1. What are called ‘intuitions’ in philosophy are just applications of our ordinary capacities for judgement. We think of them as intuitions when a special kind of scepticism about those capacities is salient. 2. Like scepticism about perception, scepticism about judgement pressures us into conceiving our evidence as facts about our internal psychological states: here, facts about our conscious inclinations to make judgements about some topic rather than facts about the topic itself. But the pressure should be resisted, for it (...) rests on bad epistemology: specifically, on an impossible ideal of unproblematically identifiable evidence. 3. Our resistance to scepticism about judgement is not simply epistemic conservativism, for we resist it on behalf of others as well as ourselves. A reason is needed for thinking that beliefs tend to be true. 4. Evolutionary explanations of the tendency assume what they should explain. Explanations that appeal to constraints on the determination of reference are more promising. Davidson’s truth-maximizing principle of charity is examined but rejected. 5. An alternative principle is defended on which the nature of reference is to maximize knowledge rather than truth. It is related to an externalist conception of mind on which knowing is the central mental state. 6. The knowledge-maximizing principle of charity explains why scenarios for scepticism about judgement do not warrant such scepticism, although it does not explain how we know in any particular case. We should face the fact that evidence is always liable to be contested in philosophy, and stop using talk of intuition to disguise this unpleasant truth from ourselves. (shrink)

The basic philosophical controversy regarding ordinary objects is: Do tables and chairs, sticks and stones, exist? This paper aims to do two things: first, to explain why how this can be a controversy at all, and second, to explain why this controversy has arisen so late in the history of philosophy. Section 1 begins by discussing why the 'obvious' sensory evidence in favor of ordinary objects is not taken to be decisive. It goes on to review the standard arguments against (...) the existence of ordinary objects – including those based on problems with causal redundancy, parsimony, co-location, sorites arguments, and the special composition question. Section 2 goes on to address what it is about the contemporary approach to metaphysics that invites and sustains this kind of controversy, and helps make evident why debates about ordinary objects lead so readily to debates in metametaphysics about the nature of metaphysics itself. (shrink)

Intuition serves a variety of roles in contemporary philosophy. This paper provides a historical discussion of the revival of intuition in the 1970s, untangling some of the ways that intuition has been used and offering some suggestions concerning its proper place in philosophical investigation. Contrary to some interpretations of the results of experimental philosophy, it is argued that generalized skepticism with respect to intuition is unwarranted. Intuition can continue to play an important role as part of a methodologically conservative stance (...) towards philosophical investigation. I argue that methodological conservatism should be sharply distinguished from the process of evaluating individual propositions. Nevertheless, intuition is not always a reliable guide to truth and experimental philosophy can serve a vital ameliorative role in determining the scope and limits of our intuitive competence with respect to various areas of inquiry. (shrink)

In this paper we point out some interesting structural similarities between vagueness and moral dilemmas as well as between some of the proposed solutions to both problems. Moral dilemma involves a situation with opposed obligations that cannot all be satisfied. Transvaluationism as an approach to vagueness makes three claims concerning the nature of vagueness: (1) it involves incompatibility between mutually unsatisfiable requirements, (2) the underlying requirements retain their normative power even when they happen to be overruled, and (3) this incompatibility (...) turns out to be rather benign in practice. Given that transvaluationism is inspired by moral dilemmas, these claims are assessed in respect to them. Transvaluationism provides a smooth account of the mentioned claims concerning vagueness. Following a brief discussion of Sorensen’s views on moral dilemmas and conflict vagueness, we offer a model of moral pluralism accommodating structurally similar claims about the nature of moral conflict and moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Scott Soames argues that consideration of the practice of legal judgement gives us good reason to favor the partial-definition/context-sensitive theory of vagueness against epistemicism. Despite the fact that the value of power-delegation through vagueness is evidenced in practice, Soames says, epistemicism cannot account for it theoretically, while the partial-definition/context-sensitive theory is capable of it. In this paper, I examine the two possible arguments against epistemicism that can be extracted from Soames’s account: (i) an argument based on unknown obligations, and (ii) (...) an argument based on power-delegation through vagueness. The first argument tries to convince us that, as based on epistemicism, the law has already decided the borderline cases, so that judges have obligatory decisions even in such cases: therefore epistemicism is inconsistent with the discretion of judges in borderline cases. I show that even if we sympathize with Soames’s intuitions concerning the legal practice, the argument he offers is not conclusive since it is either invalid, unsound, or paradoxical. The second argument holds that only the gaps which the partial-definition/context-sensitive theory predicts give judges the possibility of lawmaking in borderline cases. However, by categorizing the vague laws as imperfect laws, the judges can claim the right of lawmaking without any need to refer to gaps in the law. By neutralizing these arguments, I argue that epistemicism is able to explain the phenomena just as well as the partial-definition/context-sensitive theory. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has proposed that we should give a ‘knowledge first’ twist to David Lewis’s account of content, maintaining that for P to be the content of one’s belief is for P to be the content that would be attributed by an idealized interpreter working under certain constraints, and that the fundamental constraint on interpretation is a principle of knowledge maximization. According to this principle, an interpretation is correct to the extent that it maximizes the number of knowledgeable judgments the (...) subject comes out as making. Here I will argue against knowledge maximization and two fallback positions suggested by Williamson’s discussion. Williamson intends the principle of knowledge maximization to form the basis of an argument against a certain sort of skepticism about judgment. In the final section I argue that the kind of general response to judgment skepticism envisaged by Williamson is neither desirable nor necessary. (shrink)

