzzle: Although Cartesianism faces problems, avoiding them brings a new set of problems. (shrink)

In this classic work, L.D. Barnett delves into the ancient Indian science of Brahma-knowledge. Drawing from sources that predate the Vedas, Barnett presents a detailed study of the cosmology and spirituality of the Brahma tradition, exploring the nature of the universe, the workings of the human mind, and the path to enlightenment. This insightful and beautifully written book is a must-read for anyone interested in the spiritual traditions of India. This work has been selected by scholars as being (...) culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

An action is unratifiable when, on the assumption that one performs it, another option has higher expected utility. Unratifiable actions are often claimed to be somehow rationally defective. But in some cases where multiple options are unratifiable, one unratifiable option can still seem preferable to another. We should respond, I argue, by invoking a graded notion of ratifiability.

A natural view of testimony holds that a source's statements provide one with evidence about what the source believes, which in turn provides one with evidence about what is true. But some theorists have gone further and developed a broadly analogous view of memory. According to this view, which this essay calls the “diary model,” one's memory ordinarily serves as a means for one's present self to gain evidence about one's past judgments, and in turn about the truth. This essay (...) rejects the diary model's analogy between memory and testimony from one's former self, arguing first that memory and a diary differ with respect to their psychological roles, and second that this psychological difference underwrites important downstream epistemic differences. The resulting view stands opposed to prominent discussions of memory and testimony, which either, like the diary model, treat memory by analogy to what we naively wish to say about testimony, or which instead attempt to extend to testimony the epistemically preservative role of memory. (shrink)

This paper critically examines currently influential transparency accounts of our knowledge of our own beliefs that say that self-ascriptions of belief typically are arrived at by “looking outward” onto the world. For example, one version of the transparency account says that one self-ascribes beliefs via an inference from a premise to the conclusion that one believes that premise. This rule of inference reliably yields accurate self-ascriptions because you cannot infer a conclusion from a premise without believing the premise, and so (...) you cannot infer from a premise that you believe the premise unless you do believe it. I argue that this procedure cannot be a source of justification, however, because one can be justified in inferring from p that q only if p amounts to strong evidence that q is true. This is incompatible with the transparency account because p often is not very strong evidence that you believe that p. For example, unless you are a weather expert, the fact that it will rain is not very strong evidence that you believe it will rain. After showing how this intuitive problem can be made precise, I conclude with a broader lesson about the nature of inferential justification: that beliefs, when justified, must be underwritten by beliefs, when justified, must be underwritten by evidential relationships between the facts or propositions which those beliefs represent. (shrink)

I argue that, unlike your brain, you are not composed of other things: you are simple. My argument centers on what I take to be an uncontroversial datum: for any pair of conscious beings, it is impossible for the pair itself to be conscious. Consider, for instance, the pair comprising you and me. You might pinch your arm and feel a pain. I might simultaneously pinch my arm and feel a qualitatively identical pain. But the pair we form would not (...) feel a thing.1 Pairs of people themselves are incapable of experience. Call this The Datum. What explains The Datum? I think the following exhaust the reasonable options. (1) Pairs of people lack a sufficient number of immediate parts. (2) Pairs of people lack immediate parts capable of standing in the right sorts of relations to each other and their environment. (3) Pairs of people lack immediate parts of the right nature. (4) Pairs of people are not structures (they are unstructured collections of their two immediate parts). (5) Some combination of (1) – (4). Finally, (6) pairs of people are not simple. (shrink)

If the reliability of a source of testimony is open to question, it seems epistemically illegitimate to verify the source’s reliability by appealing to that source’s own testimony. Is this because it is illegitimate to trust a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever? Or is there a distinctive problem with appealing to the source’s testimony on the matter of that source’s own reliability? After distinguishing between two kinds of epistemically illegitimate circularity—bootstrapping and self-verification—I argue for a qualified version of (...) the claim that there is nothing especially illegitimate about using a questionable source to evaluate its own reliability. Instead, it is illegitimate to appeal to a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever, with the matter of the source’s own reliability serving only as a special case. (shrink)

