Structuring Sense explores the difference between words however defined and structures however constructed. It sets out to demonstrate over three volumes, of which this is the first, that the explanation of linguistic competence should be shifted from lexical entry to syntactic structure, from memory of words to manipulation of rules. Its reformulation of how grammar and lexicon interact has profound implications for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological theories about human mind and language. Hagit Borer departs from both language specific constructional (...) approaches and lexicalist approaches to argue that universal hierarchical structures determine interpretation, and that language variation emerges from the morphological and phonological properties of inflectional material. In Name Only applies this radical approach to nominal structure. Integrating research in syntax, semantics, and morphology, the author argues that nominal structure is based on the syntactic realization of semantic notions such as classifier, quantity, and reference. In the process she seeks to do away with lexical ambiguity and type-shifting. Among the topics she considers are the interpretation of proper names, the mass-count distinction, the weak-strong interpretation of quantifiers, partitive and measure phrases, and the structural representation of the definite article. In the process she explores inter-language variation through the properties of the morpho-phonological system. The languages discussed include English, Chinese, Italian, and Hebrew. (shrink)

The purpose of the present work is to analyze Hegel's Unhappy Consciousness in light of the psychoanalytic conceptualization of the relation Subject-Other. The analysis will investigate unhappiness on two counts: its relation to Hegelian dialectic and the possibility of its coming to an end. Examining Hegelian unhappiness through the prism of psychoanalytic thought will allow us to formulate a crucial distinction between the philosophical (Hegelian) and psychoanalytic (Freudian, Lacanian) approaches to unhappiness as they relate to the arch-concepts of knowledge, possibility, (...) negation, and end.The first part of this work will be dedicated to the investigation of these arch-concepts through two main and opposing .. (shrink)

Mark Johnston argues that the identity between water and H2O generates a puzzle: Ice is related to H2O just as water is related to H2O. If water is identical to H2O, so is ice, and we end up with an absurdity: water is ice. This paper suggests a way to preserve the identity between water and H2O without this absurd result.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 92 Heft: 2 Seiten: 507-513.

A recalcitrant emotion is an emotion that we experience despite a judgment that seems to conflict with it. Having been bitten by a dog in her childhood, Jane cannot shake her fear of dogs, including Fido, the cute little puppy that she knows to be in no way dangerous. There is something puzzling about recalcitrant emotions, which appear to defy the putatively robust connection between emotions and judgments. If Jane really believes that Fido cannot harm her, what is she afraid (...) of? This article seeks to show how recalcitrant emotion is possible. I argue that reductive theories that identify emotions with judgments, desires, or some combination thereof, cannot explain the possibility of emotional irrationality without contradiction. I then show that the appeal to sui generis attitudes also fails to solve the puzzle of recalcitrant emotions, and diagnose this failure as stemming from a misleading analogy between emotions and perceptions, and in particular, between recalcitrant emotions and perceptual illusions. The solution can be found in a different analogy: between emotions and actions; more specifically, between recalcitrant emotions and weakness of the will, akrasia. Like akratic actions, recalcitrant emotions entail responding to reasons, but to inferior reasons. Irrational but non-contradictory emotions are possible just as weakness of will is possible. (shrink)

Structuring Sense explores the difference between words however defined and structures however constructed. It sets out to demonstrate over three volumes, of which this is the second, that the explanation of linguistic competence should be shifted from lexical entry to syntactic structure, from memory of words to manipulation of rules. Its reformulation of how grammar and lexicon interact has profound implications for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological theories about human mind and language. Hagit Borer departs from both language specific constructional (...) approaches and lexicalist approaches to argue that universal hierarchical structures determine interpretation, and that language variation emerges from the morphological and phonological properties of inflectional material. The Normal Course of Events applies this radical approach to event structure. Integrating research results in syntax, semantics, and morphology, the author shows that argument structure is based on the syntactic realization of semantic event units. The topics she addresses include the structure of internal arguments and of telic and atelic interpretations, accusative and partitive case, perfective and imperfective marking, the unaccusative-unergative distinction, existential interpretation and post-verbal subjects, and resultative constructions. The languages discussed include English, Catalan, Finnish, Hebrew, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. (shrink)