. According to Horgans transvaluationist approach, the robustness that characterizes vague terms is inherently incoherent. He analyzes that robustness into two conceptual poles, individualistic and collectivistic, and ascribes the incoherence to the former. However, he claims vague terms remain useful nonetheless, because the collectivistic pole can be realized with a suitable non-classical logic and can quarantine the incoherence arising out of the individualistic pole. I argue, on the contrary, that the nonclassical logic fails to resolve the difficulty and that the (...) incoherence afflicts Horgans collectivistic pole as well, consequently invalidating the entire transvaluationist approach. An alternative, coherent conception of robustness is suggested. (shrink)

The philosophical account of vagueness I call "transvaluationism" makes three fundamental claims. First, vagueness is logically incoherent in a certain way: it essentially involves mutually unsatisfiable requirements that govern vague language, vague thought-content, and putative vague objects and properties. Second, vagueness in language and thought (i.e., semantic vagueness) is a genuine phenomenon despite possessing this form of incoherence—and is viable, legitimate, and indeed indispensable. Third, vagueness as a feature of objects, properties, or relations (i.e., ontological vagueness) is impossible, because of (...) the mutually unsatisfiable conditions that such putative items would have to meet. In this paper I set forth the core claims of transvaluationism in a way that acknowledges and explicitly addresses a challenging critique by Timothy Williamson of my prior attempts to articulate and defend this approach to vagueness. I sketch my favored approach to truth and ontological commitment, and I explain how it accommodates the impossibility of ontological vagueness. I argue that any approach to the logic and semantics of vagueness that both (i) eschews epistemicism and (ii) thoroughly avoids positing any arbitrary sharp boundaries (either first-order or higher-order) will have to be not an alternative to transvaluationism but an implementation of it. I sketch my reasons for repudiating epistemicism. I briefly describe my current thinking about how to accommodate intentional mental properties with vague content within an ontology that eschews ontological vagueness. And I revisit the idea, which played a key role in my earlier articulations of transvaluationism, that moral conflicts provide an illuminating model for understanding vagueness. (shrink)

Is conceptual relativity a genuine phenomenon? If so, how is it properly understood? And if it does occur, does it undermine metaphysical realism? These are the questions we propose to address. We will argue that conceptual relativity is indeed a genuine phenomenon, albeit an extremely puzzling one. We will offer an account of it. And we will argue that it is entirely compatible with metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realism is the view that there is a world of objects and properties that (...) is independent of our thought and discourse (including our schemes of concepts) about such a world. Hilary Putnam, a former proponent of metaphysical realism, later gave it up largely because of the alleged phenomenon that he himself has given the label ‘conceptual relativity’. One of the key ideas of conceptual relativity is that certain concepts—including such fundamental concepts as object, entity, and existence—have a multiplicity of different and incompatible uses (Putnam 1987, p. 19; 1988, pp. 110 14). According to Putnam, once we recognize the phenomenon of conceptual relativity we must reject metaphysical realism: The suggestion . . . is that what is (by commonsense standards) the same situation can be described in many different ways, depending on how we use the words. The situation does not itself legislate how words like “object,” “entity,” and “exist” must be used. What is wrong with the notion of objects existing “independently” of conceptual schemes is that there are no standards for the use of even the logical notions apart from conceptual choices.” (Putnam 1988, p. 114) Putnam’s intriguing reasoning in this passage is difficult to evaluate directly, because conceptual [1] relativity is philosophically perplexing and in general is not well understood. In this paper we propose a construal of conceptual relativity that clarifies it considerably and explains how it is possible despite its initial air of paradox. We then draw upon this construal to explain why, contrary to Putnam and others, conceptual relativity does not conflict with metaphysical realism, but in fact comports well with it.. (shrink)

This paper outlines a multidimensional conception of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) that differs from the 'orthodox' conception in terms of the content of its commitment to the reality of the self. Unlike the orthodox conception it recognizes that selves are fuzzy entities. By appreciating the possibility that selves are fuzzy entities, it is possible to rebut a form of fictionalism about the self which appeals to clinical data from MPD. Realism about self can be preserved in the face of multiple (...) personalities. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that we sometimes are disposed to accept false and even jointly inconsistent claims by virtue of our semantic competence, and that this comes to light in the sorites and liar paradoxes. Among the subsidiary theses are that this is an important source of indeterminacy in truth conditions, that we must revise basic assumptions about semantic competence, and that classical logic and bivalence can be upheld in the face of the sorites paradox.

In this article, I survey some of the major arguments against metaphysical indeterminacy and vagueness and outline potential responses.

Glavna je svrha ovoga članka analizati Argument kontinuiteta, jedan od najutjecajnijih argumenata na kojemu su utemeljeni moralna osuda znanstvenih i medicinskih praksi poput istraživanja i eksperimenata s embrijem, potpomognuta reprodukcije, pobačaja, terapeutskog kloniranja, itd. Prvo se daje vrlo kratko objašnjenje pristupa koji pripisuje status markirajućeg događaja fertilizaciji, identificirajući Argument kontinuiteta među drugim argumentacijama. Nadalje, pokušava se razdvojiti tri moguće interpretacije pojma kontinuiteta pretpostavljenog u Argumentu kontinuiteta, te izdvojiti najuvjerljiviju filozofsku i znanstvenu interpretaciju postfertilizacijskog kontinuiteta. Naposljetku, tvrdim da iz filozofski i (...) znanstveno najprihvatljivije interpretacije ne slijedi: 1) da je fertilizacija nužna odrednica moralnog statusa; 2) da je fertilizacija najrazboritija odrednica moralnog statusa. Ukratko, ovaj članak ima dva cilja: I) pokazati da upravo taj argument ne povlači za sobom stajalište da su gore spomenute prakse moralno nedopustive; II) sugerirati da bi neke pragmatičke strategije koje se bave soritom-prouzročenim paradoksima mogle osigurati filozofijski i znanstveno primjeren okvir za alternativni pristup. (shrink)