A conditional takes the form ‘If A, then C’. On the truth-conditional view of conditionals, conditional statements state things with truth-conditions. On the suppositional view, conditional statements involve the expression of a supposition. I develop and defend a view on which conditional statements both state things with truth-conditions and express suppositions. On this view, something is fundamentally right about standard truth-conditional and standard suppositional views. Considerations in favor of conditional contents lead us to attribute truth-conditional contents to conditional statements; considerations (...) in favor of the suppositional view then lead us to an unexpected account of these contents. The resulting view has a number of benefits, including a unified treatment of conditional speech acts, a plausible account of our practice of ascribing truth-values to conditional statements, a simple explanation of the apparent equivalence between probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities, an intuitive treatment of ‘Gibbardian stand-offs’, a plausible logic of conditionals, and an explanation of why theorizing about conditionals has proved so difficult. (shrink)

On the dominant view of vagueness, if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then it is unsettled, not merely epistemically, but metaphysically, whether Harry is bald. In other words, vagueness is a type of indeterminacy. On the standard alternative, vagueness is a type of ignorance: if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then, even though it is metaphysically settled whether Harry is bald, we cannot know whether Harry is bald. On my view, vagueness is neither a type of (...) indeterminacy nor a type of ignorance. Rather, it is sui generis. (shrink)

Huxley’s Explanatory Gap: There can be no explanation of how states of consciousness arise from interaction among a collection of physical things.

On the dominant view of vagueness, if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then it is unsettled, not merely epistemically, but metaphysically, whether Harry is bald. In other words, vagueness is a type of indeterminacy. On the standard alternative, vagueness is a type of ignorance: if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then, even though it is metaphysically settled whether Harry is bald, we cannot know whether Harry is bald. On my view, vagueness is neither a type of (...) indeterminacy nor a type of ignorance. Rather, it is sui generis. (shrink)

I aim to show that standard theories of counterfactuals are mistaken, not in detail, but in principle, and I aim to say what form a tenable theory must take. Standard theories entail a categorical interpretation of counterfactuals, on which to state that, if it were that A, it would be that C is to state something, not relative to any supposition or hypothesis, but categorically. On the rival suppositional interpretation, to state that, if it were that A, it would be (...) that C is to state that it would be that C relative to the supposition that it were that A. The two interpretations make incompatible predictions concerning the correct evaluation of counterfactuals. I argue that the suppositional interpretation makes the correct prediction. (shrink)

Milk, sand, plastic, uranium, wood, carbon, and oil are kinds of stuff. The sand in Hawaii, the uranium in North Korea, and the oil in Iraq are portions of stuff. Not everyone believes in portions of stuff.1 Those who do are likely to agree that, whatever their more specific natures, portions of stuff can at least be identified with mereological sums of their subportions.2 It seems after all trivial that a given portion of stuff just is all of its subportions (...) combined—not by a spatiotemporal or any other substantive unifying relation, but by a mere principle of summation, a principle requiring that, if some things exist, there exists the sum, or collection, of those things. (shrink)

Self-verifying judgments like _I exist_ seem rational, and self-defeating ones like _It will rain, but I don’t believe it will rain_ seem irrational_._ But one’s evidence might support a self-defeating judgment, and fail to support a self-verifying one. This paper explains how it can be rational to defy one’s evidence if judgment is construed as a mental performance or act, akin to inner assertion. The explanation comes at significant cost, however. Instead of causing or constituting beliefs, judgments turn out to (...) be mere epiphenomena, and self-verification and self-defeat lack the broader philosophical import often claimed for them. (shrink)

Let us call a statement of the form ‘If A was, is, or will be the case, then C was, is, or will be the case’ an indicative conditional. And let us call a statement of the form ‘If A had been, were, or were to be the case, then C would have been, would be, or would come to be the case’ a subjunctive, or counterfactual, conditional.

Counterfactual Entailment is the view that a counterfactual conditional is true just in case its antecedent entails its consequent. I present an argument for Counterfactual Entailment, and I develop a strategy for explaining away apparent counterexamples to the view. The strategy appeals to the suppositional view of counterfactuals, on which a counterfactual is essentially a statement, made relative to the supposition of its antecedent, of its consequent.

An internalist slogan says that justification depends on internal factors. But which factors are those? This paper examines some common motivations favoring internalism over externalism, and says they are compatible with including dispositional and even past mental states in the internal.