We contribute to the growing literature on white fragility by examining how the distinctively emotional manifestations of white fragility (which we dub ‘emotional white fragility’) make it more difficult for white people to have constructive, meaningful thoughts and conversations about race. We claim that emotional white fragility typically involves a failure of emotion regulation, or the ability to manage one’s emotions in real time. We suggest that this lack of emotion regulation can contribute to an unjust distribution of burdens that (...) can further entrench moral damage in the context of relationships as well as help support large-scale patterns of white supremacy. Given the serious implications of emotional white fragility, we suggest a number of emotion regulation techniques that one can deploy to mitigate the potential harms wrought by emotional white fragility. (shrink)

Recently it has been argued that we cannot intend at will. Since intentions cannot be true or false, our involuntariness cannot be traced to “the characteristic of beliefs that they aim at truth”, as Bernard Williams convincingly argues. The alternative explanation is that the source of involuntariness is the shared normative nature of beliefs and intentions. Three analogies may assimilate intentions to beliefs vis-à-vis our involuntariness: first, beliefs and intentions aim at something; second, beliefs and intentions are transparent to the (...) true and the good respectively; third, beliefs and intentions are answers to questions other than that of whether to endorse them. The purpose of this paper is to argue that attempts to ground involuntariness in normativity rather than truth imply that we cannot act at will. I assume that actions are the paradigm case of doing something at will, and utilize this assumption as a restriction on any account of our inability to believe at will: it should not be possible to generalize it to actions. Any account of doxastic involuntarism that implies that we cannot act at will is false—if we cannot act at will, what can we do at will? I close by offering a notion of doing something at will that is based on Williams’ insight that truth—rather than reason—matters to our inability to believe at will. (shrink)

The controversy over the interpretative issue—is Thomas Reid a perceptual direct realist?—has recently had channelled into it a host of imaginative ideas about what direct perception truly means. Paradoxically enough, it is the apparent contradiction at the heart of his view of perception which keeps teasing us to review our concepts: time and again, Reid stresses that the very idea of any mental intermediaries implies scepticism, yet, nevertheless insists that sensations are signs of objects. But if sensory signs are not (...) mental intermediaries, what are they? Hasn't Reid merely swapped the common ‘sensation’ for the notorious ‘idea’, ending up with indirect realism?1 Current imaginative strategies answer negatively: Reid's sensory sign does not contradict direct perception, and those who think otherwise merely fail to understand what it means. (shrink)

What does bodily pain have in common with mental pain? According to “evaluativism,” both are representations of something bad. This paper puts forward three claims. First, that evaluativism vis-à-vis bodily pain is false for it renders it irrational to take painkillers. Second, that evaluativism vis-à-vis mental pain is true. Third, that this difference between bodily and mental pain stems from the fact that only the latter is normative, that is, based on reasons. The normative difference between bodily and mental pain (...) implies that mental pains are not bad, while bodily pains are not representations. (shrink)

'May one be pardon’ d and retain the offence?’ asks King Claudius in his tormented monologue in Hamlet. Forgiveness appears incompatible with the retention of the offence, both in the sense of enjoying its consequences and in the sense of the subsistence of the attitude which underlay the offensive act. There are, however, views which allow for, even admire, an attitude of forgiveness towards people who have ‘retained’ their offense in some way. This idea of forgiveness is harder to justify, (...) since no change has taken place in the agent. We suggest that the concept of toleration can serve as an illuminating clue in such an analysis. The tolerant attitude involves a certain kind of reconciliation with people who not only have done something wrong in the past, but insist on sticking to their objectionable conduct in the present and the future. Tolerance, in other words, is not conditioned by repentance or by commitment to behavioral transformation; it is a kind of unconditional ‘forgiveness’ in advance. (shrink)