Saul Kripke has convinced many of us that material things have their material origins essentially. Plutarch, through his Ship of Theseus story, has convinced many of us that material things can sometimes survive gradual replacements of their material parts, that they are materially nonrigid. By way of a series of counterexamples, I will argue that any attempt to specify what in particular is essential about material origins will founder on the phenomenon of material non-rigidity.

A posteriori Moral Naturalism posits a posteriorimoral/naturalistic identities. Versions of this view thatposit necessary identities purport to rely on theKripke/Putnam doctrine of scientific essentialism.Versions that posit only contingent identities requirethat moral terms are non-rigid designators. I argue thatmetaethics does not fall within the scope of scientificessentialism and that moral terms are not non-rigid designators.

Is self-knowledge a requirement of rationality, like consistency, or means-ends coherence? Many claim so, citing the evident impropriety of asserting, and the alleged irrationality of believing, Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form < p, but I don't believe that p>. If there were nothing irrational about failing to know one's own beliefs, they claim, then there would be nothing irrational about Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs. This article considers a few ways the data surrounding Moore's paradox might be marshaled to support rational (...) requirements to know one's beliefs, and finds that none succeed. (shrink)

In deciding whether to read this paper, it might seem reasonable for you to base your decision on your confidence (i) that, if you read this paper, you will become a better person. It might also seem reasonable for you to base your decision on your confidence (ii) that, if you were to read this paper, you would become a better person. Is there a difference between (i) and (ii)? If so, are you rationally required to base your decision on (...) your confidence in one of the two conditionals, rather than the other? Keith DeRose (2010) proposes a provocative pair of answers to these questions. In this paper, I argue that DeRose’s answers are incorrect, and I defend a rival pair of answers. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey writes: If two people are arguing ‘if p will q?’ and both are in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge and arguing on that basis about q. We can say that they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p. (1931) Chalmers and Hájek write: Let us take the first sentence [of Ramsey] the way it is often taken, as proposing the following test for the acceptability of an (...) indicative conditional: ‘if p then q’ is acceptable to a subject S iff, were S to accept p and consider q, S would accept q. (shrink)

Jitney and her grown twin brother, Cletus, are cleaning out their mother’s attic. Cletus has found a photograph of a child with a squirrel in one hand, a meatball in the other, and a nametag that reads ‘Kid’. Cletus and Jitney mull over the photo from the comfort of two ragtag armchairs.

Abstract:Dwelling near Lake Superior in the Anthropocene, we uncover a greater intimacy and acquaintance with our earthly responsibilities. Thoughts wash over us like waves as our thinking ebbs and flows between the fact that we must learn to dwell here while also coming to terms with the planetary implications of our very being. That ebb and flow is presented here in a series of waves, which can be read in or out of order, in an orderly or disorderly fashion. These (...) waves crash into one another as we reflect on place, dwelling, hospitality, deep history, enchantment, wildness, and thinking itself. We discover in this mixture an invitation to think more deeply about our responsibilities by contemplating one of the other bodies with which we cohabit the earth: the deep, blue body of Lake Superior. (shrink)

The question of whether all living things are really just complex physical ones, or whether instead there are biological entities or characteristics that cannot be fully characterized in physical terms, has historical roots buried centuries deep. Carl Hempel considers this question as an empirical one for modern science to address. Hempel’s concern is not with the answer to the question, but rather with the methods by which it may be evaluated. He considers the position of those he calls “mechanists,” that (...) all living things and their biological characteristics are nothing more than complex physical systems, as equivalent to the view that in some significant sense all accurate biological theories are implied by physical ones. In so doing, Hempel seeks to draw conclusions regarding the unity of science more broadly. This paper argues that Hempel’s account, though perhaps succeeding in a crucial first step, fails on numerous points afterwards. Using the morals that may be draw from these failures, I suggest rough outlines of some alternative accounts of intertheoretic reduction. (shrink)