Primitivism is the view that colors are sui generis properties of physical objects. The basic insight underlying primitivism is that colours are as we see them, i.e. they are categorical properties of physical objects—simple, monadic, constant, etc.—just like shapes. As such, they determine the content of colour experience. Accepting the premise that colours are sui generis properties of physical objects, this paper seeks to show that ascribing primitive properties to objects is, ipso facto, ascribing to objects irreducible dispositions to look (...) coloured, and that anything that primitive redness can do, the non-reductive disposition to look red can do just as well. What makes primitivism suspect is not the commitment to sui generis properties, but instead the claim that colours are more than dispositions. Since, as I show, whatever primitivism appeals to for the purpose of arguing that colours are more than dispositions—objectivity, explanation, causation, phenomenology, constancy, etc.—can also be invoked... (shrink)

Proponents of the explanatory gap claim that consciousness is a mystery. No one has ever given an account of how a physical thing could be identical to a phenomenal one. We fully understand the identity between water and H2O but the identity between pain and the firing of C-fibers is inconceivable. Mark Johnston [Journal of philosophy , 564–583] suggests that if water is constituted by H2O, not identical to it, then the explanatory gap becomes a pseudo-problem. This is because all (...) “manifest kinds”—those identified in experience—are on a par in not being identical to their physical bases, so that the special problem of the inconceivability of ‘pain = the firing of C-fibers’ vanishes. Moreover, the substitute relation, constitution, raises no explanatory difficulties: pain can be constituted by its physical base, as can water. The thesis of this paper is that the EG does not disappear when we substitute constitution for identity. I examine four arguments for the EG, and show that none of them is undermined by the move from constitution to identity. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that ordinary objects, such as mountains and chairs, are not material in their own right, but only in virtue of the fact that they are constituted by matter. As Fine puts it, they are “only derivatively material” (2003, 211). In this paper I argue that invoking “constitution” to account for the materiality of things that are not material in their own right explains nothing and renders the admission that these objects are indeed material completely mysterious. Although (...) there may be metaphysical contexts in which mysterianism can be accepted with equanimity, I further argue, the question of the materiality of quotidian objects is not one of them. (shrink)

A crucial disanalogy between Twin Earth and Inverted Earth undermines qualia‐internalism. A recent transplant to Inverted Earth has been equipped with color‐inverting contact lenses, so that she is unable to see the colors of objects whereas a recent transplant to Twin Earth can see twater. It is implausible to think that time alone could rectify this perceptual shortcoming – that the passage of time could alter the contents of her visual perceptions or the meaning of her color terms. Thus, the (...) thought experiment does not refute the close tie between phenomenology and representation in the case of color. (shrink)

A crucial disanalogy between Twin Earth and Inverted Earth undermines qualia‐internalism. A recent transplant to Inverted Earth has been equipped with color‐inverting contact lenses, so that she is unable to see the colors of objects whereas a recent transplant to Twin Earth can see twater. It is implausible to think that time alone could rectify this perceptual shortcoming – that the passage of time could alter the contents of her visual perceptions or the meaning of her color terms. Thus, the (...) thought experiment does not refute the close tie between phenomenology and representation in the case of color. (shrink)

Two-dimensional semantics aims to eliminate the puzzle of necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori truths. Recently many argue that even assuming two-dimensional semantics we are left with the puzzle of necessary and a posteriori propositions. Stephen Yablo (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 81, 98–122, 2000) and Penelope Mackie (Analysis, 62(3), 225–236, 2002) argue that a plausible sense of “knowing which” lets us know the object of such a proposition, and yet its necessity is “hidden” and thus a posteriori. This paper answers (...) this objection; I argue that given two-dimensional semantics you cannot know a necessary proposition without knowing that it is true. (shrink)

In this chapter, we explore three social functions of emotion, which parallel three interpretations of Herman Melville's Bartleby. We argue that emotions can serve as commitment devices, which nudge individuals toward social conformity and thereby increase the likelihood of ongoing cooperation. We argue that emotions can play a role in Machiavellian strategies, which help us get away with norm violations. And we argue that emotions can motivate social recalibration, by alerting us to systemic social failures. In the second half of (...) the chapter, we then argue that emotions guide behavior by attuning us to our social environment through a process of error-driven learning. We suggest that their most basic social function is to reveal tensions between individuals and social norms; and we contend that because emotions are socially scaffolded, they leave open multiple strategies for resolving such tensions. Specifically, we argue that differences in conceptualization, as well as differences in circumstance, can generate emotions that nudge us toward cooperation, lead us to adopt Machiavellian strategies, or motivate us to engage in forms of social recalibration. Bartleby’s despair signaled a mismatch between his expectations and the expectations of Wall Street, and each of these three strategies could have moderated his misery. (shrink)

This paper argues that the passages on practical spirit within Hegel's 'Psychology' are able to enrich the picture of Hegel's account of intentional action by providing us with a genuine discussion of 'subjective action.' This kind of intentional activity is not yet part of moral or legal philosophy, and it is neutral as regards the question how an action becomes actually manifest in the world as a 'deed', potentially causing unintended consequences. Instead, subjective action consists in the teleological, end-pursuing action (...) of an agent acting on drives and wilfully choosing ends, which are practical as the causa finalis of an agent's doing. Thus, the 'Psychology' investigates intentional action from the first-personal perspective of the mental activity of the subject. It is legitimately part of subjective rather than objective spirit and its socially mediated normativity is psychological rather than moral. (shrink)

Matching in observational studies faces complications when units enroll in treatment on a rolling basis. While each treated unit has a specific time of entry into the study, control units each have many possible comparison, or “pseudo-treatment,” times. Valid inference must account for correlations between repeated measures for a single unit, and researchers must decide how flexibly to match across time and units. We provide three important innovations. First, we introduce a new matched design, GroupMatch with instance replacement, allowing maximum (...) flexibility in control selection. This new design searches over all possible comparison times for each treated-control pairing and is more amenable to analysis than past methods. Second, we propose a block bootstrap approach for inference in matched designs with rolling enrollment and demonstrate that it accounts properly for complex correlations across matched sets in our new design and several other contexts. Third, we develop a falsification test to detect violations of the timepoint agnosticism assumption, which is needed to permit flexible matching across time. We demonstrate the practical value of these tools via simulations and a case study of the impact of short-term injuries on batting performance in major league baseball. (shrink)

This paper explores three cases of Do-It-Yourself, open-source technologies developed within the diverse array of topics and themes in the communities around the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science. These cases focus on aerial mapping, water quality monitoring and civic science practices. The techniques discussed have in common the use of accessible, community-built technologies for acquiring data. They are also concerned with embedding collaborative and open source principles into the objects, tools, social formations and data sharing practices that emerge (...) from these inquiries. The focus is on developing processes of collaborative design and experimentation through material engagement with technology and issues of concern. Problem-solving, here, is a tactic, while the strategy is an ongoing engagement with the problem of participation in its technological, social and political dimensions especially considering the increasing centralization and specialization of scientific and technological expertise. The authors also discuss and reflect on the Public Lab’s approach to civic science in light of ideas and practices of citizen/civic veillance, or “sousveillance”, by emphasizing people before data, and by investigating the new ways of seeing and doing that this shift in perspective might provide. (shrink)

RésuméL'idée d'un “monde des images” situé quelque part entre les mondes immatériel et matériel est un pivot de la spéculation eschatologique dans l'Islam médiéval tardif. Comme cela a déjà été reconnu, le concept a été inauguré par al-Suhrawardī. Cependant, ses fondements plus proprement philosophiques et en particulier la notion d'images “suspendues” – des images dotées d'un statut en quelque manière objectif plutôt que purement mental ou subjectif – méritent d’être davantage clarifiés; et c'est ce que cet article entend faire. Puisque (...) le concept de “formes suspendues”, tout en étant appliqué par al-Suhrawardī à des questions eschatologiques dans le dernier traité de sa Philosophie de l'illumination, apparaît pour la première fois dans une discussion sur la vision spéculaire, j'examine assez en détail la conception avicennienne de la vision spéculaire telle qu'elle est présentée dans le Shifāʾ, ouvrage contre lequel al-Suhrawardī réagit. J'entreprends ensuite une reconstruction détaillée de deux paragraphes de la Philosophie de l'illumination en accordant une attention particulière à la question du statut ontologique des images “suspendues” ou “auto-subsistantes” ainsi qu’à l'idée selon laquelle les miroirs servent non pas de lieux dans lesquels les images résideraient, mais de lieux où elles deviennent manifestes. (shrink)