Stephen Schiffer claims (in the present collection) that vagueness is essentially a psychological phenomenon. According to him, vagueness should not be explicated in terms of absent truth values or incurable ignorance—that is, as a semantic or an epistemic phenomenon—but rather in terms of a peculiar new type of propositional attitude. Schiffer introduces the notion of a vagueness-related partial belief and bases upon it both a novel analysis of the notion of a borderline case and a novel solution to the sorites (...) paradox. He defines standard partial beliefs (SPBs) as partial beliefs which can under suitable idealization be identified with subjective probability (p. 221). He defines vagueness-related partial beliefs (VPBs) as partial beliefs which cannot be so identified (p. 223). He adds that VPBs, by contrast to SPBs, do not measure uncertainty or generate corresponding likelihood beliefs (p. 223). He defines a paradigm VPB (VPB*) as a VPB held by an ideally rational thinker who knows, with certainty, that she is in ideal epistemic conditions with respect to the content of her VPB (p. 227). Schiffer then analyzes the notion of a borderline case as follows: x is to some extent a borderline case of being F just in case someone could have a VPB* that x is F. Near the end of his paper, Schiffer suggests the possibility of reformulating his analysis in.. (shrink)

Intuitively, a question is indeterminate just in case it is unsettled, not merely epistemically, but metaphysically. We ordinarily ascribe indeterminacy by saying that there is no fact of the matter. We say for instance that there is no fact of the matter how many clouds exist. The distribution of water droplets in the sky would appear to settle that there are some clouds, but not how many. ;On the one hand, it seems obvious that certain questions are indeterminate. On the (...) other hand, it seems easy to reduce an arbitrary ascription of indeterminacy to absurdity: Suppose that it is indeterminate---that is, metaphysically unsettled---whether Jud is bald. Because it is true that Jud is bald only if it is metaphysically settled that he is bald, and because it is true that Jud is not bald only if it is metaphysically settled that he is not bald, it is not true that Jud is bald and not true that Jud is not bald. Because Jud is bald only if it is true that he is bald, and because Jud is not bald only if it is true that he is not bald, Jud is not bald and Jud is not not bald. This is a contradiction. Hence, our supposition is false. Moreover, because the issue of whether Jud is bald was chosen arbitrarily, the argument generalizes: indeterminacy is impossible. ;We are faced with a dilemma: take the anti-indeterminacy argument at face value and look for a way to explain away our pro-indeterminacy intuitions, or take our intuitions at face value and look for a way to reject the argument. Many philosophers are inclined toward the latter route, but I want to take the first step toward justifying the former. ;After emphasizing the costs of rejecting the preceding sort of argument, I show how five of the most salient phenomena that give rise to pro-indeterminacy intuitions can be accounted for without postulating genuine indeterminacy. I examine explicitly incomplete definitions, hidden relativity, vagueness, comparatives, and subjunctive conditionals. In each case I suggest a way to account for the phenomenon without postulating indeterminacy. (shrink)

In this collection of scenarios and episodes, many of which were experienced by the authors in their years as school administrators, you will find an array of provocative examples of social injustice in the classroom, and what you can do to prevent it in your own school community.

In defense of de re necessity, Saul Kripke proposes that a material object could not have originated in a substance different in kind from the substance in which it actually originated. I give a counterexample to this proposal.

The two standard theories of vagueness—vagueness-as-ignorance and vagueness-asindeterminacy—agree on the following principle: if you are certain that it is clearly vague whether p, then you clearly should not believe p and you clearly should not believe not-p. I argue against the principle, and thus against the two standard theories. I offer an explanation of the initial appeal of the principle. And I show how a rival principle helps to better explain a recalcitrant trio of widely accepted data.

On the dominant view of vagueness, if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then all the specific facts about the distribution of hair on Harry's head, together with all the facts about Harry's comparison class, together with all the facts about our community-wide use of the word ‘bald’, fail to settle whether Harry is bald. On the dominant view, if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then nothing settles whether Harry is bald—it is unsettled, not merely epistemically, but (...) metaphysically, whether Harry is bald. Call this view vagueness-as-indeterminacy. Vagueness-as-indeterminacy entails the following proposition: that clear vagueness as to whether Harry is bald clearly does not entail that Harry is bald. I argue against this proposition, and thus against vagueness-as-indeterminacy. My argument consists of a defence of the following rival proposition: that it is vague whether clear vagueness as to whether Harry is bald entails that Harry is bald. The argument itself is short. Most of the paper is devoted to responding to various objections to the argument, as well as attempting to explain away the initial appeal of the proposition that clear vagueness as to whether Harry is bald clearly does not entail that Harry is bald. (shrink)

In many ways, Ron Barnett’s academic oeuvre is unique. Without a doubt, he is one of the (if not the) most central founding academics of the research field ‘the philosophy of higher education’, whi...