A clever argument purports to show that we can directly perceive the emotions of others: (1) some emotional expressions are parts of the emotions they express; (2) perceiving a part of something is sufficient for perceiving the whole; (3) therefore, perceiving some emotional expressions is sufficient for perceiving the emotions they express. My aim in this paper is to assess the extent to which contemporary psychological theories of emotion support the first premise of this argument.

Are kind properties presented to us in visual experience? I propose an account of kind recognition that incorporates two conflicting intuitions: Kind properties a...

On Lewis’s reading, fallibilism is the contradictory view that it is possible that S knows that p, even though S cannot eliminate some remote scenarios in which not-p. The pragmatic strategy is to make the alleged contradiction a mere pragmatic implicature, which is explained by false conversational expectations. I argue that the pragmatic strategy fails.

Cet article s’oppose à l’idée répandue selon laquelle notre conception de la personne est purement mentale. J’utilise l’un des scénarios imaginés par Anscombe, selon lequel les descriptions que nous faisons de nos propres actions sont tirées de l’observation. Je soutiens que si nous sommes, pour ainsi dire, comme un pilote dans son navire, nous ne sommes pas en mesure de nous attribuer à nous-mêmes des propriétés corporelles. Le seul fait de se sentir dans un corps, à la différence du pilote (...) dans son navire, ne peut produire l’intuition que nous sommes corporels. Tant que nous nous concevons comme des êtres mentaux, le fait que nous soyons des êtres corporels demeure un mystère inexplicable. (shrink)

The analogy between colors and values is strongly interlinked with the idea that these properties are by nature dispositions or response-dependent properties. Indeed, that colors are essentially visible, and values are inherently motivational, cries out for a dispositional or a response-dependent account. Recently, Primitivism has challenged the viability of the dispositional account of colors, taking the apple, for instance, to be “gloriously, perfectly, and primitively red.” Unsurprisingly, the attack on the dispositional account of colors has found a moral analogue in (...) the view that values are sui generis irreducibly primitive properties. The question this article addresses is whether given Primitivism the analogy between colors and values is preserved; or in other words, whether Primitivism breaks the bond between the dispositional account and the analogy between colors and values. (shrink)

The argument from causal overdetermination is considered to be the shortest route to token monism. It only assumes that:1.Efficacy: Mental events are causes of physical events.2.Closure: Every physical event has a sufficient physical cause.3.Exclusion: Systematic Causal Overdetermination is impossible: if an event x is a sufficient cause of an event y then no event x* distinct from x is a cause of y.4.Identity: Therefore, mental events are physical events.Exclusion does not deny the possibility of two gunmen that fi re at (...) a victim at the same time. But event-dualism is like a systematic fi ringsquad case — whenever I want to raise my arm, my arm is raised, and that is intolerable. (shrink)

The argument from causal overdetermination is considered to be the shortest route to token monism. It only assumes that:1.Efficacy: Mental events are causes of physical events.2.Closure: Every physical event has a sufficient physical cause.3.Exclusion: Systematic Causal Overdetermination is impossible: if an event x is a sufficient cause of an event y then no event x* distinct from x is a cause of y.4.Identity: Therefore, mental events are physical events.Exclusion does not deny the possibility of two gunmen that fi re at (...) a victim at the same time. But event-dualism is like a systematic fi ringsquad case — whenever I want to raise my arm, my arm is raised, and that is intolerable. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes two different uses of the analogy between colors and values, the projectivist and the objectivist. The projectivist use of the analogy has a long history, which goes back to Hume. The objectivist use of the analogy is a fairly recent addition. The core contention of this paper is that the projectivist’s use fails, and that only the objectivist offers a genuine use for the analogy between colors and values.

Issues concerning UG access for L2 acquisition as formulated by Epstein et al. are misleading as well as poorly discussed. UG accessibility can only be fully evaluated with respect to the steady state gram mar reached by the learner. The steady state for LI learners is self evidently the adult grammar in the speech community. For L2 learners, however, the steady state is not obvious. Yet, without its clear characterization, debates concerning stages of L2 acquisition and direct and indirect UG (...) accessibility cannot be resolved. (shrink)

There are two ways of dealing with Kant's derogatory position on music. Either it is claimed that Kant's opinion is a result of biographical factors, or Kant is regarded as a mere predecessor of a more successful music aesthetics. While the first way mistakes Kant's personal preferences for a philosophical argument about the nature of sound, the second approach underestimates the close connection between his music aesthetics and his whole philosophical system. Against these approaches the article defends the proposition that (...) Kant's (like any other) music aesthetics can only be understood with reference to the concepts of „time“ and „movement“ in order to elucidate the ontology of sound objects. (shrink)

I expand upon Kristie Dotson's concept of “epistemic violence” by identifying another type of epistemic violence that arises in the context of nonverbal communication. “Emotional misperception,” as I call it, occurs when the following conditions are met: A misreads B's nonlinguistic expression of emotion, owing to reliable ignorance, harming B.

This paper offers a reading of key passages in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, which can serve as the basis for an argument to discuss the shortcomings of two contemporary readings of Hegel’s notion of ‘second nature’. It investigates two micro-processes which Hegel discusses within his Philosophy of Spirit, the process of transition from sound to speech and the process of transition from natural will to ethical will. Thereby, the text is able to mark the differences between mere habit, second nature (...) of an ethical agent, and self-mediated self-determination of spirit. Second nature is neither a falling back into nature and therefore a limitation of human freedom, nor is it a notion that in itself could explain the process of Bildung as Hegel sees it. Instead, second nature should be understood within the framework of freedom as practical self-determination which allows spirit to relate to itself as other through its product. (shrink)

Hegel’s “Philosophy of Spirit” applies two different notions of ‘social practice’ – one as a condition of possibility for intentional action and another one as the living actuality within which an action is initiated and takes place. Both notions go hand in hand with their own logically distinct form of normativity – social normativity and the normativity of right. Whereas the first one can already be understood from the standpoint of subjective spirit, the second notion is at home in objective (...) spirit or Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie. Stressing this distinction has consequences not only for a more differentiated account on Hegel’s philosophy of action, but also for an interpretation of ethical life – which should not be equated with the first notion of social practice. In order to mark the importance of ethical life for Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, the relevance of objectivity for objective spirit needs to be highlighted, which according to Hegel cannot be derived from a process of inner transformation of changing attitudes of the acting subject towards the norms of her action. (shrink)

"Hegel’s Philosophical Psychology" draws attention to a largely overlooked piece of Hegel’s philosophy: his substantial and philosophically rich treatment of psychology at the end of the 'Philosophy of Subjective Spirit', which itself belongs to his main work, the "Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences". This volume makes the case that Hegel’s approach to philosophy of mind as developed within this text can make an important contribution to current discussions about mind and subjectivity, and can help clarify the notion of spirit within (...) Hegel’s larger philosophical project. Scholars from different schools of Hegelian thought provide a multifaceted overview of Hegel’s 'Psychology': Part I begins with an overview of Hegel’s 'Philosophy of Subjective Spirit', which outlines both its historical context and its systematic context within Hegel’s philosophy of subjective spirit. Parts II and III then investigate the individual chapters of the sections on psychology: the theoretical mind and the practical and free mind. The volume concludes by examining the challenges which Hegel’s 'Psychology' poses for contemporary epistemological debates and the philosophy of psychology. Throughout, the volume brings Hegel’s views into dialogue with 20th- and 21st-century thinkers such as Bergson, Bourdieu, Brandom, Chomsky, Davidson, Freud, McDowell, Sellars, Wittgenstein, and Wollheim. (shrink)